Eventually, he agreed to come for a reassessment. We were delighted to learn that his word recognition and comprehension had increased two full grade levels and his spelling had increased one grade level. Reassured that he had been making steady gains, even though his commitment was very part-time, John came back to the program and was matched with a new tutor to provide some fresh ideas and enthusiasm.

He has been working with his new tutor for several months now and their work together has focused mainly on learning strategies for spelling the technical words required in his job. John is thrilled with his new ability to spell the words he must write on work orders. In fact he now finds co-workers approaching him for help with spelling. This of course has proved to be a real confidence booster and John is now much more confident about his abilities.

It would have been easy to give up on John when he quit, because he was so discouraged and determined to give up on himself. However, the extra effort by staff helped him through a tough patch when he might easily have thrown away his efforts of the past two years.

Jan Tries Again

Jan has been a student in our program for four years. She had only attended school for a few years as a child. Her goals were to open her own dayhome and to feel good about herself because she had never had a chance to learn. Jan, a single parent of four grown children was extremely shy and quiet when she first came into the program.

Unfortunately her first match did not work well, mostly because the tutor brought her own emotional problems to the lessons. Jan was at first worried about letting us know that she was not comfortable with the match and, later, after we broke the match she was reluctant to try again. However, after several phone calls from our staff she agreed to be re-matched.

This time she agreed to meet her new tutor, Anne, at our learning centre where we could provide more support. Anne is a