I had a sore throat yesterday, so during our morning Bible reading, dh read my part. It was from 1Corinthians. As he spoke the words of life, they leapt out at me... and I found myself deeply convicted. I was reminded of things I knew once, but had forgotten, and was granted new insight.
I know that my children need instruction to gain more from their reading....and I heard :
"Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. " 1 Cor. 14:8-9
To me, this was clear call to work on our communication skills- a confirmation of what I had already begun to understand.
I knew that reading was not the most important thing to stress, but the individual gifts of each of my children. God made them a certain way for a certain purpose, and all of us are given gifts. I heard:
"So it is with you. Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church." 1 Cor. 14:12 Called attention to the fact that I needed to use my gifts more in schooling. After all our family is an extension of the church, and I should be building it up.
This brought to mind the theory of multiple intelligences- the idea that there are many kinds of honorable talents that a person can possess. In our culture, we tend to look at only 1 or 2 types, test them and base our decisions about how productive a life someone will have in the future based on those few things. It also reminded me that tests cannot tell the whole truth about how well a person is doing.
That got me to thinking..... Maybe the type of test we used was inferior. It was a free test put out by a company that wants to sell products that boost reading skills. When I looked at each of my children's reports, they all recommended the same 3 products to help them get back on track- even my youngest, who was placing above his grade and age level.
For another thing, yes, dd has had a past diagnoses of language learning delay. When she came home from public school, she struggled with those fill-in the-blank worksheets. You know the ones where there is a list of words to use at the top and you are supposed to find the one that completes each sentence?. Well, those were terribly hard for her. For some reason, even after instructing her, she failed again and again to recognize that the words at the top were the ones she was expected to use, and she just pulled words out of the air. The part of the test she didn't do so well on was that type of thing- except that each question had a choice of 4 words. I remember that when she took the test, she commented that for some of the questions, more than one of the words would fit. Then last night, I heard her telling dh that she thought it would be funny to put the wrong answer into some of them. But then she pushed the back button and redid the questions! If you have ever filled out anything online, you know that this is probably what messed up her result. It does show good reading comprehension, by the way, when you can make the sentence silly with one or more of the answers!
So.. I found another site that is supposed to help reading comprehension and it had a free test. this site isn't selling any products though. The good news is that dd placed only 1 year behind- 5th grade- and she will be entering 7th this year, which is expected, but can be worked on. The bad- or at least kind of scary news is that her first grade brother is also testing out at 5th grade!
It wasn't too much of a surprise- my middle ds tested at 5th in 2nd grade..... and his comprehension has come up to average. So I got kids at all points in the spectrum.
Some more of the Bible reading for yesterday was Psalm 37. it's all about living to please God and trusting him..
Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
