Danielle, Super Reader

by Sunette Payne

One of the aspects that I love about working with NACD is meeting and working with so many amazing families. Being a “program-doing-mom” in this role, has also added many other unexpected benefits, some of which would be, being inspired by, challenged by and motivated by our wonderful parents and their children. We really do have the most dedicated parents anywhere, the cream of crop, parents that are not scared to roll up their sleeves and “get busy”.

One of our families that I would like to ‘brag’ about a little is Danielle and her family. I met Danielle a couple of years ago in Atlanta. She is a fantastic kid and she is a hard worker! She gets up at 5 am every weekday to do the reading and math portions of her program, before her mom goes to work. Danielle’s mom works part time as a family physician and she has a dedicated helper implementing Danielle’s NACD homeschool program when she is at work.

Even though they have a helper implementing program, Danielle’s mom takes full responsibility for getting things done and is constantly making plans to get Danielle to do the very best she can, and to raise her intensity.

Here is Danielle’s mom telling about some of her recent accomplishments.

“Earlier this year I was just looking at all the displayed trophies that my two older kids had won for various activities at school and I thought to myself, ‘oh, Danielle has no trophy. I wish she had at least one. I don’t want her to feel left out’. Then I had a second thought, ‘you know what—she’s homeschooled, why can’t I give her a trophy?’

So I pondered what the trophy would be awarded for and since we were trying to encourage reading, I decided to award it for reading. I thought of how to make it challenging and decided that I would award it for reading for 1000 minutes. We were already keeping a log of minutes to keep us on track.

I ordered the trophy and the day it arrived she was so excited. I didn’t show it to her but told her she would get it once she hit 1,000 minutes. She immediately went to add up her minutes and told me she had a total of 930. I said to her, ‘well, we can make up the 70 minutes on the weekend and you get your trophy’. This was a Thursday. But Danielle insisted, ‘can we go read now, I want to make it up today.’ As tired as I was we went up and read for 70 minutes and I presented the trophy to her. The engraved plate read: Danielle 2018, Super Reader.’ She was so excited—she kissed it, hugged it, admired it over and over again. Mission accomplished!!!”

Danielle has since received another trophy: “Mighty Mathematician”, and a coupon for “Baking Cookies with Mom”.

It all goes to show—we can write the best program, but without YOU, mom or dad, we cannot help your child reach further and maybe get that next digit on their digit spans or become highly capable or WIN that trophy!

Way to go Danielle and family. You inspire!

P.S. – Danielle came to NACD having developmental delays. Her word recognition was at a 4.2 grade level and math at 4.5 grade level. She had an auditory digit span of 4-5, a reverse auditory digit span of 3 and a visual digit span of 6.

Now, 20 months later her word recognition is at 7.8, math at 8.2. She has an Auditory digit span of 8, Reverse auditory digit span of 7 and a Visual digit span of 10. 

NACD Newsletter, July 2018 ©NACD