LD eligibility

(The “gotta be two yearsbehind — and you’re only in first grade, so forget it! — policy sucks hind teat on a barren possum, in my quiet humble opinion :))

Make that Possum a Roadkill and I’ll second the previous post. I would like to know this of school districts- WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE “SPECIAl” Ed. If these are effective techniques is there any reason why they wouldn’t also reinforce learning for ALL students in say K-3 grades. If all students maybe reverse letters until that year doesn’t it warrent some research that this may be an issue in learnig to read for all students and if youcan’t tell which are develpmental and which are dyslexic doesn’t it make sense to incorporate some of the LIPS and Orton Gillingham into all classes at that age??? Anecdotal evidence suggests that kids who don’t get help before age 6 have a much harder time learning to read later on. This conincides with linguistic evidence that kids who are bilingual by 6 will always have an easier time learning languages because they’re language window stays open for the rest of their lives. Since Dyslexic kids also have trouble learning 2nd languages and it is the same part of the brain that apparently controls reading isn’t there enough evidence for at least more research on this topic and to begin teaching multisensory methods in the regular classroom too!!! Now that’s what I call a Balanced Reading Program.

Not sure I can agree with you there. No “one size fits all” education will fit all kids. It might fit many dyslexic kids, and maybe some others. It wouldn’t be appropriate for my NLD sone who was reading fluently at about a 6th grade level in 1st grade, and read Treasure Island in 2nd. But he _very much_ needs “special education”, just not the same program that would be appropriate for a dyslexic child. If any specific program worked that well for ALL kids, I think they’d use it. The fact of the matter is that every kids is different.

Karen

Point being rather that if teachers from preschool to kindergarton have more training not less then they can incorporate these methods into reg ed. I suppose all of us look to what OUR kids need, but if your son got Spec Ed help in 1st grade that is the EXTREME Exception. Most of us have kids who are having trouble learning to read or count in kindergarton or 1st grade and told to wait until third or 4th grade to do anything about it because all kids have some of these probs and it’s prob developmental. Meanwhile a lot of kids are having trouble learning to read and falling apart in 4th grade because they didn’t learn a proper phonetics system. Rather than regarding phonetics as something only for Spec Ed kids isn’t cheaper in the long run to spend the money to teach teach reg ed teachers how to teach it? I believe I read where there is a school system who trained all their early reading teachers in Lindamood Bell and had the no of kids who can read on grade level go up dramatically in the 2-3 years since they incorporated methods into regular classroom.

My state recently completed an eval. done by a committee. They decided to keep the current formula. WE must show a discrepancy that can be explained by a processing deficit.

I have agonized over this and am currently agreeing that it is a reasonable formula. Many children (some say 30-40%) require an explicitly, sequentially organized formula to learn to read. Many of this, let’s say 30%, learn just fine when we provide this in the general ed. classroom. A small number of this group still don’t progress, they are evaluated for a possible LD. A few of these children have low ability and their reading is commensurate. Others show intelligence that well exceeds their performance and processing deficits. I suspect that an LD usually involves more than just a single deficit. A person with average or greater intelligence who has a single deficit can usually, with good teaching, compensate. An individual with good intelligence and more than one processing deficit has no ready way to compensate and thus needs SPECIAL education. Most of the students I get now are in this latter group. They are truly handicapped.

General education needs to provide for the needs of probably 90% of the students out there. General education needs to be more reponsibe and more flexible, often it is very rigid. Special educators can and should support general educators, reading specialists should be in place in all buildings to assist with supporting general ed. teachers and providing intensive, very pointed instruction to that 30% who need more. Special ed. should really just catch the students who must have SPECIAL instruction.

So, how do we identify these children accurately, this is the big question. I believe the discrepancy formula has some merit. The students who do not need special education are weeded out. General ed. is forced to become more responsive.

We special educators can help and support where ever we are able. However, we must not be “dumped upon,” we MUST have the conditions where we CAN engage in good, research-based remedial special instruction. If you have read much of this literature, you will realize that some of this can only be done on a 1:1 basis and that we must tailor techniques to various students needs. When we are dumped upon, forced to teach huge caseloads (another issue), we end up squashing students as best as we can into instructional groups and getting by as best as we can with really little no more true individualization than a clasroom teacher can give.

POint taken — but if you had forced me to endure O-G’s repetition and drill I’d have balked big. Some kids don’t need to be taught to listen for sounds in words — they’ve been doing it for *fun* since ‘way back in preschool years. So stretching out the ffffff sound in ffffun would be awwwwwwfffffffulllllll :-)

HOWEVER…. you’re absolutely right that it’s not worth a special ed label! The other reading groups in my elementary school didn’t get a special ed label. Dissing reading groups is a stinking hypocrisy if instead of subjecting poor innocent children to the “humiliation” of being in the low group you decide they need to be in a “special” group with that sped label. And it’s not too ethically different to call it hypocrisy if by failing to deal with the reading differences at a young age, you simply postpone the label (and make it necessary for the handicap to be far more wide-reaching).

I agree we are lucky to have a school system that seems to have it’s act more together than many. And it certainly would be good for ALL teachers to have as many tools at their disposal as possible. I thought you were suggesting that these programs would “solve” special ed issues. That I don’t think they’d do.

BTW, out school system has a very good reading program for kids that need more than their classroom teachers can provide. My younger son, who is not in special ed seemed to be a little slower in picking up on reading. I knew that I didn’t have a good way of assessing this, since my NLD son was an extrordinarily strong early reader. But when he wsan’t reading much by mid-first grade, I was concerned. I spoke to his classroom teacher about it, and she said that although he seemed to be progressing, she had also been concerned enough that she had asked one of the reading specialists to screen him and one other child in the classroom.

The concensus was that although he was reading (barely) on grade level, they felt he was “at risk”. He was placed in an intensive reading program that is available to all children who need it that are NOT on ed plans. He had small group (3 children) phonics based reading remediation 30 minutes daily, 5 days a week for the second half of 1st grade, and all of 2nd grade. By the beginning of this year, (3rd grade) he was reading quite fluently, and was released from the program.

He went from a kid who midway in first grade would start crying and say he had a headache before you opened a book, to this morning when I watched him eat his breakfast while reading the first Harry Potter book. He’s been working through it slowly, and sometimes I read it to him, but he’s about 1/3 of the way through it, and has read the majority of it independently.

So yes, I think that school systems that have their act together CAN (and should be able to!) remediate minor reading problems without resorting to special ed to get the job done. I think it’s been pretty clearly shown that if they can solve these early readingnproblems EARLY, it can save them a huge amount of sec ed funds down the road trying to support non-readers or poor readers when the demands go up later on in schooling.

Karen

I think the philosophy of what you are saying is right on. HOWEVER, the fact of the matter is that for many of these “30%” kids, their needs are NOT being met in the regular ed system by the same school administration that also makes the gate to spec ed. high enough that they don’t qualify.

And these are the kids that often drown because their parents are told “they can swim”… just not well enough to get to shore.

What do we do with/for these kids until the gap between your philosophy, which is a good one, and the reality of the public school classroom meet?

Karen

We do agree, Karen. I wish all school systems could be responsive as yours. Except I do think All kids need systematic phonetic instruction. I’m seeing in my own life what I’ve read about here. Fourth grade students who find reading a chore because the more difficult material is such an effort without the phonetic tools to figure out words. The only program I really know about is Lindamood-Bell’s LIPS and I wish my son had gotten it in preschool, or at least kindergarton instead of me having to take him out and try to figure all this out on my own. And what I’ve been told by lots of different schools in a sort of informal survey is that they cannot identify kids at risk until 3rd grade since so many “normal” kids have the same kinds of problems. What I remember from my linguistics class is that if children learn a 2nd language before 6 that the language leanring window stays open for the rest of their lives. My husband is Swiss and they have 4 national languages and all children learn at least two of those and the sooner the better. If learnig to read uses the same brain areas as learning a 2nd language which it does seem to then it stands to reason there may be the same window of opporrtunity that closes around age 6-7. Which means that those two years that are being waited are absolutely crucial. I ‘d like to see more research on this and I’d like to see some studies on introducing all preschool and kindergarteners to LIPS which helps with the phoneme sequencing awareness all kids need to learn to read. If schools say all kids have some problesm with this and the ones that won’t outgrow can’t be identified for two years then why not itroduce all kids to it very young and even those who are not LD may progress faster to reading. And a preschool, kindergarten, 1st grade teacher trained in this would also be trained enoough to recognize the kids who may really need Special Ed. This is my current rant. Sorry, but I’ve just read that less than 8 percent of special Ed kids go on to finish college. That’s sad and scarey.

I like the Swiss attitude. They spend more money on health care for moms nad baabies so as not to have sick kids later on. They spend money on elementary kids because that’s where they learn the most important tools for leanring. Our attitude seems to be Pah!!! Kindergarten to 3rd grade -they can’t play basketball who cares???

I agree with some of what you’re saying, but I’m not sure all. I don’t think it’s true that a good school system can’t identify kids at risk earlier than 3rd grade.

I think that GOOD school systems ARE identifying kids at risk at younger ages. So what if they give extra help to some kids that would have gotten it on their own eventually? I think my younger son is a perfect example of this. I can’t tell you for sure that he wouldn’t have eventually caught on on his own. But I sure didn’t want to wait and find out!

In our school system, and I know that they are not the only ones in our area with this philosophy, the MAJOR thrust of early education, almost to the exclusion of other areas is reading. They want ALL children to be fluent readers by third grade. I don’t think our school system is perfect… I think there’s still LOTS of room for improvement. But I do think they are doing their job in this area for the MAJORITY of kids.

Karen

And I’m afraid it still stands that your school system is the exception. And if that is the definition of a good system then the overwhelming majority of school systems are bad. And if the “normal” kids they are reading by third grade wo phonetics will they still be reading at their potential at grade 5 or 6-let alone high school or college? I’m teaching my 3 yr old at home and with phonics and many of the Lindamood Bell methods. As far as I know he has no LD and I’m not going to wait to find out. I’m also going to teach him Touch Math. I see these methods as being improvements on regular education- not “Special Ed.”

I’m not a big believer in pushing preschoolers in academic work. The work of small children is play.

Also, I didn’t say that our kids were “reading by 3rd grade” I said the goal was for them to be reading fluently by 3rd grade. There is some variation in development that will make some children neurologically unable to put reading together early, with or without phonics. But I also never suggested that our school system DIDN’T use phonics. They do, for all kids. And starting in kindergarten.

Also, I’m not arguing that we are lucky with our school system. But they are also not the only school system that does do a pretty good job. Those that don’t should be taken to task by the community. The schools work for us. If they are not doing their job, the local community MUST hold them accountable. It’s not something that can be handled by one parent at a time, but must be addressed on the community level.

Karen

I did not mean that I am teaching my 3 year old formally at moment. But that I will prob start next year. In UK children are sent to reception class at age 4. And I will not have him exposed to the awful muddle they called phonetics. However he is learning much of what I am teaching to 6 yr old on his own. And finds it easy to learn. I’ve found these methods far superior to the way I was taught and I’ve seen in reg. ed. I am now in U.S. to learn how to homeschool. and have many friends and family members with connections to the school system here. I was told that the school sytem in UK taught phonetics. I now know they do NOT teach systematic phonetics. The school sytems I have seen here that say they are balanced and teach phonetics do NOT. So simply because a school says they do does not mean it is so. I have better ways to spend my time than trying to shove a limp noodle thru a knothole which is the usual process of trying to get a school to do what they usually don’t have the money, resouces, or personel to do. And meanwhile less than 8 % of those kids that get the spec ed get thru some kind of college. I haven’t found the school yet that I’d trust either of my kids to, I’ve learned too much.