A Safe Place for Joey Read online

  The spelling and writing would go hand in hand with the reading. Once a child has learned to read “hat,” he can also learn to write it, if he is taught how to match graphemes (letters) to phonemes (sounds). We would incorporate Orton-Gillingham methods, and I would have Joey visualize the word – saying it out loud, writing it on the desk, sand tray, or paper.

  I would be careful not to ask him to spell words that were not phonetically regular, and I would also be careful not to present too much new information at one time. I felt that much of Joey’s trouble was that when he was given too much at one time he became overwhelmed. I suspected that this was when he fell out of his chair.

  That first morning I simply told Joey the sound of each letter and showed him how to write both the lowercase and capitals. “See it, hear it, say it, write it, Joey. Take your time.” This wasn’t easy for Joey. He confused the sounds for b and p and, of course, reversed many letters. Still, his writing improved enormously in that one short session as he learned how to form each letter correctly and to say its sound as he wrote it.

  I knew I was beginning at the beginning and that I was running the risk of boring him since all this had been presented in first grade and probably earlier, but I also knew the risk was slight.

  Few learning disabled children are bored. They may pretend they are or their parents may like to think they are, but most are scared instead. Neither they nor their parents can understand how they can know something one day and not the next. Usually this is because they haven’t learned the beginning steps of a task thoroughly enough to use them spontaneously and “on demand,” and particularly when they’re under pressure to perform.

  In any event, we both got so involved with what we were doing that we ran five minutes into the next child’s session. Still, we took the time to count up Joey’s chips and to enter the total, 840, in his notebook and then subtract 600 for the sugarless, all-natural-ingredient lollipop that he bought from the “goody basket.” I kept a small supply of treats in a wicker basket on top of the file cabinet, and at the end of each session the children had one minute to decide if they wanted to spend their chips or save them up.

  Twice a week through June and July, Joey and I read and wrote and spelled together. We added and subtracted.

  We also talked and played a few games. There were no miracles. I just taught and retaught and let Joey practice and end with success each time. His ability to decode and his sight vocabulary both improved; his writing became more legible and computation more accurate. I assigned small amounts of homework, which Joey did on his own and, even more important, remembered to bring back.

  He still twisted in his chair and fiddled with paper clips, but he learned how to breathe to consciously relax his body and to live with the three breaks I allowed him each session.

  By the end of July we had both learned a number of things. Joey had learned to read, although he was still below grade level, and I had learned that Joey’s disorganizational problems were not his alone. They seemed to be part of the family lifestyle. My phone messages rarely got delivered, and Joey often arrived on the wrong day or ten minutes early or not at all.

  Still, we all felt encouraged. It had been a month and a half since Joey had fallen out of his chair or said he was dumb. But then again, it was summer and Joey always did well in the summer.

  I sent him off on his August vacation with two books to read and a workbook I knew he could handle. We’d just have to see what happened in the fall.

  The Stones came back from their vacation a week early to give Joey a chance to review with me before he was retested by the school. The Child Study Team tested him the day after Labor Day and said that while he was still “deficient,” there had been “significant improvement,” and they agreed to let Joey go on to second grade in his own school.

  None of us anticipated that Joey would end up in Mrs. Madden’s class. It was nobody’s fault. The second-grade teacher Joey was slated to have became pregnant over the summer and on the first day of school decided she didn’t feel well enough to handle both her first pregnancy and a second-grade class. She opted for a year’s leave of absence. The principal, Mr. Templar, thought the new teacher he hired was too inexperienced to handle Joey, so he transferred Joey to Mrs. Madden’s class.

  Mrs. Madden was certainly experienced. Thirty years of experience – most of it in the same school system. When I called her during the first week of school to tell her about Joey’s evaluation and what we had done over the summer, and to ask if I could check in with her every week or so, Mrs. Madden made it clear that conferences or phone calls with me were not necessary. She said she had discussed Joseph’s case with the Child Study Team. She understood they were giving him a trial in second grade. She assured me that she had known plenty of other children with problems and that Joseph would not cause any trouble in her class. She also said she thought she should be honest with me and tell me that in her opinion tutors were a waste of time – worse than a waste if they let the child become dependent on them. Of course, if the Stones wanted to throw their money away it was up to them.

  When I called the Child Study Team to say that it appeared that I was going to have some difficulty communicating with Mrs. Madden, they said they understood, they had difficulty themselves, but that in many ways she was a very good teacher.

  Joey dragged himself up to my office at a quarter to six the Tuesday after school started. He stood in the middle of the floor and raised his arms and then let them drop. “The bad news is, I got Madden. The next bad news is, I’m still not in a group – there’s the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Orioles, and me. The next bad news is, she made me miss gym and stay after school, too! I’m never going to make it through second, Mary!”

  “Sit down, Joey. I’m glad to see you. Pay yourself forty. That’s a lot of bad news.”

  I’d been thinking about Mrs. Madden ever since our phone call. I had silently hoped against hope that somehow she and Joey would communicate even though she and I hadn’t been able to. Evidently that hadn’t happened.

  I looked at Joey. “Okay. I hear you. So you got a tough teacher. You’re a tough kid. You can figure out how to get through second grade.”

  Joey rolled slowly to one side and then silently toppled from his chair to the floor. He sprawled across the grey carpet – eyes closed, body limp as a rag doll. I sat watching. After a full minute had passed, Joey opened one eye and squinted up at me. I looked benignly back, waiting for the full show. There was no question that Joey knew how to put on a wonderful act.

  Sure now that I was watching, Joey rolled his eyes up into his head so that white, pupil-less eyes stared out at me, and his legs and arms flailed up and down. The kids in school must have loved it.

  “Okay now, Joey. That’s enough.” I reached down and hoisted him back up beside me. “We’ve only got forty-five minutes. We don’t have time for any of that stuff. Besides, I don’t like it. The next time you hit the floor it costs you one hundred.”

  “One hundred!” Joey howled. “Cripes! You wouldn’t do that!” He put his hand protectively over the red plastic dish that held his chips.

  “You know I would. But I’ll tell you what. This first month of school, every day of September that you make it through with Mrs. Madden I’ll pay you a hundred.”

  “What do you mean, like … like if I don’t have to stay after school?”

  “Right. And don’t get sent to the principal or have to miss gym. Things like that. You’re going to have to be so good, Joe. Not just a little good, but one hundred percent good every day. Never mind about the Red Sox – I know you can read and you’ll learn to read better. But you have to hand in whatever work Mrs. Madden gives you. Always remember your homework, keep your desk clean, keep yourself in your seat, raise your hand before you say anything, stay in line and a whole lot more.”

  “I don’t know. It sounds like a pretty terrible life.”

  “Well, Joey, consider the alternatives.”

 
“What’s alternatives?”

  “Other choices. Like failing second and having to stay back and have Mrs. Madden all over again.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  During the fourth week of school I decided to drop in on Mrs. Madden. If my phone calls didn’t work, I had to find some other way to discover what was going on in school.

  At ten after three I walked down the hall to second grade, nodding to the janitor. I’d been in the school many times to talk to other children’s teachers, but I’d never encountered Mrs. Madden before.

  She was seated at her desk going over papers when I tapped on the window. Her grey hair was neatly and tightly curled against her head. The bow of her blouse hung in two perfect loops between the lapels of a maroon suit. Mrs. Madden got up and walked slowly across the room.

  She opened the door and stood without smiling.

  “Mrs. Madden? I’m Mary MacCracken,” I said.

  “Yes. I thought as much.” She made no move to invite me inside.

  “May I talk to you for ten minutes?” I knew all teachers were expected to stay until three thirty.

  She looked at the clock over the door. “Three twelve. All right. Come in.”

  I followed her to the front of the room, and she motioned me to a chair beside her desk. I sat facing Mrs. Madden, aware that the room was much more pleasant than I had expected. The large, sunny windows to my left were filled with leafy green plants of all sizes. A fish tank hummed on the window sill. The blackboard had the day’s homework assignment printed neatly in the left-hand corner, and five short sentences about a trip to the police station were lettered in the middle. Had Mrs. Madden actually taken her class to the police station?

  I held two of Joey’s folders on my lap. One contained the written report of the testing I had done (I had asked the Stones’ permission to bring it), the other some of his recent work. But I didn’t open either. I was there to try to find out how Mrs. Madden and Joey were getting on. Did she realize the potential he had? Was he working? Was he learning?

  “May I ask how Joey is doing?”

  Mrs. Madden reached for her grade book. “You have the parents’ permission, I assume.” I nodded, and she read from the book: “Arithmetic: 68, 75, 90, incomplete, incomplete, 80. Reading workbook: 55, 72, incomplete, incomplete, incomplete, 84, incomplete, incomplete. Spelling: 45, 25, 60, 50. There are no incompletes in spelling because everyone takes the test on Friday, ready or not. Phonics: 60, 50, incomplete, incomplete, incomplete, incomplete, 60.”

  Mrs. Madden snapped her grade book shut. “You will have to consult with the specials about gym, art, library, and remedial.”

  “Thank you,” I said, putting my notebook back in my purse. “There seem to be a lot of incompletes.”

  “Yes. Joseph often doesn’t complete his work. This is partly due to his not paying attention, so he doesn’t understand what to do. He always wants me to go over it again with him. I do not believe in this. He must learn to listen.

  “The other reason he gets behind is that he’s out of the room so much,” Mrs. Madden continued. “Out with the reading teacher, out for some program or other. Out for this. Out for that. No wonder he gets behind in his class work.”

  I got the strong impression that Mrs. Madden didn’t believe in remedial help any more than she did in tutors. Well, at least she didn’t seem overly anxious to get Joey out of her room, and that was a positive sign.

  The clock ticked its way toward three twenty-five, and I stood up, to reassure Mrs. Madden that I would not linger.

  “One last question. Would it be possible to borrow an extra copy of any of Joey’s books? Spelling, arithmetic, phonics?”

  Mrs. Madden shrugged, stood up, smoothed out her unwrinkled maroon skirt. “Call Mr. Templar, our principal. That’s up to him.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I walked toward the door. “I appreciate your time and your interest in Joe.”

  Mrs. Madden accepted my appreciation with a nod as she eased me out the door. “I will tell you one thing,” Mrs. Madden said magnanimously. “It doesn’t show in the grade book, but that boy is a lot smarter than those Child Study Team tests show. A lot smarter!”

  I stared at Mrs. Madden, restraining a nearly overwhelming impulse to hug her. “I agree,” I almost shouted. “But how did you find out? Did you give Joey some tests of your own?”

  Mrs. Madden turned back to her classroom. Like a queen in her kingdom she pronounced, “After thirty years, I don’t need tests.”

  Joey dragged the heavy plastic bag across my office floor. “Mr. Templar said to bring you these.” He dumped the contents onto the carpet beside the desk and moaned out loud as his reading, math, spelling, and phonics books fell out. “Oh, no. It’s horrible to have to do them in school. It’ll be even horribler to have to do them all over again here.”

  We didn’t, of course, “do” the books, but Joey could show me where he was and what he didn’t understand. It was much easier for him than trying to explain it. Also, since Mrs. Madden proceeded page by page, chapter by chapter, I could look ahead and see what was coming up next, and let Joey become a little familiar with it before Mrs. Madden introduced it in class.

  Mrs. Madden was still curt, but she was doing her part. She now answered my phone calls if I timed them right and sent Joey’s test papers in a sealed envelope on Fridays. She hadn’t complained or called the Stones in, except for the scheduled fall conference. All she told them then was that Joey still needed a lot of work, but that he was making progress. The main thing was what she didn’t say. There had been no mention of a special class.

  My phone rang around noon one day in February. It was snowing hard and I had gone down to pick up the mail, so it took me five or six rings to get back to the phone.

  “Mrs. MacCracken? This is Mrs. Madden. I almost hung up. I thought you must be out.” Disapproval edged her voice.

  “Sorry.” I was so glad she’d initiated the call that it was worth sounding penitent.

  “Yes. Well. Joseph is getting further and further behind in his B book. Phonics book, that is. He always has to go out when it’s time for phonics. Now he’s twenty pages behind – hasn’t even touched the magic e rule. I’d like him to do pages ninety-eight, one hundred one, one hundred five, and one hundred seven with you. That will give him an idea of what the others have covered. Don’t do the work for him. I want to see his own work. Send it in so I can check it. I’d have the specials do it with him, but they say they have too much work of their own.”

  “All right,” I said, writing on the telephone book. “Page ninety-eight … could you give me those other pages again?”

  I knew how the specials felt. This would take time that I would much rather spend on other things, but what mattered was that Mrs. Madden was becoming a member of our team. And that was a top priority.

  There was no doubt about it. In spite of missed pages in the B book, Joey was flourishing. He added, he subtracted, he even multiplied a little. His facts still weren’t totally automatic and he sometimes got mixed up during subtraction and regrouping (another word for borrowing and carrying), but he understood what he was doing and he was one of the best in the class at problem solving.

  With our combined efforts on phonics, word attack skills, and sight vocabulary, Joey’s reading was improving steadily. One of the things that helped most was that the Stones took turns reading to Joey every night. After Joey was washed and brushed and in bed, either Mr. or Mrs. Stone read to him for a half hour. To their joy, not only was he enjoying reading more, he was also sleeping better.

  But only one thing was important to Joey. “Do you think she’ll let me be a Red Sox now?”

  Not a Red Sox and not till April.

  “Da-de-ah-da-dah!” Joey blew an imaginary trumpet in the doorway of my office. “The good news is, I’m a goddamn Oriole!”

  “Joe – cool it. No swearing.”

  “Well, I am. I got moved up yesterday. I’m in a group!”

 
A cause for celebration. Joey was no longer alone, isolated, different. Now he, like the others in his class, belonged.

  In June Joey graduated from second grade and was promoted to third. On my testing he had moved up to the 54th percentile in silent reading vocabulary and to the 69th percentile in comprehension. His math was on grade level, spelling slightly below.

  On the school tests, Joey was on grade level in all areas, and Mrs. Madden wrote on his report card, “Marked improvement in behavior and academic skills.” High praise indeed from Mrs. Madden.

  One unexpected piece of news was that Mrs. Madden was retiring. I couldn’t imagine her classroom without her – or the other way around. She had believed in Joey and given him a safe, structured place where he could learn. Mr. Templar assured me that it was her choice. She’d always wanted to travel and was looking forward to retirement. Maybe. But it would take an awful lot of lakes and mountains to make up for Joey.

  If it was sad to hear that Mrs. Madden was retiring, it was good to hear that Mrs. Stone had decided to freelance and use her computer skills at home rather than in an office.

  “It’s funny,” she told me on the phone. “I actually like being home now; I don’t know whether it’s because Joey’s better or because I don’t feel so guilty anymore. Even though I never even realized that I felt guilty. All I know is that now I want to be around the kids as much as I can. I never would’ve believed I’d ever say that. I’m taking the summer off and then come fall I’m going to start working at home.

  “Al feels the same. He hardly ever works weekends anymore. In fact, he’s the one who bought me the home computer.”

  I was happy for them and for Joey. But I was also glad that Joey remained himself. I loved the slightly lopsided, ebullient, dramatic part of him as much as or more than the part that had made it into the Orioles.