Forever Grateful

In the fall of 2009, Andrea will be attending fourth grade at Explorer K-8, and I am confident that she will find success in all that she encounters. She has become a responsible student who can advocate for herself when needed. She is able to manage her time and organize her materials better than ever before. Wow! We have come a long way from where we originally began.
Andrea entered kindergarten after four years of pre-school where curriculum was implemented, and she struggled from the very first day of school. She did not want to volunteer to answer any questions. She said, "I don't know" frequently and her reading test grades were abysmal. Homework took hours...hours filled with crying, timeouts, and frustration. We would read with her every night and never saw any improvement. We needed help and we needed it right away. The strategies we were trying to use just weren't working.
We began our Sylvan journey by assessing reading and found that Andrea was lacking some of the most basic reading skills. These skills should have been mastered in kindergarten and first grade which was surprising as she had already completed second grade when she was evaluated. She followed her own education plan and worked hard through school nights, Saturdays, and summers. Sylvan maintained communication with the classroom teachers and attended parent conferences.
The Gemmati family cannot thank Sylvan and Nicole Miller enough for all of the support! We will forever be grateful for all that they have done!

- Susan Gemmati June 10, 2009