This is a success story actually about my 12-year-old granddaughter. After the first few weeks of her 6th grade I was called in for a conference. They told me that her reading and math was below her grade level and as they gave me their recommendations, Wow, was I shocked, since her mother had been an "A" student and an ACE speller all the way up through college. I went along with the teacher's advise and recommendations that my granddaughter be sent to special classes for 3 hours a day and that, that would be good enough to get her caught up before she went into middle school next year.

      Well, weeks added up to months and I could see hardly any improvement at all, I even at times observed her resentment for having to go off to a separate class away from her 6th grade friends and the teachers that she enjoyed being with.

      I woke up one morning and remembered what had happened to me a few years back. When I first became a Scientology I had came to the conclusion while reading the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (which I found absolutely fascinating) that if I was confused or "I just didn't get it" I had just politely skipped on by a word or phrase which I really didn't understand. So with this thought in mind I looked at my granddaughter and said, what does "splint" mean (taking a word she had missed from her spelling list)? She said, "I don't know, its a stick or something."

      That morning I called the Applied Scholastic Academy in our area. After taking her in for some testing they found her was reading was at a 3rd grade level but she was only comprehending fully more at 1st grade level. They advised tutoring to get her reading and math skills up to where they should be for her age group. Now, after just 6 weeks of 2 hours a day (and daily 35-mile round trips, I might add) she is reading fluently and comprehending at least 2 grade levels above where she had been. Now she figures the cost of sodas and chips out before she goes in the quick stop shops to make sure I've given her enough money. Earlier in the school year her plans for the future were to get married, have a house, and have babies. Now she is asking about how to go to college and becoming a baby doctor.