The day of testing-ness

Mercy, I am so tired!

It has been a long and profitable day for Nolan et Ma. Very thankful for the safety in traveling, for the kids being in bed, and that I have some concrete things on which to work.

Educational Resource Associates, Inc. is located in West Des Moines and also Ankenny. The main office, however, is in WDM (not to be confused with WMD, although, since the guy lied about the latter, maybe they are interchangeable).

Pardonez-moi le lapse politico.

We will be getting the official written report in a week, but after 4 hours and 20 minutes of testing, here is a general synopsis:

1) Nolan does not have a learning disability (whew!)
2) Nolan does have a high IQ (hmmm :-)
3) Also a good aptitude for math
4) His homeschooling background has stood him well...we didn't do anything "wrong"
5) He does not think linearly (logically), but "outside the box"
6) He definitely needs some help in the area of inferential comprehension (reasoning, drawing conclusions)
7) Even though he can read a lot of words, he doesn't know what all of those words mean

Those last three items, plus his tendency to work slowly and carefully, are what trip him up on the standardized (timed) tests every year.

The good news is, now that he's been through the testing procedure at ERA (not to be confused with "that-amendment-which-shall-not-be-named"), his results can be used in the future to negate a bad result on the Iowa Test of Basic skills, should the Department of Education again show their disappointment in Nolan's scores.

Nolan thought the whole long testing period was "fun" :-) He didn't even want the snacks that were offered. But by the time 1:20 rolled around we were both pretty hungry!

He'd seen a Culvers nearby, but I told him that was too expensive. Then it was going to be Hardee's, but I convinced him they had horrible fries (they do) and somewhat reluctantly he was persuaded to Arby's, half a block from the test site.

After he took one bite of a beef-n-cheddar, and two curly fries, he proclaimed it quite nirvana-esque. An extremely happy camper, he was.

Ma got by with a side salad, 1/3 a packet of dressing, 1/4 of a chocolate chunk cookie, two stolen fries from Nolan, and a diet drink.

(Some day I want to eat, again!)

We got back by 2:00, the scheduled consult time for Judy Hintz and myself.

I was very impressed. Of course, it helped that she was most supportive of what he had done, so far. But it was also clear that he has a few areas that need work. Obviously, we knew that...which is why he was there, but I am not qualified to diagnose the situation and it was SUCH A RELIEF to talk to someone who is.

Now we need to decide just what to do, concerning possible one-on-one work between one of the teachers and Nolan, or trying to adjust things ourselves. I certainly have my preference, but that will wait.

In the meantime, one thing we can definitely change is the amount of time he (and the others) spend at the computer.

For too long I've ignored the fact of using it as a baby sitter, so I've already told the kids that things will change, including the description of that change, tomorrow.

But first, I'm totally beat and need some decompression time.
 

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