J--- has had a much better year this year at school. As far as her gains from IM, these are the things I have noticed:
1. J--- has become much more proactive in finishing her homework. There are generally no tantrums or stalling; she just gets right in there and works by herself. When she does have problems with homework, I can usually attribute it to fatigue; get some sleep and she does great the next day.
2. J----’s handwriting has improved tremendously, although it is still not great. Cursive writing is still neater than print.
3. J---’s most difficult subjects last year were spelling and math. She is doing much better in them this year. As far as spelling goes, she is doing well on the tests, but in real life she still tends to spell phonetically. I’m not sure how to convince her that words need to be memorized, and not just sound right. Her multiplication tables are still giving her trouble, but I think that this is a focusing issue and not a knowledge issue. I think she gets so wrapped up in solving the problems (especially the story problems) that she doesn’t think through the problem in an orderly fashion and gets things jumbled up. We’re going to try to address these issues this summer with some homeschooling software and some creative number artwork. We’ll see how that works.
4. J---’s reading skills have improved a lot. She is reading much more than before, and not struggling over words as much. She still has the problem of finishing books, something I have been talking to her about. The teachers have noted that her reading has improved, but she is still struggling with content and has problems answering questions about what she read. Again, I have found some homeschool software that I help will help with this over the summer.
5. J--- has been given more responsibilities and chores around the house. She is performing as well as any 10 year old, I believe. She is also getting better about pitching in without being asked (like emptying the trash can).
6. J--- has really improved her personal health habits this past year.
7. J----’s organizational skills have grown tremendously. Although not immaculate, her room is clean. She actually now enjoys cleaning her room and organizing things.
8. We don’t have the number and frequency of “melt-downs” that we had previously. They still do occur, but it is easier to ask J---- to look at her behavior and change it to appropriate behavior.
9. J----’s social skills are maturing, and she doesn’t get so emotional when she has difficulties with friends.
10. Probably the most changed thing about J---- concerns her night terrors. Since she took IM, we’ve only had a few really bad episodes (they used to occur several times a week about 45 minutes after she fell asleep, crying & screaming, unable to wake up or recognize me). She still does have them occasionally, but they never progress to the hysterical state and she is relatively easy to wake up and put back to bed.
11. We also enrolled J---- in Strings this year. She plays viola for 25 minutes every weekday in class. I think that this has been very good to reinforce the IM, as she is forced to pay attention to herself, her classmates and her teacher while keeping in time. In fact, her class of 4th graders were able to play with the 5th and 6th grade Strings at the concert last week (the other 4th graders were not that advanced).
