HELP! I've been hired to teach LD...

Hi Susan My name is Melanie I wish that I could tell you all of the answers but I am in exactly in the same situation. There is such great need for special ed teachers that I also took the job. Altough I do have my endorsement in LD I still feel unprepared. I am learning from another teacher at my school who recomended the book called receipe for reading to me I wish that i could tell you who it is by but I can not. I have started using it with my students and it is really working very well. The book focuses on students who can not read and sounding out the letters. This teacher that gave me the book taught her dislexic son how to read from this. So I am recommending it to you. hope this helps and please let me know if you hear of anything good!
Melanie

cannot is one word

My son is in resource room and if as young teachers you cannot spell you are in the wrong profession.

I have run into quite a few ld teachers who cannot spell and I have had to correct my son’s spelling words he brings home.

LD TEACHERS PLEASE LEARN TO SPELL BEFORE YOU TEACH ANYONE!!!!!!!

after all our nation and world has been through this week…. :-(

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.
To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

Marie Sklodwoska Curie

Hi Susan (and Melanie!) ~ for some constructive help … . Reading Reflex is written by two people named McGuinness, it’s readily available thru Amazon.com. If you log onto the bulletin board on Teaching Reading to LD kids, many people there use it and like it. The first thing to do is to read the kids IEP’s and files and see what their objectives are for this upcoming year. Go into your classroom and see what kinds of materials are there. If most of the kids were seen by the sped. teacher last year, there should be files on them somehwhere in the room, hopefully. Try to start there and see what was being used with them last year. If you find them, start the kids off with the same thing they did last year for the first few weeks while you get to know them. If not, find out who their classroom teachers were last year, and see what they can tell you. Chances are, this year’s teachers haven’t had enough time to get to know the kids very well yet. Sit with another sped. teacher in the building, or, if you’re it, your district’s sped. director and have him/her walk you through the IEP’s, so you understand what they mean, what the classroom modifications are, what the standardized testing modifications are, when the annual review and, if scheduled for this year, the triennial review is, etc. Spend the first 2-3 days, if possible, observing the kids in their classrooms, and then gradually pull them into your room in small groups so they can get to know you slowly. Teaching is teaching ~ remember to go slowly, as these kids take more time to learn new information and retain it than the kids you probably student taught with. Break things down into the smallest possible increment when teaching it, and plan for plenty of review. Keep your directions simple, and your examples concrete. Use manipulative whenever possible, obviously with math, but even with other subjects. With the little guys you can use lots of games, stories, and fun projects to teach concepts as well. Come up with a few basic rules, such as keep hands and feet to yourself, listen to others while they’re speaking, etc., and discuss them with the kids. Have them practice these rules, and decide on consequences (being 5-10 minutes late to recess is very powerful at this age!)
Good luck! Feel free to e-mail me with specific questions ~ I’d be happy to answer any questions! Jenn

I was honestly trying to be helpful. These boards are full of spelling, punctuation and grammar errors, most of which I ignore. The nature of the internet makes it so tempting to dash off a quick message without proofreading that mistakes are abundant. In this case, a very basic error was repeated twice in a very short message leading me to believe that the writer really does not know that cannot was one word. This is one of those nasty little errors that spell-check will not catch. If no one ever points this out to her, how will she improve?

Spelling is not my strong suit either. As an adult, one of those “nitpickers” taught me a rule exception that I never learned in school. The possessive form of the word “it” is not spelled with an apostrophe in order to distinguish it from the contraction for it is. Was I embarrassed? Absolutely! However, I am eternally grateful to this individual for teaching me something I did not know. You can be sure that I have not made that error since!

Like Lisa I have seen my share of sped teachers who do not have adequate writing skills. I am particularly sensitive to this since one of my children is in resource classes specifically because of writing issues. I only wish the problem were restricted to sped teachers.

I don’t believe it is necessary to be a great speller to be a teacher. However, I do believe it is extremely important to be a good role model for your students by always editing your own written work as carefully as possible. After all, that is what is expected of the students!!! If I were ever a teacher, I might confess my shortcoming and make sure I used the dictionary in full view often! I might also encourage my students to point out my errors to me (politely, of course!)

At home, in addition to regularly consulting a dictionary, I make a point of asking my husband to proofread my important letters and documents. He asks me to do the same for him. I make sure my children are within ear-shot when we do this. I want them to understand the importance of producing written work that is as technically accurate as possible.

We have a young teacher at our school this year who has just been assigned to her first classroom. She is so excited! This lovely woman has been working in our school system for two years waiting for a teaching position to open up. Unfortunately, her notes home have been written so poorly that the parents have felt compelled to bring the problem to the attention of her principal. The principal was shocked. Don’t ask me how she survived two years as a classroom aid/substitute teacher without someone pointing out the problem to her. Perhaps people were just being polite. She must now take additional classes to improve her writing skills and every piece of writing she produces must be reviewed by the principal before it is sent home to parents. If she does not improve significantly, she will not have a job next year. I bet she now wishes that people were not so “polite” in the past. Perhaps if she were aware of how poor her skills were she would have made efforts to improve on her own before she was ever assigned a classroom.

that you buy the book “Reading Reflex” for $16. This would be extremely helpful for teaching reading to K-3. It is available from most local bookstores, or online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other sources. Authors are McGuiness and McGuiness. There is a support website at http://www.readamerica.net.

For math facts, I strongly recommend the tutoring kits from Math Facts the Fun Way. The workbooks are copiable. The addition kit (which includes the workbook) and subtraction cards would probably come to about $50. The same price would apply to the multiplication kit, but you probably wouldn’t need that for K-3, except maybe for mid-year grade 3. Our school’s sped teacher has found this approach to be very easy and very effective. Website is http://www.citycreek.com

Mary

Most people on this board are understanding and very helpful. There are a few though who fly off the handle right away and are quick to criticize. Why?
Do we want others to share freely on this board? I do.
I hope those that are teachers are compassionate and patient towards their students. That’s how I would want my child’s teacher to be.

Susan,

I hope hint doesn’t read all my posts I am sure I make errors too.

Good luck to you and I admire you doing your best to get some advise.

I realized long ago that there was no value in criticizing our son’s resource teacher for not being to able to spell. She shared with me that she herself also has her own LD issues.

And you know what? She understands my LD (poor-spelling) child better than others he’s worked with before. She’s been exactly where he is… She knows what he feels…. Having this weakness turns out to be a strength.

Spelling is not a personality characteristic. It will not make or break a resource teacher’s ability to provide a supportive educational environment for our LD children. In fact, it is more likely to send a message that a person that can’t spell can succeed and make a meaningful contribution in the work world.

Evaluate the teacher’s contribution based on their success at meeting your child’s special educational needs and building your child’s self-confidence — not their ability (or lack of ability) to spell.

Perhaps you are responding to Lisa’s post? If you read mine you might realize that I agree with most of what you say.

I do not believe that one must be a spelling whiz to be a good teacher.

I ignore most spelling errors I run across on the internet.

I ignored 4 other spelling errors and a host of other errors in Melanie’s message. (Not trying to be mean, sorry Melanie, just making a point.) These looked more like typing errors and a quickly dashed, unedited note than a lack of knowledge. The two instances of cannot spelled as “can not” seemed different though I could be wrong.

I decided to comment on the “can nots” because it is something that a 3rd grade teacher should know. If no one ever points it out, how can the problem be corrected? I have just watched one poor soul pay dearly for her inability to write a technically correct note to the parents of her students. Like it or not, many people will judge a teacher’s intelligence and qualifications to teach at least in part by how well or poorly they write. Maybe she will turn out to be a terrific teacher, who knows? Regardless, if the powers that be are not satisfied with her progress over this year, she will be out of a job. I’m sure she would rather have had someone other than her principal be the one who had to point out the problem to her (and take action.)

I have no problem with a teacher who has learning disabilities. If they have made it to the teaching profession, I hope that means they have found a way to overcome or work around their areas of difficulty. If so, they would be invaluable to my children, if not, how can they help them?

I am sorry my post upset some of the board members. I am a single parent of a 9 yr old ld boy who is mostly mainstreamed and pulled out for language arts which in his school includes reading, spelling and grammar. My concern is not that this teacher made one mistake posting to the board but that ld teachers take care of what they send home with students. If my son gets a list of 10 spelling words and two words are spelled incorrect I do not want him to learn them incorrectly. Special Ed teachers are needed but my point is that they are careful to proof assignments given to these children. My son gets his spelling list on Monday morning and if some words are spelled incorrectly he is working with this list for one hour in school. By the time he comes home a mistake of a specific word can be already reinforced in his mind. It could take me two days to undo this error by a teacher who should be checking her own work. My time is better spent on real problem other then something like this.

I am sorry if anyone got offended

Lisa

Susan,

How wonderful that you are asking for help!!! I am the parent of an LD child and my advice would be to talk to the parents of your students.

We parents may not know the ins and outs of running a classroom but we do know our kids and all their strengths and weaknesses. We also have lots of experience with what works and what doesn’t work.

A lot of us do our homework and really research our child’s disability and we have a lot of very valuable information to give you. So when we hand you the latest 30 page research on our child’s disability understand that we are not trying to say you are inadequate and we are not trying to tell you what to do - we just want you to understand and use that understanding to help our child.

IEPs can be difficult but I would concentrate most on writing good goals - ones that are clear and measurable and address the unique needs of each specific child.

Don’t fall into the trap that many teachers do of assuming these children cannot learn/will never learn, or cannot progress like their normal peers. These children are learning disabled - not mentally retarded. They are often gifted in areas that academics don’t touch - they are creative and bright but they are also frustrated and tense because their school experience has often not been a successful one.

And most importantly - use a good reading program - one that is explicit, sequential and phonics based! There is no better service you can do for your LD students than to give them the gift of reading!!!!!

Thanks for your time and good luck!!!!

Pam

In the area of reading: the kids can “over learn” words. They can write it, trace it, write it “in the air” with their fingers, trace it in a sand tray, write it with glue or paint.

Math: use TouchMath (the system with the dots on the numerals, three dots on the three, four on the four, etc.)

IEPs: assess the kids as much as you can. The assessment instruments can be harder than they look…even the Woodcock. Make sure that they train you. I know a school psych who does “trial runs” for an assessment with neighbor kids, non special ed and he slips them a few bucks. Several times, I used the WJR incorrectly.

Get training for the IEPs. Insist on this. Have a senior person PRESENT during the meeting. Could be an RSP or a School Psych or a Program Manager. You will especially need help writing goals.

John

In the area of reading: the kids can “over learn” words. They can write it, trace it, write it “in the air” with their fingers, trace it in a sand tray, write it with glue or paint.

Math: use TouchMath (the system with the dots on the numerals, three dots on the three, four on the four, etc.)

IEPs: assess the kids as much as you can. The assessment instruments can be harder than they look…even the Woodcock. Make sure that they train you. I know a school psych who does “trial runs” for an assessment with neighbor kids, non special ed and he slips them a few bucks. Several times, I used the WJR incorrectly.

Get training for the IEPs. Insist on this. Have a senior person PRESENT during the meeting. Could be an RSP or a School Psych or a Program Manager. You will especially need help writing goals.

John

My dictionary *defines* “cannot” as: can not.

If correcting spelling would mean that the original errant writer would henceforth spell correctly, I’d consider it. However, it’s been my experience that spelling habits at the basic level are generally a lot harder to break. I spell well, so my four or five mistakes a year are memorable and I usually learn from them.

I resist the urge to say “Double the m in accommodations” or “get your yores right” — because I sat and thought about all the more productive things I could be doing.

There’s also a real difference between a message posted to a board and something I’ll hand out to students. Again, time often being of the essence, I will let rampant typos by… assingmnets, on the other hand, are a different story :)

It’s a sad fact that some of the folks trying to teach our kids don’t have the skills they’re supposed to be teaching. While it’s commendable to rise above one’s challenges, it’s also not fair to pretend that since spelling is not a personality characteristic, it is also not valued. I wouldn’t make blanket statements about a poor speller (even poor to the point of teaching incorrect spelling) being in the wrong profession, but it’s definitely a yellow flag. What else is this teacher passing off as “instruction?”

http://www.resourceroom.net

The people who “nitpick” about spelling typicaly don’t have a creative thought in their head. They are [at least] good at spelling. If they were not, they wouldn’t have a job. So let’s hear it for the good spellers… yea!! My chalenge to you good spellers… take an IQ test! If spelling ability is so important it will put you on top of the list, otherwise you’ll just fall into place where you belong… somewhere in the middle (maybe even in the lower 50%) If you haven’t figured it out yet, spelling ability is not related to intelligence. unless you spell well… then you believe it is the KEY to intelligence because it is the only thing you do well and because you suffer from “fundamental attribution error” and need to feel important. But hey, I might have spelled a few of my words incorrectly, in which case those of you who are good spellers can simply dimiss my message, because it wasn’t spelled correctly.

…when folks respond so emotionally to a post without even trying to comprehend its meaning. Spelling is obviously a very touchy subject.

I will repeat once again, I DO NOT SPELL WELL. If IQ is really a good measure of intelligence, I am highly intelligent.

If my intention were to insult poor spellers, I would be insulting myself. If I thought poor spellers where stupid, then I would believe I am stupid.

I have to put great effort into my writing when I want to ensure that it is technically correct. When I feel it is important that readers take me seriously, I do the very best I can. I know that many people will make gut level judgments, based not only what I have to say, but how it is presented. Perhaps this is not fair but it is fact. That piece of writing may take me lots of extra time, but I feel it is worth the effort to make sure my words will be respected.

Like it or not, teachers are role models. I get butterflies in my stomach when I see writing by a teacher full of basic errors. I am NOT talking about typos. I see it all the time, in school and out. If my experience were limited to messages on the internet, I might not worry about it as much. I believe that many things readily habit, including sloppy writing. I assume that is why Language Arts teachers “nit-pick” their students. They want their students to get in the habit of producing careful writing.

I get the same queasy feeling when I realize my child’s science teacher does not really know much about science, the social studies teacher knows no more history than is written in the textbook, the Spanish teacher knows little Spanish and the elementary classroom teacher does not understand basic math concepts. I have experienced all of these things repeatedly in our highly respected school system. Judging only by my own personal experience, the special education teachers appear to be the least prepared overall.

Honestly, spelling is not the most important thing to me, not by far. I much more scared at the number of posts I see here and elsewhere by teachers who are about to be faced with a room full of students and say that they have no idea what they should do to teach them. I applaud these teachers for reaching out and looking for help but that does not make me any less scared. When these short notes are poorly written as well, it just makes me want to cry.

With great regret, I have had to remove my children from public school and place them in a private setting. I felt great sadness as I did this because I truly believe in the idea of public schools. I finally had to admit to myself that the public schools are not currently in a position to help my children.

In the end, what did me in was nit picking combined with general defensiveness. My children were nit picked, despite what was written in their IEPs. I was nit picked. BUT the schools and teachers could not be questioned or held accountable for their own errors. My kids were becoming very aware of this state of affairs. As most children do, mine have a very black and white sense of fair play. Not only were they not learning as they should have, but they were becoming very angry and depressed and feeling very helpless. What else could I do?

Until we remove spelling and writing skills from school curriculums, I will have to expect teachers to be able to produce a correctly written paragraph when necessary. Though I have sympathy for those who struggle with this task, as I and my children do, I do not see how parents can accept less.

While we are at nit picking…

Miscrosoft Word seems to prefer that this term be written as two words with no hyphen. Does anyone here know for sure how this should be written? I couldn’t find it in the dictionary I have on hand and my kids seems to have misplaced my collegiate dictionary. Knowing when to and when not to hyphenate is definitely a problem for me. I would love any hints or general rules on this topic anyone has to offer.

In the mean time, I’d better go try to find that dictionary since I am helpless without it.

Exactly my opinion also. If a teacher does not know the subject they are teaching backwards and forwards they just do not have any business being in the classroom. Spelling is my problem also but I do try to check my work so that errors are not evident . I do not expect teachers to be great spellers but I do expect them to check there work when they are teaching my children. I do not want my son to learn think incorrectly. Also one other problem I have run accross came home with my son this week. His teacher handed out times tables and it looking at the chart I found 2 mistakes. As far as I am concerned that is 2 too many.

Lisaa

Many times, when I worked as a substitute, the instructions from the classroom teacher said to start the morning by taking role.

“Calendar” was posted on the wall as “calender.”

Numerous spelling mistakes in Spanish from native speakers teaching bilingual elementary in Spanish…here I am a gringo and I pick up their spelling errors.

If you are a substitute, classroom teachers do not take kindly to anything you say to correct them. They sometimes think of the sub as a glorified waiter or something.

There are teachers out there that are just plain lazy!

John

I agree, at least in part with what you are saying, but it does depend on circumstance. Are we talking about students or teachers here?

If I were dealing with an LD student, depending on that student, I might agree that there are more important things than pushing spelling at a particular time, or even ever.

I was speaking about teachers though. Is it not important that teachers at least model correct spelling for their pupils? I am very visual. I can often see that a word is spelled incorrectly even if I cannot come up with the correct spelling from memory. I wonder if I would be able to do that if I had grown up seeing as many misspellings on a daily basis as my children do.

My visual intuition makes me go back and re-read the sentence to make sure I have understood what is said. That is what happens to me when I read misspellings of the basic variety, I do not comprehend the sentence. If I run across an incorrect their, there, they’re, two, to, too, etc. I usually read the meaning, rather than the sound of the word and the sentence just doesn’t make sense. I have to stop and read it over. Maybe I am weird in this way, or maybe it’s just because these things were SO focussed on in my early school career.

Typos sometimes affect me the same way, except some dropped letters I can gloss over with no problem. Typing was never a required skill when I was in school, so perhaps I am just sympathetic to the fact that most of my peers never learned to type. I was always in awe of those who could type well, but most people I knew DID’T. We wrote everything by hand until college (wow did I wish I had learned to type then!!!) This is rapidly changing because of the rise in computer use. Who knows, maybe one day typos will be considered a major deficit but we will have completely reverted to invented spelling. If this occurs, I guess I should be prepared to be considered a complete imbecile in chat rooms LOL!

As for “can not” are there really times this version is preferred? My eyes go crossed to even look at it. I asked an editor friend if that was so and she couldn’t think of an instance it would be proper to use. Always willing to learn something new… when SHOULD you use “can not”?

I have also been hired at a K-3 school to teach in an LD classroom. I do not have my certification in LD either but because of the need, they hired me. I also feel inadequate in my teaching and have had to back up already because I was unaware of the levels that the students would be working. As I read your message for help, I could feel your desperation. As I read the responses, I was offended. Melanie offered much good advice, but the others were so hung up on the “cannot” situation that they lost the whole idea of the request. It was offensive to me to see that the majority of the responses that followed yours were in regard to the cannot situation and not your request. I wanted to write to wish you luck and encourage others not to be so quick to judge, but to look at all they know and offer the advice that was asked for. Thank you!

There were probably few responses to the original question because it was too broad. This is a great board, but no one can instruct from scratch in such a forum. People love to debate ad nausium however, on on topics that strike an emotional cord.

Lucky for Susan, she has already found one of the best LD resources around by finding LD online. There are countless articles here that should be very helpful to her and experts to ask questions of. Hopefully she has noticed that she can look through older messages and find responses to similar questions in the past. Also I hope she will take full advantage of whatever her school district has to offer her in the way of mentors, workshops etc. Other SPED teachers in her school or district should be able to help her set up initially.

I do believe that the spelling issue is a valid topic but maybe the debate should have gone under a new thread. Hopefully Susan will feel free to post more specific questions as she becomes familiar with her new school and job.

Before I begin my post, I just wanted to warn folks that I make spelling mistakes that may look like I don’t know the rules but I do. Not sure of the exact reason.

Anyway, I understand the concern about teachers sending home notes that have grammar errors. However the poster who wrote “can not” was not at school. Also, has it occurred to people who were critical of this post that maybe the writer works very hard to compensate for her difficulties and may not have any problems at school? However, in writing this post, possibly her coping skills weren’t working and she felt rightly or wrongly that since this was an LD Board, people would be understanding.

I may or may not be right about the person who wrote “can not” but in my opinion, we still should not be quick to make judgments about people from a post on a board when we don’t have all the facts. Also, do you want people making those same quick judgments about your children with LD when they may be extremely unfair? You sound like caring people and my guess is the answer would be no.

In response to the person who felt that maybe no one had said anything to the poster who wrote can not and therefore, she wasn’t aware of her mistakes, I would disagree with you. Unfortunately, I can tell you from personal experience that we’re very aware of our deficiencies to the point of being harsh with ourselves. As a result, receiving a critical response to an email on an LD Board would not alleviate that situation in my opinion.

Just my two cents.

VB