He Reads! He Adds! Able to Leap from Tall Buildings in a Single Bound! But....

Noah reads like a champ. He can read just about anything. They haven't really taught him any reading yet in school, apart from some sight words, but I know I learned to read on my own when I was four and he started to learn when he was 5. He picked up the “Sally, Dick and Jane” book I purchased to teach Katherine to read when she was in 1st grade, and he read from the first page to page 25 before stopping on his first attempt. He had listened to his brother practice by my side already earlier that day, but an impressive absorption anyway. By 6 years old, he could read as well as any 1st grader. And his math skills are above par as well. Next school year should be interesting because academically, he'll do well. But there won't be much to teach him.

The challenge will be in Noah learning and accepting a new system. He really likes the system he used for the past two years with the same teacher. He is big on doing things in a very set order. Any slight deviance and he freaks out. By “freaks out” I mean something very close to Dustin Hoffman’s reaction in “Rainman”. There are tears and usually scream-crying. He doesn’t hear others easily then. I am not sure what a new way of doing things will do to him, but he'll have to adjust. Each year of school a new system will happen. Noah has the First grade teacher that Mason had. You can bet I'll be keeping a tight watch on how he is doing on a weekly basis whether the teacher likes it or not. No surprises at the end of the year this time around.

I do have some concerns with Noah's behavior quirks. When he was 2 and 3 they were still in the normal range. When he hit age 4, they were still ok for a male child, who often tend to develop that portion of social and adaptation skills later than females. But by 5 and 6 some of these things are just no longer typical. I have zero concerns with his academic ability. I wouldn't be surprised if he was tested and it was found that he was at genius level. However, he makes no attempt to have friends. He seems completely oblivious to that. He will play with kids if they ask to play (or come get him). Kids like him because he does whatever they want usually. But if no one asks him to play, he won't seek anyone and most importantly, he won't even notice that kids are anywhere. He is in his "own world" so strongly that it is as if the outer world almost doesn't exist. Even at home, where he does feel his brother and sister are friends, he is lost in that world most of the time. He'll play with two corks for 2 hours straight (being very creative, which is a wonderful trait). It often requires repetitive shouts of his name to get any attention back into our world.

He's showing other unusual signs, for example: needing to step on certain color tiles in a store, even if it leaves him far behind. Noah doesn't want to be behind us and that fact upsets him, but he is reluctant to leave the tile pattern. It is almost like he cannot. He is very jumpy and does repetitive flipping motions (flipping his body around; like mini cartwheels). We tell him to stop, and finally he does. But in a few seconds he is doing it again, as if he totally forgot we asked for him to stop just moments before. His legs are (as they always have been) almost a solid line of bruises from mid thigh to ankle.

All of this is not good nor bad---it just is how he is, and I am keeping my eyes wide open because in first grade they will start making a higher degree of notation with such things because anything atypical is assessed and obsessed. Before school starts I'll bring all of this up with a new doctor I will be taking him to see (my own doctor who is really excellent and a DO so he tends to think in a way that incorporates more options). The up side here, he is sitting here for the past 30 minutes reading a level 3 book that Mason just learned to read at the end of his last school year and that was above benchmark for second grade reading. It has 32 pages and difficult words. It's the highest level that particular book company makes for young readers. However, Noah has insisted on reading this particular book each day at about noon for the past 4 days and sometimes a repeat at 8 or 9pm.

Scott notes these things as well but he is startled that they remind him so much of himself, except stronger in intensity. He first was saying it was very normal, but lately he's seeing more that maybe it's not as typical. Not that it is a bad thing, but schools today want all "normal" range children, cookie-cutter kids, with no exceptional or under par behaviors. Partly they are concerned with managing large classrooms. They are also greatly concerned with testing done in early third grade that evaluates how much money will go to the school for the year, based on expected performance of the students. They have no gifted programs anymore in Michigan schools (which is where our other kids and especially Noah would belong). They have only "resource" rooms where they try to fix any academic situations where the output is lower than potential and where the 3-5th grade testing efforts could be in jeopardy. Those are funded separately but they are smashed full with kids now compared to even a few years ago. It says a lot about what expectations are now: be a carbon copy of what they expect, or there is a problem.

We have three children and not one of them fits into the average box. I am very thankful for that, honestly. It will serve them a lot better in their lives, especially because they are all highly intelligent and creative. But for now, they are considered problems and so I fight for them. A lot of the parents who unexpectedly find themselves in this situation are frustrated too. As Shakespeare said, "There is something rotten in the state of Denmark."