Kat Reading

Kat Reading

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

We are here (and working already!)

After a three day train ride from hell (broken down train, delays from flooding, a guy who snored loud enough to wake up a child with a profound hearing loss, a missed connection, a broken down bus, and no bathroom in our train car THE ENTIRE TRIP!) we are safe and in St. Louis. We are staying at a lovely "boarding house" for people who are in town for medical treatment called Haven House. We arrived at about 1 am Monday morning and had to leave for the first day of school at 7:30! That wasn't pleasent!

We arrived at CID at 9 am. The school is beautiful! It is in an old brick building, and inside they have tons of classrooms and cool toys and one room looks to be just for dramatic play! How wonderful it must be to go to school here!

So, Miss Kat starts her school day with a listening check in "home room". There are 5 kids in her class, including a deaf of deaf child. (She is only the third deaf child of deaf parents I have met who has a cochlear implant, but actually, when I think about it, I only know three ASL Deaf of Deaf families too, so that isn't really a huge amount). After a few minutes the groups split and Miss Kat is in a reading group for an hour. We are still trying to figure out exactly which reading group is the best fit for her, so that is being worked out. CID has a huge emphasis on reading, and that is one of the reasons I chose this school for Miss Kat this summer. After reading is small group language time. They play games and do activites related to the week's theme and work on expanding the student's language. Miss Kat will also be having private speech and language therapy everyday. BUT in the afternoons it is FIELD TRIP TIME!!! The kids will be going to tons of different fun places in the next month. Monday they went to the Arch museum and got ice cream from Coldstone. They will also be visting the Science Center, Children's Museum and a Rodeo. It's going to be so much fun!

On the way home from school, Monday, Miss Kat was playing a game with me. I think it was "Simon Says". She would tell me where to touch and I would have to listen and get it right. Well, during the game I learned that Miss Kat has learned at least two body part words at school, in one day! She learned "fingers" and "shoulder". Great job Miss Kat!!! (Oh, and fast work CID!!!) We also talked about her ribs, and she figures that they are "stripes"....not bad thinking....She was also concerned that she couldn't find her heartbeat. She said "It's (her heart) not working!" I told her that I promise it is working still, but I'll feel for it at home.

So, so far, all is well at CID. I'm excited about school and I think this is going to be great for her!

3 comments:

leah said...

What a great program! The field trips sound so wonderful- especially the one to Cold Stone Creamery (g)!

That's pretty clever to come up with "stripes" for "ribs." I never thought about it before, but they are definitely stripey!

Have a great trip, and here's to functional trains on your trip back home!

Karen Mayes said...

:-D I have fond memories of CID... I attended there from 1967 to 1979. Yes, I grew up in St. Louis as well.

Hey, be sure to go to City Museum!!! You will LLOVVVEEE it!

Miss Kat's Parents said...

It's funny that you went here too, I first heard about CID from a Deaf friend, she graduated from the school. She told me that if she had decided to have her children go oral (which she didn't, they are an ASL family) she would have moved moved back to St. Louis and sent he kids to CID! She even had the famous Jean Moog asher principal!