Last September, my son Josh began the first grade. During the first week of school, I e-mailed his teacher to say that I had some concerns about this well-mannered and bright child. I wanted her to know that I anticipated that he would have trouble learning to read, and that while I couldn’t put my finger exactly on the problem, I had a hunch that something was going on.

I wrote to her that my style was to stay a step behind my children, and that instead of rushing to evaluate and tutor him from the getgo, I would await her advice. Maybe he would outgrow whatever learning issues I seemed to have noticed.

As much as I was reassured that my son’s teacher had been working with first-graders for decades, I was put even more at ease when Josh was placed in a small reading group that met in the school’s resource center — a group that was taught by a learning specialist. Fantastic, I thought.

That was until the day in November when parent/teacher conferences arrived. The learning specialist joined us for the conference and I was eager to hear what she had to say. Nothing could have prepared me for the moment, though, when I asked her what she thought was going on with Josh, who still couldn’t read a basic sentence.

“You know,” she said as she looked at me blankly, “what do you think is going on with Josh?” Was I in therapy? If I could have throttled her neck, I would have. Josh was winning chess tournaments, but couldn’t rhyme the word “dog” with an “L” word. He couldn’t phonetically sound out a word. He couldn’t tell me which came first — brushing teeth, eating dinner, or going to bed. Nearly three months into the school year, the learning specialist didn’t have a clue what was wrong.

I was livid — and worried.

But as so many city parents already know, there is a whole world out there of specialists who are ready, willing, and able to evaluate your child and figure out the best course of action.

One of these specialists told me that she hears my story every day. “The majority of the city schools — both private and public — really aren’t equipped to deal with learning issues,” she said. “They think they are, but bottom line, they aren’t. The teachers are better at finding behavioral issues in their students, because of course these children are disrupting class. Often those children are also struggling to deal with learning issues. But the quiet, well-behaved students who can’t read or write or follow instructions? Those are the kids that fall between the cracks at even the finest schools.”

When I had Josh evaluated a few weeks later, his weaknesses, which had seemed amorphous and devastating to me, were in fact limited and easily pinpointed. Josh has difficulty with auditory processing. He has trouble sequencing. His language retrieval skills are weak. He has trouble following a series of instructions. All of these skills, as well as his reading, nearly a year later, are vastly improved.

One mother of two, whose son has mild learning disabilities, told me that despite the fact that her son attends a private, all-boys school famous for its ability to work with children with these issues, she still doesn’t rely on the school for counsel. “The school’s main job is to educate hundreds of boys,” she said. “The schools fit these kids into their systems and do the best they can for all of them. The only person who really cares about your child is you.”

A mother of four, who has teenagers and toddlers, told me that she regrets not having advocated for her oldest, as she now does for her third and fourth children. “You are the only advocate your kid has,” she said. “If you think any teacher, tutor or school official cares as much about your child’s welfare half as much as you do, you’re kidding yourself; and if you think that just because you’ve forked over $25,000 to your child’s school they’re going to be on top of your child’s problems — again, you’re kidding yourself. You need to tell the schools what they need to be doing to help your child. And if you don’t know, go figure it out.”

I might still stay a step behind my children, because I do believe that many of the concerns I have for my children are developmental and will work themselves out with the passage of time. But I’ll no longer wait for anyone to tell me when the time is right. If I did, I might still be waiting.

sarasberman@aol.com