Well, he passed. Brandon passed the TAKS test for reading and writing and got commended performance for math. We were sweating it for the writing because it is really not his strong suit; he lost the most points for spelling and such and even his report card said he needed to step up on his handwriting and spelling for next year. We weren't worried about math, except that he finished that test in less than 2 hours (they give them 9 hours minus lunch and little breaks to take the test). He missed a point on concepts and use of measurement and a point on probability and statistics.
For his report card, he made honor roll again and his yearly average was honor roll level, so we're hoping that that second quarter dip in grades was just a fluke. His reading level is listed as being end of 5th grade level, so maybe I can stop reading his books and then quizzing him for comprehension. I admit it's a bit anal, but this is a child who can read a book and then come up with absolutely nothing for a book report 5 minutes later. After you quiz him he can tell you tons of info, but not without prompts. During the award day ceremony he came away with a handful of certificates for a variety of things and won a 4th quarter Principals Award for Leadership. (He's gotten of those every year)
Jacob passed his ALT-TAKS (the special education equivalent), receiving perfect scores in basic understanding of reading skills, numbers-operations-and quantitative reasoning, and patterns-algebraic reasoning. He also did relatively well in mathematical processes and tools and applying critical thinking skills. We were pretty happy with his scores. He also got a Mathematics Achievement Award during award day. (I also got one for my "dedication and support" for the ABC class, which is really one of the nicest gestures I have received in a long time.) Jacob's report card (which is about 8 pages long) essentially says that he made really good progress this year.
Friday we went to the teacher supply store to pick out some hand writing workbooks for Brandon. We started out in the science section where he picked out some electronics components (he's building a little house, complete with working lights) and he declared "Man, I could learn to love this place!" That lasted until we got over to the workbook section and he figured out my intention and his love for the teacher supply store dimmed a bit ("Well, I *used* to like this store.") Ok, everyone, stop rolling your eyes at me. I'm giving him two weeks off with nothing to do but veg out. But seriously, just about every paper that he failed was because of handwriting so bad that even he couldn't read it, or refusing to rewrite or turn in final drafts because he didn't want to put in the extra work to rewrite the work. He has serious issues with writing and retaining spelling words. We thought about signing him up for another handwriting camp, but it ended up being $100 to fill out a workbook, which I can make him do here at home. So other than the workbooks we are also coming up with other, more fun ways to practice handwriting.
