I mentioned recently that Mira was evaluated for gifted identification. She’s a bright kid, and her abilities in class – when she’s focused – made her teacher think it was worth the time to check.

We received the results this weekend. In the letter, it explained the testing methods used and provided her scores. Based on her scores, she’s not identified as gifted in math, which I thought would be her strongest skill. However, she did score high in reading, and has been identified as gifted in reading. Surprise, surprise! The girl who refused to read for SO long, saying that she wasn’t good in reading and Cordy was the “reader” among them is actually a very good reader.

She was also given a cognitive abilities test, and while she didn’t score high enough to meet the cutoff for “superior cognitive,” she was only a few points away. It’s possible she’ll be re-tested in a couple of years.

Overall, I’m proud of Mira, even if I am somewhat pleasantly surprised by the results of her evaluation.

Here’s what confuses me, though: how can a child who reads so well have so much trouble with spelling?

She reads out loud to me, and while she stumbles on some of the harder words, she still makes a good attempt at reading them the way it looks like they should sound. But have her read a word several times, then ask her to spell that word without looking at it? She can’t.

I know she’s reading at too fast of a speed to still be sounding out each word. She automatically recognizes the order of the letters and knows the word. So why is she unable to rely on that recognition for spelling?

This was her most recent spelling test. While this one was particularly bad, because she told us she liked to study on the bus and not with us (and wasn’t studying), even the spelling tests she studies for have several missed words.

Ouch.

She has fantastic ideas she wants to get down on paper, but is often held back by writing unintelligible sentences. Can you decode this one?

This was from the start of 1st grade. “I will take care of my bunny, like feed it.”

Or this one?

From Friday – the team name is “Zeus’ Thunder”

It’s like some kind of spelling-only dyslexia. Or possibly a remnant left over from when she had speech apraxia as a toddler and preschooler. Her speech is still a little hard to understand at times, so maybe when she sounds out a word, she’s writing it using the sounds she still substitutes for the correct sounds?

I was never the world’s best speller, either, but I don’t remember struggling this much. I’m not sure how to help her, other than drilling her spelling words over and over again, which she finds utterly boring. (And I understand – it is boring!) Mira seems frustrated with it, but she also prefers to act like it’s no big deal and hide her frustration. I’m planning to ask her teacher for advice on how to better handle spelling when we meet for parent-teacher conferences later this week.

Does anyone else have experience with a good reader who has a difficult time with spelling? Is it just something that will eventually “click” for her, or will it at least get better?

Earlier this year, interest forms were sent out about forming a Daisy scout troop in our area. Mira had been wanting to join Girl Scouts since last year, and we nearly joined at the start of summer, but the troop we were matched up with abruptly dissolved before she could attend her first meeting. When this second chance presented itself, she begged me to sign her up for it.

Mira’s Daisy Scout vest (I still need to iron on 2 more petals that she’s earned – oops!)

I was excited that she wanted to join Girl Scouts. I was a Brownie scout when I was in elementary school. (I don’t think they had Daisy scouts back then?) It was a fairly large troop, and I remember making crafts and going to day camp in the summer. I probably would have been in Girl Scouts longer had our troop leader not moved away. It was the only troop in my small town, so when she left, our Girl Scout troop dissolved, just as many of us were bridging to Juniors.

When Mira had first expressed interest, I dug through some boxes and pulled out my old Girl Scout Handbook. She didn’t believe I was once a Girl Scout, too, so I proved it with my circa 1977 edition of the handbook:

I didn’t notice it as a kid, but I love the diversity in this book’s images. Pretty awesome for a 1977 printing!

This troop did get started in the fall, and Mira is now a proud Daisy scout. She’s competitive, so she is determined to earn as many badges as she can. Daisy scouts are kindergarteners and first graders, so she’s one of the older girls in her group.

And then earlier this month, the Girl Scout cookie drive started. I don’t know why I thought that Mira might not care all that much about selling cookies, because I was utterly wrong. She carefully looked over the materials, especially studying the prizes earned at each level, and then announced she was going to sell 1,000 boxes of cookies.

Um…that’s the spirit, kid? How do you tell your child to aim lower with her goals?

I didn’t want to tell her that her goal was too high, but I also didn’t want her to be disappointed if/when she didn’t reach that goal. Because selling that many boxes of cookies is not an easy task. Aaron and I have plenty of friends, but not THAT many people we can hit up for cookie orders.

So I gently tried to explain just how many boxes that was, and how many people would have to order to reach that goal. I encouraged her to keep that goal in her mind, but to also set a lower goal that she’d still feel proud about reaching. Basically, a minimum goal. She settled on 300 boxes. Still awfully high, but not nearly as impossible.

For the past two weeks, she’s brought up selling cookies everywhere she’s been. She’s tried to sell cookies to cashiers in stores, to people in waiting rooms, and of course to friends and family. She’s had the best luck with friends and family, of course.

She sat next to me while I posted cookie order announcements on Facebook, checking in with me later to see who placed orders. She’s asked Aaron at least every other day if he gathered any new orders for her at his office. Mira is determined to be the World’s Best Cookie Seller, and I am the mom who is required to have the order form with me everywhere we go. Really, Aaron and I are her unpaid interns, I think.

She’s not going to make her big goal, but she has a shot at making her smaller goal. I’ll give her credit for having drive and persistence. The order forms are due later today, and she’s at just over 200 boxes ordered. Hopefully she’ll have the chance to participate in some booth sales in March to supplement her total and reach that goal of 300.

This is my first time on the mom side of Girl Scout cookie sales, and I have a new appreciation for my mom, for her efforts helping me sell cookies as a kid. So far it hasn’t been too hard, although I realize the real work begins when we have to pack the SUV full of cookies to deliver. But it’s worth it if Mira is happy and hopefully learning something from the experience.

(Side note: I’m turning in the forms today at 3pm. If you’d like to order cookies, let me know before then and I can get your order in. $4/box, and we can mail them out to long-distance friends if they cover shipping. The things we do for our kids…)