Update on Emma

I was reading back through a couple months of post and I haven't really done an update on what's been going on with Miss Emma. Today we had her 3rd quarter parent/teacher conference, so what better time??
Emma is doing just great. She making great strides in school and I am very confident that she will do great next year at her new school. She's been in the Resource room for reading/spelling since the beginning of the school year, and she's making progress. Her ST & her Resource room teacher still think that her delay in reading/spelling is directly correlated to her speech. She's already met almost all her goals for speech this year and her progress in the resource room is coming along accordingly. I am 95% sure we want to put Emma in the CMU speech camp this summer. At first, I was a little hesitant because I told her that she was going to PEAK again this summer, hopefully with kids from her new school, so she could meet some new people. But, after attending a seminar about the speech camp for Sarah, I really think that 6 weeks of 6 hours of speech therapy will GREATLY help Emma. So, we're going to try to send both of them. Sarah's will only be 1/2 day. Emma will be able to meet new friends during spring soccer as I'm putting her new school as her home school, so she'll be grouped with kids from there, including Sarah's preschool teacher's daughter, who will ALSO be going to Emma's new school next year. Her name's Emily, and they know each other from soccer last year. I'm hoping that will be enough. I know that moving to a new school and leaving all her friends behind will be tough, but at the same time, we need to do what's best for Emma academically. I would REALLY like to get Emma out of the Resource room next year. She is SO very bright and has a fantastic imagination. She's just having a little problem with a few things.
As for school, her report card looks awesome! There are a lot of new things introduced in 2nd grade, and she's not getting as much time in the classroom (due to resource room pull-outs twice a day, every day of the week) so she's struggling a little bit with the new content, but she's working very hard. She knows she doesn't HAVE to make up everything that she misses due to being in the RR, but she wants to.
Last year about this time, there was talk that Emma might have a Learning Disability. I asked both her RR teacher & her classroom teacher and they don't think she does. They really think that the speech is what's affecting her reading & spelling, and once that either continues to improve or is resolved (which after 6 years, I hope would be soon, but it might be something she struggles with for a while still) the reading and spelling will fall into place. They are noticing that as she's making improvements in speech, there are noticeable improvements in her reading/spelling. Which makes me happy, but I'm still wishing she could get over this hurdle.
In my Special Ed class, we watched a movie about Learning disabilities, and a psychologist had come up with a comprehensive format to pinpoint a child's exact learning disability. I asked them about this, and they said the school psychologist has something similar, so I asked her to set something up to get Emma tested. Not that I WANT her to have an LD, but at the same time, I want to make sure Emma has the best learning environment possible. If she needs extra support, and isn't getting it because her educators don't know about something, she's not getting the best we can offer her. If nothing at all, her getting tested will show that she DOESN'T have one and we'll know for sure, and can continue on the course we're following.