Literacy assessment

Namine had her PALS-K assessment this morning. It’s a literary assessment given to students to determine potential placement (and whether a student might need additional instruction), and Namine did exceedingly well.

After completing the testing, the teacher told us that she is ready for the first grade. This is amazing news, especially because Namine only started the beginning of the school year’s curriculum in March. You might recall that we had originally started with the Spring curriculum, but it proved a little on the difficult side, so we started over with the Fall curriculum, thanks to the understanding teachers at RVA.

Namine has certainly improved in leaps and bounds since we started school. Of course Jessica does most of the teaching, being the one who is with her the most during the week, but I also contribute during the evenings and weekends (not to mention on days when I have the opportunity to work remotely).

We’ve done testing trial runs on Namine before, and results vary. Sometimes she takes her time, and she’s even had a meltdown or two (although admittedly, the meltdowns were around the time that Namine herself was just getting over a particularly nasty bug and just after Jessica’s mom was admitted to the hospital, so I’d imagine external stress played a pretty big factor). Whatever the case, though, it seems that Namine recognized the importance of strapping it on today, and strap it on she did. She obviously impressed the teacher.

Speaking of school, remember the setup in the dining room?

Well, we really wanted our dining room back. Eating dinner in the living room is nice every once in a while, but it’s not conducive to family time — real family time, not just watching a movie together. So we spent the weekend cleaning the apartment, mainly the living room, with the goal of setting up a school area in the living room. We’re very happy with the finished school nook.

That black table, by the way, used to be our dining room table before we got the brown round one. It has sat, gathering dust, in the garage. It was much too tall to use as-is, so Jessica and I sawed it down so that Namine can wheel up to it in her wheelchair. It’s the perfect height now, with a little extra room for Namine’s legs to grow.

While Jessica and I were cleaning, we came across things we have not thought of in years.

We threw away old manuals for the humidification chamber, the suction machine, and the feeding pump; we tossed the tracheostomy care papers and countless old documents harking back to when Namine was just a tiny thing, punctured with tubes and not capable of making a sound on her own.

But happiness? We’ve always had that. And we always will.

5 responses

  1. Jen, Jeremy & Jacob Schultz Avatar
    Jen, Jeremy & Jacob Schultz

    That’s so cool to be able to throw those manuals away!!! Gives me the chills and we couldn’t be happier for you and more proud of Namine! She has certainly made progress (Don’t get me started on the State needing just the right amount of progress… oh, but not too much!!! And not too little!!! Our primary is covering Jacob’s but we don’t always have State as a backup due to the same crappy reasons you are dealing with…) Thank you also for pointing out that it’s possible to be happy WITH more medical equipment than most are used to. We couldn’t agree more :)

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