The Median Sib

The second week of school, Stevie’s third grade teacher stopped me in the hall. “What do you know about Stevie? He can’t read at all!”

What do I know about Stevie? Cute, stringy blonde hair that falls into his eyes, quirky endearing grin, and a struggling reader. I worked with him all last year. He started off second grade as a non-reader. That means he couldn’t read at all. Zilch. We had GEIT (General Education Intervention Team) meetings with his mom and every specialist imaginable to work out a plan to help him learn to read. And it worked. At the end of the year I gave him the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment), and he scored WELL at Level 20 (a beginning second grade level). It was great progress for one year, and I felt encouraged about continuing that great progress to bring him up to grade level by the end of third grade. He would be a part of the third grade reading group that would begin in a couple weeks.

However, the beginning of third grade wasn’t starting off very well. After talking with his new teacher, I pulled Stevie out of class to talk.

“How was your summer? Tell me about it.”
“Fine. I went swimming.”
“Tell me about what you read this summer.”
“I didn’t read anything. I didn’t have any books.”
“You haven’t read anything at all since school was out in May?”
“I didn’t have any books.”

No reading at all for two and a half months - ten weeks of not looking at a single book.

I thought back to the last GEIT meeting in May. His mother had talked about how much she worked with him at home and how much she would continue to work with him. I didn’t believe it then, and I sure don’t believe it now.

I gave him the DRA again using the Alternative Text set. He struggled to barely make it to Level 14. I felt like crying. I doubt he felt much better.

FIVE MINUTES! Even five minutes of time each day during the summer of his mom or dad reading with him might have helped Stevie not lose the gains he made in second grade. Is five minutes too much time to ask parents to spend reading with their children? They took him swimming. He visited his grandparents. He played ball. Did they spend time arranging for and taking him to those activities? Where are their priorities? I don’t think reading with their child made it to their priority list - even at the bottom. The idea simply doesn’t appear on their radar.

So now I work with Stevie each day. He’s so far below the other struggling readers in third grade that I work with him by himself. I gave him a book bag, and I make sure that he takes home three or four of my books each evening. I can’t control whether or not his parents read with him at home, but at least I can make sure that the “I didn’t have any books to read” excuse is not valid for him again this year, and I can make sure that he reads a lot at school.

Okay. I TOLD you here and here about how St. Joseph has helped me sell houses - within 24 hours of burying the statue in my favorite place in the yard. Now, it seems that others agree with me.

Joseph, the carpenter husband of the Virgin Mary, is the patron saint of laborers and house hunters, among others. The belief that St. Joseph aids home sellers traces back to St. Teresa of Avila, a nun in the 16th century who buried a medal of the saint and prayed to him to help get land for convents. The ritual seemed to work, and the practice, or variations of it, spread.

The modern tradition in the United States dates back at least four decades and is believed to have first gained in popularity on the heavily Catholic East Coast.

“In times of crisis, people try anything,” said the Rev. Harvey Egan, a professor in Boston Colleges theology department. “Many people turn to God or they turn to the saints or they turn to religion in times of crisis. It shouldn’t be like that, but that’s the way it is.”

Phil Cates, whose StJosephStatue.com of Modesto, Calif., offers 4- and 8-inch white statues, said he expects his business to grow 200 percent to 250 percent this year over 2005. Roman Inc. of Addison, Ill., which sells four styles to stores, has seen its sales increase 33 percent this year, chief executive Dan Loughman said.

The Society for the Propagation of the Faith of Boston, which runs a small store downtown, reported no trouble getting rid of its monthly supply of 100 statues or more.

“It’s going gangbusters now,” Loughman said. “I think it’s just tough times in the real estate market that’s driving them mostly.”

Demand isn’t limited to Catholic homeowners or real estate agents.
“We look at St. Joseph as really a nondenominational saint,” Cates said. “I think that what St. Joseph is about is about wakening the hopefulness in people. That hopefulness can lead to expectations, can instill confidence. We all know that confidence has led to miracles throughout the centuries.”

John Stastny of Denton, Texas, said his Catholic faith — and faith in the St. Joseph ritual — helped him sell two homes in Colorado. He is now trying to sell his current home without a real estate agent and expects his old, white St. Joseph statue to come through again.

“I think it helps me build my confidence that I can do it, and I know I can,” he said. “If you have faith in anything, you can accomplish quite a bit.”

Homeowner Diana Grammont is not Catholic but decided to give St. Joseph a try after her friend sold a home within a week of following the ritual. Grammont and her husband buried a painted, china statue upside down in the front yard of their Lexington home, which has been on the market since the summer began.

“Who knows what will come of it? It’s worth a try,” she said. “We’re just both kind of open to possibility.”

We’ll be selling RT’s cabin soon, and you can be sure my so-far-100%-lucky St. Joseph statue will be put to use again.

In past years, I’ve felt rather badly for the first team to be eliminated in “The Amazing Race.” Sunday night I actually cheered. Guess Allah wasn’t willing.