Skipping

Ellie was asking on the Forum if anyone has improved with their skipping since doing Dore. If you scroll down this blog, you can see Harry skipping with his new karate belt, but just thought I'd add that he has been practicing with his friends at school and can now skip even better and is even doing cross-overs!

Reading

Last night Harry asked me to read to him, so I asked him if he wanted to hear Harry Potter. Oh yes he said. I read a page or two and then he asked to read. He struggled on the harder words, but enjoyed it so much insisted on taking it to school today. The teacher was very impressed apparently!

Balancing Exercises

We are still struggling with the balancing exercises (ie., feet together). As a joke, I said to Harry yesterday that I should tie his feet together. He thought this was a brilliant idea, so we're having a bit more success with his latest exercise.

Improved Effort

Since Harry has realised these exercises are actually helping him with his memory and schoolwork, his effort to do the exercises this week has improved a lot. He has asked me to give him a set of rules before the exercise starts, so we don't have "words" when doing them. This is working beautifully and I can see he's really using his eyes with the eye-tracking exercises.

Self Esteem

Today Harry had a Limo ride and meal with his old classmates. When I picked him up, I was checking he had all his bags and asked him where his glasses were. He immediately told me they were in his pocket - I commented on his good memory. He said "yes, I'm realising it is much better now". He then added that he is now "going up in class - I'm now in the middle and getting better at things". Wow!

What the teacher said

I have just had a word with Harry's teacher and she confirms she is happy for him to remain in class for maths as he has made "huge progress" and is "more than capable of doing the work".

His teacher added his concentration is better and he is taking more responsibility for himself - more organised. She has noticed how his confidence has improved too and is keen to improve on this.

She added that the end of year reports were due out soon, and although he is still below level, he has made great improvement this year.

Cub Football Tournament

Harry is No.2

School

As I mentioned earlier, Harry's LSA suggested he can manage in class now with Numeracy.
I spoke to the Senco this morning and she confirms that he only needs small group help with Literacy and he has made good progress with Numeracy.

She also added that she has watched him in the playground and he is joining in more and making friends.

Spelling out words

Just another "new thing" Harry has started to do. When we talk generally, he has started spelling out words. I handed him his phone tonight and he said "P-H-O-N-E". I remember the mum of the dyslexic girl appearing on Good Morning saying all of a sudden she was spelling everything out. This is just what Harry has started to do this week. OK his scores were bad at the assessment this week, but wow he's doing so well in every other aspect.

Year 5 Sports Day

Harry enjoyed his hurdle race! Look at him go!

Third Follow-up

Well, I have noticed in the past week that Harry is finding it extremely hard to balance. We recently had "Standing and moving on the spot" where you put one foot in front of the other, and Harry has found this very hard.

Today we had our third follow-up and Harry constantly kept wobbling and falling off the Posturegraph machine. The Consultant thinks Harry's going through some more re-wiring, and did say it is still early days, but he has made a note for next time to fully explain what Harry needs to do before he gets on the machine. He had several tries and the Consultant thinks he can do it, but Harry may be tensing up making it worse. COG Alignment looks better - more crosses in the box!

Here are his results from last time:

2nd Follow-up (23rd April)
1. 85 (red) / Somatosensory 96 green
2. 82 (red) but spread was into the green / Visual 62 Red
4. 53 (red) but spread was into the green / Vestibular 35 Red
5. 30 (red) / Composite 52 Red

Anyway, the new exercises are slightly harder, but a lot of repeats again. They will review the exercises next time to see if Harry is managing. If there is more regression, they will step back a level.

On a more positive note, Harry is now working in a new small group for Literacy.

She did have Harry down for her group for numeracy and literacy, but his current LSA said that he had improved so much in numeracy that he was ok in class.

Pinata Bashing!

Went to a wedding today. Hanging in the tree were some pinatas and inside were sweets for the kids. The idea was to bash the pinata until the sweets inside fell out. Great idea. Well Harry had a turn after a few other kids had had a go with no success (blind-folded) and bashed the hell out of the Spiderman pinata - down came ALL the sweets. He was just so pleased with himself. Everyone was telling him how great he was. Those exercises with closed eyes came to mind. Hubby was well impressed!

Arms wide throwing beanbag

Hard ticks every day!

Little Steps

One thing I have noticed today is that Harry is now making better eye contact with me when talking. He will now look me straight in the eye. He has never done this before.

Also, we've just done an exercise using the poster where I call out the numbers and he has to look for 2 seconds before quickly moving onto the next. He amazed me by remembering the numbers from yesterday (I had to keep checking). He also remembered the odd letters, but not so well. We only started this one yesterday, so I am impressed. I've noticed though that his head tends to tilt. I am trying to correct this.