Maureen, thank you so much for expressing exactly my experience.  The most
important thing a teacher conveys is confidence that the learner will learn.
It's the Pygmalion effect:  high expectations result in high performance.

Again, the learner goes as fast as he can, and as slow as he must.  Lucille
Cuttler
  -----Original Message-----
  From: learningdisabilities-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:learningdisabilities-bounces at nifl.gov]On Behalf Of Maureen Carro
  Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 9:31 AM
  To: The Learning Disabilities Discussion List
  Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4200] Re: What does a grade level gain
mean?





  Agreed!  The proof is in the pudding... so they say.  I once had a student
who upon entering my program, refused to read or write anything for me.
That is what I wrote down as my "base evaluation". "Refuses to read or
write".    By the end of the year, she willingly read aloud for me on the
GORT.  I considered that huge progress.... going from refusing to read or
write, to willing allow me test her.   Her reading and writing progressed
rapidly........  She soon was coming to my office each week with an 800 page
book... her nose buried in it as she walked in!  Almost every week it was a
different book.  I noticed that they were all of a popular genre, so my goal
became turning her on to other types of books.... gently and discreetly... !
She would often ask me for some of my resource materials to take to school.
She had begun to actually instruct others in her resource class... and told
me the resource teacher wanted to know what materials I was using.   One
summer, when her parents spoke about a "summer session" with me, I suggested
that instead, she attend a summer writing program that I knew of at a
private high school in the area.  The student, at the time, was entering 9th
grade in the fall.  I told her parents that I thought she was ready for some
"group" stimulation from some "quality peers".  Soon after she began 9th
grade, her parents called to tell me that Jill's papers were being
"showcased" by her English teacher as "the standard" for her peers.


  I have not written one word about "test scores".  So... why is it that we
need "assessment"?  Probably not for the student!
  Does it matter how long all this took?




  Maureen Carro, MS, ET
  Academic Learning Solutions
  Alamo, CA
  mcarro at lmi.net






  On Oct 31, 2009, at 8:45 AM, ooprc at comcast.net wrote:


     To me, if the students are reading, excited to read, and having fun
reading as well as managing their work in school well and easily, and their
behavior and self esteem has done a turn around, that to me is the main goal

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/learningdisabilities/attachments/20091031/775e5633/attachment.html