My son has recently been diagnosed with an LD. This is all new to me. I am trying to educate myself as well as preparing to educate his 3rd grade teacher in the fall regarding his LD. My problem is 1) We are in a parochial school and have no IEP. 2) I don’t have a name for his learing dissability so I don’t want to sound like I just want things to be “special” or “easy” for him when I talk to his teacher about ways to help him. HELP! I want to help my son in every way possible but am having difficulty knowing how to start. Unfortunately I am not forceful when it comes to speaking my mind and am afraid that his teacher will underestimate his LD. 3) Should I overwhelm his teacher by giving him/her copies of all the tests that have been done on him (tests by an OT, Neurologist, and a Psychoeducational Evaluation by a Learning Disabilities Specialist)? Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.
Re: Help me to educate my child teacher
The more you give a person to read, the less likely they are to read it. Whatever you give her, keep it short.
Have you had any conversation with her yet around your son? I don’t think you need to be forceful but it would be helpful to be clear. Start at the beginning and let her know her time is valuable and thank her for meeting with you. Tell her you wanted to know you were there to help and wanted any suggestions she might have as you recently had your son tested and he proved to have a learning difference. Describe what you saw in your son that led you to do the testing and tell her briefly what the tester said. (even without a name you will need to be able to describe the learning difference… is it verbal… is it in his reading?… math? organization?…)
If anything before you go in, give a look to Dr. Mel Levine’s Educational Care book. It lists strategies for dealing with learning differences. You might xerox the relevant pages and bring them with you. Ask you if she’d like to have them as you go and repeat your interest in doing anything at home you can to help your son accomodate for his learning difference.
Good luck.
Re: Help me to educate my child teacher
Thanks for the suggestions! Right now parochial school is my first choice until they give me a reason to feel otherwise. It would be wonderful if it works out. I have three other children attending and would hate for my son to have to go to a diffferent school, but as I’m sure you can relate, I will do whats best for my son.
Re: Help me to educate my child teacher
Hi
I had a similar problem, my son was diagnosed with an LD last July, I had an IEP, but to be honest it didn’t make much difference. My suggestion is to go to the teacher and tell her you want to do whatever it takes to make this work for your child. Suggestions, that helped my son, but may vary depending on your child’s Ld are:
1. Preferential seating- to make your child easily accessible and help keep them on task.
2 . Extra textbooks for at home.
3. Less work- If everyone has to do a full page of math- maybe your child could do the first couple of problems- so they can judge whether he/she gets the concept/ but not overwhelm. My son had problems with rote memorization- I had to ask that he get half the spelling words.
4. Extra time for tests/ verbal if necessary
5. Advance notice of tests/ assignments— my son got the spelling words on Friday instead of Monday an extra two days helped. Book reports that everyone else needed only two weeks to read and complete- we needed longer. If the teacher is testing on capitilization & punctuations and not writing, maybe she could make the test just a fill in the blank for the correct punctuation or circle the letter that needs to be capitilized.
6. School work is important but so is your child self esteem- see if she can make sure that if your child did poorly on a test- it is not something others will be able to see.
7. Ask how your child could be better organized, Is it possible to arrange a homework buddy, to insure that your child brings home the correct books, assignments.
8. Keep in constant communication, ask that if there are any problems that you be notified immediately. You don’t want to be a pain in the neck, so try to be as accomodating, as possible, just remember your childs problem is very real- he/she deserves this extra help.
Go to the teacher with an explanation of your child’s problem, what you feel may help, ask for suggestions, but know this is an evolving process and know that to be sure your child succeeds- you will need to continually look at how your child can be accomodated throughout the year.
Sadly for us we had to take our child out of parochial school and are starting at a public school this fall. Our child needed more services, than just accomodations and our school though they tried were unable to provide it. P.S. We also had a private learning specialist tutor our son, I would highly recommend it.
The best of luck to you, Darlene
Re: Help me to educate my child teacher
It has been my experience that a great teacher makes all the difference but that great teacher also needs to be knowledgable and know how to teach students with learning differences.
So often this is not most reg.ed teachers, although some can and do.
Withholding information from your child’s teacher could backfire and end up hurting your child. Many students with LDs need very concrete direct instruction from teachers trained in their learning styles and familiar with the kinds or types of instruction needed.
Consider monitoring very very closely!
Re: Help me to educate my child teacher
Yes, I can. My son hates the fact that he is at a different school than his siblings. In our case anyway, the ps hasn’t helped much for remediation. We have done it all privately. So I wouldn’t automatically assume that ps will be better for him academically. The advantage of ps for us the easier workload and the fact that they are legally required to accomodate him. Frankly, we aren’t sure if he will ever be capable of the demands of the parochial school. We are still working towards him handling the ps classroom. But our situation is different than yours in that he has never attended the parochial school. His siblings transferred to parochial school after we moved and were unhappy with ps.
If your son’s disabilities aren’t too severe, you may be able to manage it by hiring or providing tutoring yourself in combination with accomodations. You might also consider talking to the principal. It shouldn’t be hard to get things like preferential seating but reducing work load expectations probably will require administrative support. I know that some children do get such accomodations at our parochial school. I also know that lots of kids get speech services in ps but that requires parent transportation. We live in Fl now but when we were in NY speech services were provided at parochial schools so that obviously differs by state. I also know that a number of kids have been tutored since early grades in order to keep up with circ.
I would also try to use the summer well to give him some advantage for fall, at least compared to where he would be otherwise.
Beth
I wouldn’t hand reports to the teacher. They are too hard to understand and I wouldn’t want them flying around the school. I would get a better handle on exactly what my child has difficulty with and what kinds of things will help. Realize that private schools are not required to accomodate your son so you need to first figure out whether this is going to work for him. YOu may need to hire a tutor as well. Parochial schools differ a lot in their attitude and ability to work with a child. I have two in parochial school but my ld son is in public school. The parochial school does have volunteers who come in and help kids but I didn’t think that was sufficient. Plus, at least where we are at, the parochial school is much more demanding than the public school.