appropriate accomodations in the classroom during private re

I opted out of the schools services for reading in first grade which were similar to what you describe. They involved strategies some based on whole language philosophy that I saw were not getting him where he needed to be.

I would use LMB if you have access through a tutor or phonographix if you need to do it yourself. My son moved 3 grade levels in 6 months with phonographix. I later had to add seeing stars and visualization exercises to help get him to the mid level chapter book stage. I also had to work on eye tracking exercises so he would not keep losing his place and getting headaches when he read.

He made it to the early level chapter book in the beginning of second grade with PG. This was after not even knowing beginning sounds in first with the one on one program the school provided. They were big into guessing strategies. I had to deprogram him from those strategies the summer after first grade.

He spent second grade in an inclusive classroom that had a decent teacher who challenged him. In third the sped teacher was a different story so I took him out of sped altoghether. He still struggles with using punctuation when he writes but has adapted well to the regular class. He gets no special services at school except occupational therapy and is still classified under sped. He also receives no accomodations except extra time on tests.

Dear Annise,

Yes, you can opt out of school services and provide them yourself. Your child, because they have a disability, is entitled to a 504 plan which would cover accommodations/modification in the classroom (such as book-on-tape).

For most children, the IEP section of accommodations/modifications is enough that a separate 504 isn’t needed. If no IEP is written, however, then a separate 504 plan would be the way to go.

Susan Long
Parent…Advocate…Sped Teacher

hey, thanks for the input.

i do know what i need to do with this child……

what i am wondering though is there any way to convince the school (regular classroom teacher) that this child needs to be instructed or at the very least supported in the regular classroom with specific, code emphasis strategies and NOT the guessing games???

maybe this is unrealistic but as linda f. said she has had to deprogram her child from the whole language strategies he was being taught at school. i currenly find i have to tell my child, when he goes to guessing at pictures or guessing based on the first letter of a word, that that is not really how we read words. this is confusing for him and i may just be stuck having to do this.

i know once he sees and feels sucess and the code starts making sense to him this will be less and less necessary.
but it just seems sad that we have to unteach what they are being taught in school about reading….

>
> Dear Annise,
>
> Yes, you can opt out of school services and provide them
> yourself. Your child, because they have a disability, is
> entitled to a 504 plan which would cover
> accommodations/modification in the classroom (such as
> book-on-tape).
>
> For most children, the IEP section of
> accommodations/modifications is enough that a separate 504
> isn’t needed. If no IEP is written, however, then a separate
> 504 plan would be the way to go.
>
> Susan Long
> Parent…Advocate…Sped Teacher

If I were your classroom teacher, you’d have no problem convincing me about whole language ideas. Since your classroom teacher has been sold that pedagogical bill-of-goods, you aren’t likely to convince him/her to change. Since the Board of Education is the ultimate authority on what shall be done in the public school classroom has hired this certified teacher, you are not likely to make a big impact on how things are done in a classroom of 15-20 learners in a public school environment.

Take your child out for reading and have it done privately. There you have control.

How much does Lindamood Bell charge? I’ve heard that they are terribly expensive!

We decided to have my son do 4 weeks of 4 hours/day to see if we can help him breakthrough the place he is at with his reading. They tested him extensively and found him to pretty much know the code so they are starting him mostly with seeing stars.

Here’s my observation after 1 day of testing and 1 day of instruction:
The teachers are very young , fun and enthusiastic. My son described them as weird in a good way and whispered to me he didn’t think they were professional reading teachers. (Bear in mind he has seen dozens of therapists in the last few years, all of whom are middle aged woman, alot like mom!) But they kept him going for 4 hours and he liked it. They were more like camp counselors and I think this is a good thing.

The cost for us here in NYC is actually less per hour than what we would pay a regular tutor. (LMB here is about $90/hour, but tutors get over $100) So yes, its alot of $$ up front, but we’d be spending it anyway eventually and its the only way we can deliver so many hours of instruction in such a short amount of time. (BTW, we are in the process of getting him classified as LD by the board of ed. and apparently we can get Lindamood instruction paid for in the future. )

Everyone I’ve asked in and out of this board swear by their methodology. I’ll certainly let you all know how it goes….

In my view, those odds are about as good as it gets.

Let us know how it is going for him.

hi barbara,

lindamood bell was $60 per hour here on the west coast. this is at the san luis obispo clinic (theeir main clinic and headquarters) two years ago. i think now it is $65 per hour.

they also have a school program, which is seriously discounted. the program is 3 months/6 hours per day; 4 hours per day is guaranteed 1 to 1 instruction and the other 2 hours is small group based on similar needs. when my son did the school program his small group was 2 to 1 and often he still got those 2 hours in 1 to 1. the first 4 hours are lips, seeing stars, or v.v.; the other 2 hours are applying these skills to content areas. it also breaks up the intensity of doing such hard 1 to 1 work all day long.

the school program is only offered during the school year, since summer is their busiest time. it is offered at most lm bell clinics but not all.

we had to pay for the 3 months up front with no flexibility, i.e. if something came up and my child could not attend. it brought the price down to about $35 per hour and was well worth it for us.

yes, it is expensive, but tutors (o.g. or other good ones who work with dyslexics) charge $60 - $80 per hour, plus you drive across town often after school. i figured out if you go this route over 2-3 years/3 -4 times per week the cost is similar. thes big difference is you put cdown alot of money at one time.

the intensive to me makes a huge difference.

>
>? he is currently
> terribly confused since i have been teaching him to decode
> words at home and his teachers say they do not want him to
> become too dependent on decoding (!!!!!) and are teaching him
> to guess by pictures and context.
>
> he is already confused and i am trying to coordinate the
> services i am hoping to provide (lm bell) with what the
> school does with him the rest of the day.
>
> any thoughts are greatly appreciated. thanks!

Hi! Parent again. Could you consider putting him in another school or maybe a different teacher? Our school officially has this type of program although my son will say that when a child misses a word in group most of the teachers will say “sound it out”. There may be other teachers in the school who do not take the current program quite so seriously. The older ones have probably seen the pendulum swing a few times and have some knowledge of alternative methods. Some of the newer ones may not know the simplest things about phonics, they are just doing what they are told. I have learned from experience that teachers have a very powerful influence on kids. If you are doing one thing at home and the teacher is doing something contradictory the teacher will probably win which may be the childs whole problem. I can remember myself arguing with my mom that 7+5 was not 12. (we were doing new math- the answer was one 10 and 2 ones), I wasn’t paying attention in class because I had been taught at home so I answered 12 and the teacher said wrong and that created a situation where I wouldn’t believe anything my mom tried to teach me for a solid year. My daughter stopped using discriptive language in essays for several years because of a misinterpretation of something a teacher said. At that age teacher is the ultimate authority and you are….well…. Even if your child believes you he’s got to do what he’s told in class and that is fighting what you are teaching him. From your comments I wonder if your children are truely dyslexic at all or are the victims of a poor reading method.

Karen, I’m looking forward to hearing about your son’s progress. One thing I know the LMB people are doing now as opposed to several years ago when I took their training, is to use Seeing Stars much earlier with everyone, even those who need the phonemic awareness part. In those cases, as soon as a child gets a few sounds/symbols under their belt, they start using SS too. I’ll be curious to hear if they automatically incorporate the LIPS into their work with your son (I know they do this with many kids) or if, because he doesn’t need it, they use a strictly SS program.

I’ve just had a kid return from the NY program - his reading has jumped a couple years!

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing with the school. In fact, in many cases they regard anything a silly parent does as unnecessary and nothing to do with them. So I”d just ask for waht I wanted — and I would definitely consider making the school workload easier while he’s getting the intensive remediation because it is intense and can be tiring, and anyway, you want him to know you really do appreciate the hard work he puts in doing it — it really helps in the big picture of your relationship because later there are probably going to be times when he has to do “extra” work to succeed, too (spending more time on reading or getting books on tape, that sort of thing).

I know that they are doing a little lips with him. He still (after a year of speech therapy !!) confuses v,f and th sounds, so of course those are the only consonents he missed when he was tested. They said they’d build in a little articulation feedback for him, but mostly skip Lips. She specifically said that seeing stars includes enough phonemic awareness for a kid like him. He really does know the code, but can’t retrieve it in an automatic way. And of course his spelling is phonetic, but incorrect most of the time. Really curious to see the outcome of this program.

Karen,

I am so excited for him. It sounds like they know what they are doing. I look forward to hearing more. I have considered looking into this for my son. I may advertise in the paper for a tutor trained in this method rather than a center. The center near me is even more expensive than NY.

It’s an old story that a lot of supposed teachers don’t know what they are doing. My mother had to let me in on the secret, and I had to let my daughter in on it, very early. Of course, when she was correcting her teacher’s spelling and arithmetic - in Grade 2 - it was more than obvious to her. All gifted kids have to face up to this fact of life pretty young. Have a heart-to-heart talk with your kid; not long at this age, but very direct, and tell him that the teachers are only doing what they’re told to do, and he can see from a large number of his classmates who can’t really read that what the teacher is doing just doesn’t work very well. Of course, he has been hit by the bamboozle factor and will point to the one or two kids who are going great guns; then ask him to think about all his friends in the back of the class, and how well they can read or spell. When he thinks about it and sees that guessing isn’t working out very well for most of the others in the class either, he will be more receptive to other approaches. Tell him honestly that the teacher isn’t always right, but she is the teacher, so he should be polite even if he doesn’t agree. (This is an important lesson to learn.) It’s a relief to a bright child to learn that he doesn’t have to take all adults as perfect, because he can already see that we aren’t.

~~~~From your comments I wonder if your children are truely dyslexic at all or are the victims of a poor reading method.~~~

someone above posted this and i too wonder with my younger one if his struggles with reading are just a result of poor teaching methods that are inappropriate for him and probably others in the class as well. i keep thinking if he is exposed 100% to the right ways he will soar. i know that is not possible unless i change schools, but i will still provide a structured, phonetic approach and try to get the teacher (1st year teaching) to support what he is learning aobut reading outside the school.

with my older one there is no doubt he is dyslexic and severely so. i think his reading problems were definetely exacberated by being in a (w)hole language environment, but i have no doubt he needed the intervention we provided him. and needs more.

thanks, victoria, for all the great advice about talking to my son about teachers and teaching methods. kids often tend to think teachers know everything and they are right when mom isn’t, so, we will tread lightly there. it is too bad we have to do this though, i think.