I decided to read this article because I have a few students who I would consider "late bloomers". Whether it is because they have a late summer birthday, aren't as mature as their peers, or their motor skills are a little delayed, I can tell that this is affecting them academically. I have a student that I believe needs to be in speech because his speech is affecting his writing and spelling. He is pronouncing his letters wrong so he thinks that they make different sounds than they really do so this also affects his reading. They have told me that they are later developing sounds so I shouldn't worry about it, but I do because I do not want him to fall behind his peers because he cannot get the help he needs. I also have a student who only knows half of his letters in his second year of Kindergarten. He is on a SAT, but I believe he needs further assistance. Again, I am told that they really do not like to refer students until they are in at least second grade. They think it is too young to identify any learning disabilities at this age. I'm not an expert when it comes to anything in the special education field so I don't know all of the rules and regulations, but I just know that I want to help these kids and it can sometimes be frustrating when I cannot get them the help that they need.
After reading this article, I believe the three most important things that I learned were: students that we refer to as "late bloomers" most likely have a skill deficit that needs to be addressed intensively, the poor readers in this study lacked one important skill which was phonemic awareness, and the struggling readers improved some in elementary school, but not so much after sixth grade, but the most important thing that I learned was the overall message behind this article: we cannot just let these struggling readers slip through the cracks, we have to find a way to help them to close the achievement gap.
I found this article very interesting because this topic contradicts itself a lot within the school system. They tell us that some skills are later developing yet we are expected to teach them now and the curriculum is more demanding now than ever. Also, we are expected to close this achievement gap, but we cannot always get the help that we need to do so. I am not disagreeing that some students aren't just late bloomers with different things, but we cannot always rely on the fact that they will "catch on eventually" with certain foundational skills.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/waiting-rarely-works-late-bloomers-usually-just-wilt
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