Thank you so much for the comments on my previous post!

Unkie-I'm impressed and would LOVE to hear more from you! Thank you so much for chiming in-I love it!

And Lindsi-thank you for contributing too.

Trevor-your comment made me smile. Your awesome, whether you write cursive or not. :)

I still didn't hear from the English teacher today. There are three dates entered in the computer today but only one has a grade by it. The other two don't. Not sure what that's all about, but maybe she's going to get caught up this weekend. A girl can dream, right?

Here's another topic for you to comment on: Spelling.

Tanner is in the 7th grade. She is mildly dyslexic (her Dad is too) and has always "fallen through the cracks" so to speak when it comes to getting help at school. She is excellent in Math and Science-you don't have to read much in those subjects. But when it comes to reading and writing..well let's just say it's not her cup of tea.

When she was in the lower elementary grades, they were taught to spell words "as they sounded." They had spelling words and spelling tests and usually Tanner aced those. Have her write a paragraph though or send someone and email and oh Lordy, watch out. You will be able to read what she's written. You will know what she's getting at because everything is spelled like it sounds.

Perfect example: Yesterday she sent me an email where she wrote "Please sind back." Today in an email, she put the subject as "prodject." See what I mean-you know what she's saying but it's spelled wrong!!

Now in elementary school, the teachers would circle the misspelled words and some would count off for it. Not a bad thing in my opinion. We have worked and worked with Tanner on this and it's something that she struggles with all the time! Well, ever since she went to middle school, it seems as if spelling counts for anything!

From the few pages that we've gotten sent home, it doesn't appear that the teachers count off for misspelled words. Why is this? When Tanner is writing here at home and she asks how you spell a word or if we see a word that isn't spelled right, we make her go get her dictionary, sound it out and find it in her dictionary. My concern is though, how is she supposed to learn to spell correctly if the teachers don't seem to care anymore? What is she going to do when she gets to Junior High next year and writes like a fifth grader? What's her self esteem going to be if she thinks she's doing well now and then she goes to Junior High and kids make fun of her because of her spelling?

I know part of Tanner's problem is that she tends to rush through papers or English assignments because she's embarrassed. She struggles with it, so in her eyes, if you rush through it, you get it done quicker. We are working on this with her and she's doing better. But there's got to be more that we can do. I really fear for my girl. I fear what it's going to be like the older she gets. I don't want learning to always be such a struggle for her. I want her to be confident in her writings.

I'm trying to step back and not correct her so much on the papers she does here at home. She had to write a paragraph the other day for English. She wrote it and then let me look at it. It wasn't what I would have written. Grammatically, it was ok, but nothing great or where I think she should be. The format itself of the paragraph didn't really flow real well. Instead of correcting these things though or pointing them out to her, I told her it was "ok" and left it at that. It was really hard for me to do-I'm a perfectionist-but I thought maybe I needed to loosen the ropes a little bit and see what kind of grade she gets on her own.

I don't know. These are all just things that have been on my mind this week in regards to Tanner's school. I'm just so scared for my girl. I don't want her to be a failure. I don't want her to feel like she's not good enough or ashamed of her work. I'm not sure what to do to help her though.

Help me out here. Suggestions anyone???