How is she really doing?

The question of every parent of course.. but perhaps even more for the parent of a child that was born deaf, started hearing later in life and is now catching up..
Actually.... is Lotte really catching up..??

Homework always seems, or feels, a sort of reference for what Lotte should be able to do. There's a feeling that when a she has a problem with her homework it means that she's behind.
However.. we need to step back, think back to the last meeting we had with the school and remember that she's at above average level.
She's doing fine compared to the rest of the class.. perhaps she would be at a higher level had she not been born deaf, but that is totally irrelevant. She is exactly where she should be.. She doesn't need to be able to know everything..

With this school year there's a change in education. Like Lotte's mother said:

It's no longer "Learning to read.".. it's "Reading to learn."   !!

And that is a difficult transition. We are aware that she reads words, sentences, but she's not thinking about what she reads.. At school they work on that, learning to read & understand the title, look & understand the pictures, think about it, start reading, make metal maps etc.. But its a lot to process...

Many unknown concepts..
Like "They thought the earth was the center of the orbit of the sun."
Who is "they"..? - What is "center"? - What is "orbit"? One sentence read without problems, but not understood...

BUT... is she supposed to understand.? How many other children have problems with the same concepts?
That's something we need to keep in our mind..... we only see Lotte.... we should look at the level of other children as well.. The problems she has might be a general problem at that age in that class...

It's important for us to realise this as the last thing we want to do is push Lotte too much and making her feel as if she is failing, and thereby losing her interest in school and homework.
Because.. we are lucky with that.
Lotte loves to go to school, likes doing homework, likes reading...
A little bit of frustration at times of course but also the joy of overcoming difficulties and succeeding in difficult tasks.. You cannot have the one without the other..

So.. again we will prepare homework in the weekend, structure better when we are going to do what homework. Have the homework done before she starts visiting friends..
All promises we made before, but that dilute in the daily life where parents are sometimes not home when she is done with school.
Parents that let her play with friends instead of insisting that she comes home first, that have to choose between social activities in the street vs academic activities..
Parents that look back in history to see where Lotte comes from and are looking into the future where Lotte is headed.. Trying not to look where she is NOW.
Parents that know that it will be all right in the long run..
Parents that realise that ...

Lotte is exactly where she should be..