Insist on High Expectations

Riley has been seeing a reading tutor through an organisation that specialises in dyslexia for the last year. At the beginning of this term we had to switch to a different tutor, within the same organisation.

to reading this:

As you can see, this is a huge improvement in five weeks and I still don't have Photoshop.

I have no criticism for his first tutor, she is very knowledgable and professinal, as is his current tutor. The difference is that his current tutor recognised that Riley, if pushed a little bit, was capable of more. It turns out that she is right.

As a parent, I want all those who deal with my son to expect high expectations, to push him to achieve a little higher. I don't want his educators to be unrealistic in their expectations, but I want him to be always working towards the next level, not just plateauing at his current level. Educational psychologist, Vygotsky, termed this'the zone of proximal development', the distance between the actual development level and the potential development level. It is the teacher's role to ensure that children are supported to get to the next actual development level and one of the ways this is done is by having high expectations.

I will never accept anything but high expectations for my child again. I know that he is a bright boy, but he is not old enough, nor intrinsically motivated enough to challenge himself, so I have put this responsiblity on his teachers. It is a big responsibility and I will work with them to support this, but this is want I want and I will insist on it.