Taylor Says ...

Taylor, as you probably know, is in speech therapy and has been since she was 2. I was filled with a lot of mixed emotions yesterday when the speech therapist called and told me she thinks Taylor might be ready to STOP HAVING SPEECH! I was so proud of Taylor, but I was also so scared for her. Is she really ready? Is she really caught up? After thinking about it and talking with Steve and then the "team" regarding her individualized education plan, we have all opted to keep Taylor in speech a little longer to work on her opposites and her enunciation. The speech therapist is also going to run another test to evaluate what the enunciation problems are. The test that she had run with Taylor recently focused on a lot of other issues. Of the 7 or 8 categories, Taylor fell in the AVERAGE range on all but 2!! She was JUST barely out of the average range on those two areas (opposites and pragmatic - point of view speech). This coming from a child who was in the bottom 2-3% range on ALL speech issues when she was 4. WOW!! So proud of her.

I feel SOOOO very blessed for the awesome speech therapists she has worked with in the last 4 1/2 years! And I am so grateful for her progress. Taylor's 1st grade teacher was also in the meeting and said that she actually has to ask Taylor to be quiet sometimes. Seriously? This from the little girl you could hardly get to say her name when she was almost 4?! Miss Crowton said that today in class she randomly put kids in groups of three to work on their math. Taylor's name was drawn to work with two boys. Miss Crowton walked over to see how it was going and Taylor was teasing the two boys and had them absolutely giggling... uh oh. :) It wasn't that long ago that she would have NOT been happy to be with boys AND would have been absolutely silent in a group - even with girls. We are so proud of Taylor and her progress. Now we have to work on re-directing that energy and keeping her on-task.

One of the tests the therapist did with Taylor was to have her talk about some silly pictures she showed Taylor. Taylor said 19 sentences and only 4 contained errors ... which is AWESOME for Taylor, especially since many of the sentences were more than 5 words, something we have worked on most of the year (forming longer sentences using adjectives and phrases and/or making conjunctions). Some of the sentences she said were ...

The lady is walking backwards.
The car doesn't have any wheels.
The space is not in the sky.
The hen has a leash. (hen??? didn't even know she knew that word)
This is supposed to be right here and this is supposed to be here. (Two sentences in one with a conjunction!)
The red is supposed to be at the top and the green is 'pose to be at the bottom. (Again, TWO sentences).
She's not 'posed to wear ice skates and holding a paint bucket (ooops, wrong verb form on holding).
He doesn't have another sock on.
He doesn't have shoes on.
He's throwing his garbage on the floor.
The clock looks funny with the hands (... thinking this is missing something).
The 12 is not the top

So proud of my little girl. She has grown so much. The speech therapist loves working with her and said she is amazed at the growth in the last 3 years (Taylor worked with her during preschool, kindergarten and now 1st grade). Thank you Mrs. Taggart! We really appreciate all your work. And Taylor, I am so proud of you for TALKING and growing so much. Her growth is the result of A LOT OF hard work, A LOT OF time, and the answer to MANY prayers.