How Do You Know When You’re Done Providing Extra Learning Support For Your Kid?
It’s 4:15 on a Tuesday, crumbs of cheddar Goldfish stick to the vinyl kitchen table, and my coffee’s been sitting long enough to grow a thin skin. I reach for the faded blue unicorn folder that’s lived in our homework drawer for two years, the one that holds Lila’s Orton-Gillingham word cards and progress tracking sheets. Before I can pull it out, she shoves her math workbook closed and pushes her chair back so hard it scrapes the baseboard. “I’m not doing word cards today,” she says. “I want to read my Wings of Fire book instead.”
For two years, that folder came out every weekday after snack. It started in first grade, when her teacher pulled me aside after conferences and said Lila was mixing up letter sounds, couldn’t keep up with her reading group. We got a dyslexia evaluation, started weekly tutoring, and committed to 20 minutes of daily practice at home. It became such a routine I didn’t even think to question it anymore. I was waiting for the day her test scores hit exactly at grade level, the line the IEP had drawn as our goal. Once she hit that mark, I’d know we were done.
When she said no that Tuesday, I was irritated first. I reminded her we only had 20 minutes, that skipping would make all the progress we’d made slip. She crossed her arms, her cheeks pink, and said “I can read the words in my book. I don’t need these stupid little cards anymore.” I sat back, my spoon hovering over my cold coffee, and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d looked up from the routine to notice what was actually happening.
For a month before that, she’d been making excuses. She’d take three bathroom breaks, she’d “accidentally” leave the folder at school, we’d end up rushing through practice with half her attention anyway. I’d written it off as normal 3rd grade restlessness. But I also knew she’d been hiding her graphic novel under her pillow, staying up 15 minutes past bedtime every night to read it. She’d written a three-sentence invitation to her friend’s birthday party the week before, no help from me, only one spelling mistake that she caught and fixed on her own. Those were the exact things we’d been working toward, right? I’d just been too focused on hitting that test score line to see them.
I did what I should have done months earlier: I sat down and asked her specific questions, not just “are you tired?” I said, “Is the practice not helping anymore, or are you just sick of it?” She said the cards were all boring words she didn’t care about, and when she’s reading a story she cares about, she can sound out the hard words fine. She said she’d rather spend that 20 minutes just reading what she wanted. That made sense. We made a compromise: we’d cut the word cards, and every night she could read one page out loud to me if she wanted, no pressure. If she got stuck on a word, I’d help, but that was it.
I was terrified for the first month. I kept waiting for her teacher to email me and say her fluency dropped, that she was falling back behind. I checked her reading scores in the online portal once a week, a habit I’d never had before. When we went in for her quarterly check-in with her teacher, she leaned across the table and smiled, said Lila was participating more in group reading than she ever had, that her fluency had actually gone up five levels in the last quarter. That’s when I started to figure out the concrete rules for knowing when you’re done, that don’t involve staring at a test score.
It turns out there are small, simple checks you can do, no formal testing required. First, just watch for three days: does your kid use the skill we’re supporting on their own, for fun or for something they care about? If they’re reading independently, or counting their own allowance to buy a game, or writing notes to their friends without being told, that’s a bigger signal of success than any number. The whole point of extra support was to get them to the point where they can do that, right? Second, count how many fights you have about the practice in a week. If it’s more than one, and that’s been the pattern for a month, the stress of the fight is erasing any gains you’re getting. I lost count of how many nights I sent Lila to dinner upset over word cards, and that’s not worth a couple of extra points on a test. Third, ask your kid three specific questions: What’s the hardest part of [reading, math, handwriting, whatever the skill is] for you right now? Do you need my help with that, or can you handle it on your own? What would you rather do with the time we spend on extra practice? That gives you real answers, not just generic kid complaining. I’ve had other parents tell me their kid said they just wanted more time to play outside after school, and that was all the answer they needed.
It’s been six months since we pushed the blue unicorn folder to the back of the homework drawer. Last week, Lila read a whole chapter of a chapter book out loud to her little sister while I made dinner, no long pauses, no stumbles, no asking for help. I still catch myself sometimes, wondering if I quit too soon. If I should pull the folder back out, start the practice again to make sure she stays on track. But then I see her curled up on the couch after school, book in her lap, laughing at the dialogue, and I remember: the goal wasn’t to get her to a specific number on a test. The goal was to get her to the point where she wanted to read on her own.
We’re done for now. If she hits a hard spot next year, when books get longer and words get harder, we can always start again. That’s the thing no one tells you: being done doesn’t have to be forever.
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