It isn't about where you are, but the direction you're headed

At the end of 3rd grade, two years ago, A took a standardized test and did really well on 5 of the 6 sections but really poorly on the mechanics of writing--i.e., spelling and punctuation. So, I resolved to tackle these areas with some consistency with the goal of at least getting up to grade level. We've been fairly consistent for the past couple of years, which means some weeks we'll do spelling 3-4 times per week and others just once. 

We've been using Sequential Spelling and doing copywork for spelling. Sequential Spelling works really well for A because it puts words together in word families. A spells completely phonetically and has a hard time with words like "raid", where she has no idea if it should be rade, raid, or even raed. With Sequential Spelling she's beginning to see that "raid" is in the same family is "paid" and "laid", while "fade" and "made" are spelled alike and differently from the "aid" family. Plus they also throw in high frequency words regularly so kids get plenty of practice with, for example, the "ould" words. Anyway, we've slacked off in the past month or so, and a few days ago we picked it up again. The spelling word (sentence, in this case) was "They weren't there.", which I'm now spelling out for her so she can correct her mistakes:

Me: T-h-e-y...

A: Oh, that's right, it's an "e", not an "a".

Me: w-e-r-e-n-'t...

A: Whoops, I forgot about that other "e"!

Me: t-h-e-r-e-....

A: Oh, darn, the "e"s are just killing me today! Well, at least I got the punctuation right.

Me: Did you start with a capital T?

A: Well, no...

Me: Oh, then you ended with a period?

A: Well, no, but I got the apostrophe!!

Oy! Needless to say I was feeling a bit discouraged on the spelling front after that. But, tonight A was looking at a sign she had posted about a year ago and laughingly said "Oh my gosh, I spelled rules "ruels", and then here I spelled it "reals", and I spelled break "brec". Geez, I was not a very good speller when I wrote that". Hey, at least now she knows how to spell "rules" and "break"!! This is progress! 

It is so easy to freak out and see all the mistakes and things your kids don't do so well, but I keep having to learn the lesson that the important thing is progress--not that we put everything else on hold to make her a kick-ass speller, but that by chipping away in the right direction she'll get there in good time. She is a much better speller now than she was two years ago, though she won't be winning any spelling bees any time soon, but that is perfectly OK.  

I read an article somewhere that looked at brain development in kids with ADHD and concluded that those kids wind up doing just as well, cognitively, as their non-ADHD peers, but it takes them longer to get there. This has got to be true across many domains for most kids who don't have organic brain disorders. They are all on their own timetable, and the more we respect and support this timetable, the better off the kids will be in the long run.