alternate assignments

These modifications and accomodations are written into the IEP. We do states/capitals in 5th grade. You could start not and be a year up.

We’ve found that it seems to be a teacher-by-teacher thing if it’s not written into the IEP. And writing it into an IEP in a meaningful way can be difficult… It’s hard to predict ahead of time what types of projects might come up that might require modification.

The teachers my son had for the second half of this year were onderful that way. With his poor motor skills, artsy type projects are torture. His language arts teacher was great about accepting clip art and computer generated illustrations for the “project” part of book reports. His math/science/social studies teacher was also accomodating with having to be told on an IEP. When they were given a project to make a model of an atom, I talked to her about the difficulties with all the small pieces and glueing involved. She offered the entire class an alternative project that still showed that they knew the material, but did not require the fine motor skills. Most of the kids still did the atom project because it was more fun for most of them But the ones who couldn’t or didn’t want to were not singled out.

I’ve found that the good teachers do this without being asked. The bad ones, well, even mandating it on an IEP won’t always get it done right.

Karen

Your child’s special education teacher should be knowledgeable about various ways of assessing knowledge and modifying work. Therefore, I as a special education teacher collaborate with the general education teachers to come up with these activities. Often times, the general education teachers will have the whole class complete an “alternative” evaluation of knowledge which doesn’t allow the student/s to be singled out. There are several websites that give information about alternative evaluation. Make sure that the modifications that are specified in your child’s IEP is consistent with her learning differences. This is the guideline that we use when determining appropriate modification of an assignment.

My concern is that I have a LD child making straight A’s and am afraid that soon she will lose her IEP - I’ve heard this can happen. She has 29 - 36 in MOST areas for gap spread, both academic and processing. She has a very hard time with rote memorization and we have spent a FORTUNE in intervention privately - that’s why she makes straight A’s. She’s benefiting from her education b/c of the intervention. She is 15 min consult only on her IEP with OT (which she’ll probably lose this year). Her accommodations are limited board copying, extended time on long written assignments and book reports and assistive technology - uses cowriter and draft builder.

Are the middle school teachers less likely to want to provide the alternate assignments? I can see as the work gets harder, she may need other accommodations such as alternate assignments.

In my state you must be below grade level in addition to having a processing deficit to qualify for service. I can understand why you may be concerned about your daughter being dismissed from sped given the minimal services she is currently receiving.

However, the gap spread you describe should make your daughter eligible for a 504 accomodation plan if nothing else, which should give you the flexibility to address new issues as they arrive. Both LDOnline and Wrightlaw have good information about 504 plans at their sites.

By the way, congratulations to you and your daughter for all of her hard work and the progress she has made. Go mom for addressing your child’s needs so well, because straight A’s are something to celebrate!

I’m very open to alternative assessments but it’s a concept that not’s as widely spread as you and I would like it to be. The phrase accomodations and modfications is a good one and a good accomodation to your daughter’s learning needs would be alternative assessments. In the ideal world, teachers would be suggesting it to you but in reality you may have to suggest it to teachers.

Some teachers are amenable to extra credit to pull up failing grades. There’s no fast rule in teaching about these things. I always advise parents to keep their ear to the ground about next year’s teachers and try ‘by hook or by crook’ to get their child into the classroom of the more flexible teacher.

Depending on your state’s eligibility for LD, your child shouldn’t be dismissed from special education based on grades. Remember, she got those A’s not only because of the hard work exerted by the both of you, but also for the modifications that have been made. You may want to consider having an IEP meeting at the beginning of the school year to include more academic modifications (not accommodations) added to her IEP.Currently, her accommodations mainly address her fine motor difficulties. Your daughter also needs more modifications to address her learning differences. I have several students who are also making A’s in their general education classes but would fail miserably without the modifications. My hat is off to the both of you and good luck!

My NLD son has yet to receive “letter grades” because our school system does not use them through 5th grade, and he has just now finished 5th. But he has done very well academically WITH an IEP since late kindergarten. We allowed them to take him off his IEP for 3rd grade, and it was a disaster. He was back on for the beginning of 4th. I hope they learned their lesson… we sure did. This is a kid who can do very well with a small amount of support. without it he sinks like a rock.

Karen

I’m not sure what you mean by modifications. She does the same work as everyone else in the classroom. Oh, she also gets extended time for state assessments, with small group and reading of the math portion. I thought an IEP was based on the point spread between SS and IQ. Then I read recently that if the child is found to be benefiting from the education and making good grades, they can remove their IEP. She benefiting as I said before because of the private intervention. I also plan to have an accommodation that they can’t count off for spelling in a science/social studies class unless she has access to a computer for the work. In other words, the grade is based on content, not spelling.

Karen,

Did the school suggest the removal of the IEP? I guess my concern is my evalutor told me at the end of 1st grade that she was coming home EXHAUSTED because of how hard she had to work just to keep her head above water. Who knows, we may have to switch to a 504. I guess I’ll have to start reading up on them.

Sara

I write a letter to the school every year to “remind” them of my daughter’s needs and request the best possible learning environment for her specific needs. Last year was a nightmare and we ended up pulling her OUT of an inclusion class in the middle of the 3rd nine weeks of school. I wrote 2 separate letters this year. We’ll see what happens - I will not wait so long next time to have her transferred to another classroom.

is based on a discrepency between IQ and academic performance as measured by a normed test along with documentation of a processing deficit at the first level. Then the team must show that the disability is having an adverse effect ( in Vermont this now means that achievement scores must be below the 15th percentile)- and if the answers to these two areas is yes- that the student requires specialized instruction to succeed. If the answers at any of these three gates is no then the student is not eligible for Special Education. It is possible- and I would assume desirable- for a student to be exited from Special Education. Accommodations and modifications such as you describe are not specialized instruction. They can and should be provided under the auspices of a 504 plan whenever necessary.

Robin

All of the states now have state tests and some of them, like Virginia, passing scores are needed to graduate. There are methods that would help your daughter to comprehend print. She is going to have to remember facts in order for her to get through school. We have had many threads that talk about why there aren’t many expectations for them to succeed and why they don’t do well in college. I think that this is an example of why. If you don’t remediate and only accommodate, how will these students succeed? Also, they will continue be behind in school and then. like some parents (not meaning you ) would say that we aren’t doing enough and they don’t understand why their child with all of their accommodation aren’t able to do the same work as the rest of the kids. Parents can’t have it both ways. I had a parent demand that her daughter have almost all of the accommodations and then ask what her chances are of getting through college? She didn’t need all of the accommodations but they were there as a safety net. What I would reccommend is that along with asking for alternative assessments, you have your daughter tutored using programes such as Visualizing and Verbalizing and On Cloud Nine for memory. These are excellent programs and will help strengthen her memory. I have taught the States and there are all kinds of neumonics that will help your daughter. Please don’t take this email as a critisim of you personally that is not my intent. We, as parents, have to expect more from our kids but we have to give them the tools in order to rise to our expectations.

Modifications are the tools that are to be used in order for your daughter to complete the assigned classwork but using an alternate means, such as what you are looking for. For example your suggestion that your child’s grade reflect content rather than knowledge of spelling is a modification assuming that the teacher would reduce a grade,for all nondisabled students,because of poor spelling. Your IEP should contain an area specifically for modifying classroom work. A separate area in the IEP is for accommodations for mandated testing. Whatever you do please consult with your child’s teacher and express your concerns.

As far as eligibility is concerned each state is different. In Georgia,for example, in order for a child to be eligible for special education under the LD classification there must be a significant discrepancy between ability and achievement using the IQ score and standard scores of standardized testing only (we don’t consider a processing disorder, however, it is assumed that a child with a processing disorder has a learning difference and that will show up in the scores. I know this is not great but this is what we have to work with). Our school district, however, doesn’t approve of us discussing termination of an IEP unless the child no longer qualifies. Which means we have to wait until the new pscyo-educational evaluation is complete. Each state is different in their eligibility areas for special education and for termination of services, which makes it hard on us sp.ed.teachers when a child with special needs comes to us from a different state.

Yes they did, and I was (at that time naive enough not to know that I could “just say no”) Now I know that if the parents refuse, the only way they can remove a child from his IEP is to take you to due process. Usually if the child’s services aren’t extremely costly, it’s cheaper for them just to leave them on an IEP than to take you to court. In our area, a 504 carries much less weight than an IEP, and also does not include direct SPED services. My son does fine a lot of the time, but when he needs help, he needs it THEN.

While he wasn’t officially placed on a 504 plan during the year that he was off his IEP, they did try all KINDS of accomodations. He really needs that SPED piece… just not a lot.

Karen

I have a daughter who is highly gifted—she scores 99’s on three or four sections of her SAT 9 tests. the school doesn’t follow her IEP and though the accomodations and alternative assessments are in the IEP, the teachers failed to modify much of anything—left it up to me to figure it out. I did mods for some assignments and didn’t for others, depending on my daughter’s energy level. some of the teachers gave her grades, some did not and we never knew what her grades were based on anyway. She was included in gifted middle school classes—4 academic, band and PE. from what I understand, the eligibilty is based on a difference between potential and performance, and there really isn’t written into law that the child has to be performing 2 grade levels behind. our school district won’t even look at IQ’s because of various lawsuits. at this point, my daughter got no academic services for the past two years, and her grades are meaningless. The teachers wanted to be helpful, but because the resource teacher hated me and my child, and was always hostile to us, my daughter and her teachers received no support. My daughter does not fit into resource classes (she has Asperger’s Syndrome) because she reads at a high school level, but she also produced no written work other than one or two paragraphs all year—no written homework, little written school work and no papers or projects. At this point, the district is paying for 80 hours of writing tutoring and my daughter is giving up most all summer fun and vacation.
Middle school teachers are very busy, and I wouldn’t count on them coming up with the modifications without intense support from the special ed staff.

OFten they will keep that IEP going, especially if it’s not really costing them much. In middle & high school I always had a few “Monitor” kids on my caseload — some of them stopped the IEP after a successful year or two, others when the tri-ennial came around on the guitar, and others kept the IEP all the way through. It’s worth hanging on to it.

Memorization demands are extremely variable. States and capitols being a noted exception, often in the higher grades it’s a lot easier to make them less “rote” by making logical, higher-level connections to things (and if she’s a good visual or hands-on learner, capitalize on that big-time, but I expect you’ve already figured out the best ways to cope with memorizing and they’re still a struggle even if she learns a dance routine for each little fact). Frankly, I *would* consider sniffing out the rote ritual demands — if everybody’s gotta learn 40 atomic elements or the states and capitals in grade X… pick 10 of them to know cold before it happens. Pick those silly states like Maryland where the capital *isn’t* what you expect and learn how cool the Naval Academy is in Annapolis and the great bands that play at the Ram’s Head there so of COURSE it should be the capital…

I’ve had a fair number of kiddos with rote memorization problems. My approach is to remove anxiety-causing stuff — timed tests and arbitrary quotas for memorization - but still expect learning, review, and progress to be made. Then we work together to figure out the best way to remember stuff that it really does help you to remember — and knowing *how* to memorize stuff that you want to memorize is even handier.

Shay,

I didn’t take your email as a criticism. Apparently she can memorize because she takes tests in class - like everyone else’s - without accom/mod and makes A’s & B’s.

My evaluator tells me with the continued support she should be just fine. She is currently in LIPS and VV and SI OT and we also provided writing tutoring this Summer (b/c of the upcoming 4th grade writing assessment). She always does better than I expect. I have to admit that I am one of those “safety net” parents. I did have alot of accom removed from her IEP b/c she basically didn’t need them. It’s that fine line between “support” and “crutch” that I’m worried about. Actually, I’m just an ignorant parent (ignorant meaning w/out knowledge of this area) and I really appreciate honest, straightforward advice.

She was in an inclusion classroom this year and I had her removed for several reasons but one of which was that the TEACHER kept writing her homework down in her planner - I told her not to - I wanted my daughter to LEARN to write it down and if she messes up so many times then she has to face the consequences. When she gets a job her boss is not going to say “oh, it’s okay if you’re late b/c you’re LD and have trouble with time.” Anyway, thanks for the input, Shay, I really appreciate understanding the whys and whynots of accom/and mods.

I think this has been a very interesting exchange of ideas. I do wonder as the talk of testing, accomodations, college, and career are discussed where this all fits in the adult world. If a person with LD needs continued modifications/accomodations to succeed in college, won’t they also need those accomodations in the work world? Will people be expected to be given work tasks at their level? Who will be making the modications/accomodations then? I know I am playing the devils advocate, and I don’t mean to do this at your expense, Leah, but how far do we go? When a worker needs twice as much time to complete a task, or more, this affects production. Are other workers expected to pick up the slack of this worker? Should businesses provide inclusion specialists to make the accomodations and modifications needed? What of the expense?

I am all for people with disabilities reaching their level of competence. My hope for children with learning disabilities is that they can learn to make their own accomodations and modifications so that they may live an independent life. There comes a time when a child no longer has a need for special ed. Continuing to keep these children on the caseload takes precious resources away from others. There is no easy answer. Thanks for letting me express my concerns.

There are accomodations made in some work places—and have been for years. But the ones I have seen have been done by the federal govt.—who do seem to do this. as a parent of a child with a disability, the only thing I can see with hope is that my daughter can work at something she is good at;; and not have to carry a full load of stuff she can’t do—she will not have a job where she is editing or writing extended essays—maybe she will be programming computers. My brother has the same disability, I think—he has been able to work for 30 yrs in a city job as a civil engineer. He never got into any management position, and his career path has been limited: he is not good with people at all but he is a good engineer and has been successful in that sense.
The biggest problem sometimes in school is that we have to have some success in all areas, just not the ones we are good at. I never took any math beyond high school (trig-) and I never have had to know more math, except when I am trying to help my kids do their algebra homework. (thankfully, I have a husband who remembers all his calculus and higher math)
I just gravitated to a job that rewards my motor mouth and my ability to absorb many useful and useless facts and tie them all together into spontaneous speeches. (I was a park service ranger-explaining historical sites and their significance.).

I agree when the right career is chosen accomodations become a non issue. Extra time on tests is fine. There are many jobs for those deep thinkers among us who need to mull over decisions. Very few jobs involve quick test taking skills.

I agree with those that say accomodations should not encompass doing things for the children. Good call Leah on having your child write down her own homework. Talk to her about it. Say if homework is on the board when you get to class make writing down homework the second thing you do after you unpack you bag. Or better yet let her come up with a method she can follow every day. Getting her into a reliable routine she can follow will allow her to do it on her own.

I see it as teaching children skills that they can use in the real world. Typing in class is a fine accomodation. Who really handwrites work in the real world?
Also teaching kids skills they can use to overcome their area of weakness is important. I have a terrible memory for names. I am in the habit of relating a person’s name to something about their personal appearance. When I met a woman named Kerry recently I mentally noted that she looked Irish and know that Kerry is a county in Ireland. If I hadn’t had done this I surely would have called her Terry. Teaching kids with memory difficulties this and other memory enhancing tricks can really help.
I also have some trouble with attention at times. This is usually related to something I find uninteresting. I sometimes have to mentally tell myself to pay attention. I have learned that I can catch myself doing this and reel myself back in. I have taught my son this trick. I say did you notice how you stopped paying attention there giving a specific example? When you feel yourself thinking of that other thing can you remind yourself what you are supposed to be working on? I remind him to focus on this first and then he can think about that fun thing after he is done. It sounds silly but it does work.

Believe me, with the money I am spending, and the few accommodations I get from the school, I firmly believe she will be able to adjust and compensate. If I didn’t I would put my $700/mo. in a trust fund for her and not worry about it. She, hopefully, will have to get a job that is more of independent sort, decorating, science, veterinarian, etc., where she will be able to make her own hours, etc. Once you get through vet school you don’t have to do much spelling and reading, and if you are good with your hands, etc. you don’t need “extended time” . I think there are lots of jobs that she can do that will afford her those kinds of options. I believe her tutor who says “School is the hardest thing she will ever do”. But, while she is still getting her tutoring and intervention, I would like to keep them. Extended time and AT are the two things I will not give up without a fight. I’m not upset by what you said - believe me, I am hoping and praying that she won’t need accom. one day. and I am very reality based, so I want zeros for work not turned in , etc. My daughter is kind of unique in that once I was “fussing” at her about her disorganization and I said “If you don’t get organized you are not going to make it in this world” to which she replied, “Mom, I’m going to make it - I have PLANS”. :).

As I read that post again I have to admit that it seems a little offensive to people with ld.

I don’t think it is correct to assume that accomodations in school will lead to a person set up for failure in a work world without accomodations.

The work world is very different than the school world. Life is very different from school.
There are so many gifts not measured in school that can make a person rise to the very top in all aspects of life. Someone very close to me was labeled ld as a child and is now a VP of a major company. He can negotiate a deal, get the best for himself and still leave with a new friend. People can’t help but to like him even when he bests them in the game that is business. He never succeeded in school but managed to do very well in life. He is a great dad and husband has a million friends who all think he is great. He was very tenacious but likable all through school. He is probably the most emotionally stable person I have ever met.
Reminds me of Leahs child. He never had a doubt about his abilities even when others around him did. He always had a plan.

I think it time for some in the school system to “think outside the box” as they say. Let’s try to keep an eye on the big picture.

LindaF

I’m with you. I think that sometimes people have really LOW expectations for LD kids. Usually when I introduce myself to a new teacher and they find out my daughter’s LD they focus on what she can’t do instead of noticing that there are plenty of things she can do and do well. Often the teacher’s are pleasantly surprised by her abilities if the can see past the label.

Actually, in most professional jobs, you handwrite all the time. Not long essays, but notes and memos. Clear and readable writing and good spelling go a long way in most offices.

I remember one time that I was teaching a college math class. We were in a satellite program off the main campus. One of my students wanted to use some materials that I knew were available in the campus resource center. So I asked him to wait five minutes after class while I wrote a note to the director of the math resource center, whom I knew, so she would release the materials to him.
As I was writing, composing a polite request, using my neatest copperplate, the student and a friend were talking in the back of the class — making it very hard for me to concentrate on my writing. The student was venting his anger about his English instructor, who had required him to do an essay test in class time. He said that “everybody knows” that writing an essay isn’t something you can do right off the top of your head, that you have to write a rough draft and edit and re-write and re-edit and then make the final corrected copy. (This school system made far, far too big a deal of the “writing process” — I disagree with the system for exactly the reasons here.) I handed him the letter and attempted to point out that here in the real working world, yes I DO have to handwrite, compose on the spot with a time limit, and do it all while someone is distracting me with his loud complaints …

When my daughter was young we had a very hard time with this issue. She is verbally highly gifted, physically very slow-developing, and had a small-motor problem and a visual handicap. She also does not memorize easily, or think it’s anything she can be bothered doing Her teachers just were unable to look outside their own fixed way of doing things and could not even understand what I was asking. She needed more academic stimulation, assistance with her handwriting, watching over her allergies, and less arts and crafts — the opposite of what their teacher preparation had told them was good teaching methodology. They wanted to give the kids freedom to choose foods (very bad with allergies), an open and “creative” classroom (a nightmare for the visually handicapped) and all sorts of craftsy projects (very frustrating to the manually delayed), and they were afraid of too much academic work because that was too strict and regimented and old-fashioned (while my daughter was champing at the bit to do something interesting.) We suffered through.

As a teacher, on the other end of the argument, you would not believe the things that parents insist on. One parent came into my class and told me it was all set up wrong (I had the desks facing the long wall instead of the shorter usual “front” wall.) One came in and became very angry with the principal because I wasn’t following a science text (The science curriculum for the primary grades was experiment-based with NO text.) One became quite upset because I marked the kids’ math in marker so the X’s couldn’t be erased; she insisted he had to be able to erase his mistakes, copy the right answers, and have them marked right so he could have all 100% grades. One became very angry, slipped into the class while we were on a field trip so she could get all her kid’s books and another friend’s books and yell at the principal about them, and got him to yell at me because I was not teaching the class to all print exactly the same size and spacing so that they all had exactly the same words on the same lines (I was making the mistake of being flexible about skill levels and actually teaching the children to *think* about their spacing.) And those are only a few highlights of one year in one Grade 1 class.
Since twenty-five (or up to fifty) parents will have twenty-five (fifty) different demands, many of them incompatible, teachers justifiably become defensive. As a teacher you choose a set of activities to teach a certain set of skills which you and the curriculum planners have determined are important, and uninformed people who change the expectations may remove the very skills you are trying to teach. For example, you ask the class to copy a few sentences from the blackboard as an exercise in handwriting and accuracy *as well as* the subject matter of the sentences; if a parent insists that their child be given a copy of all board work, this child loses the practice and does not learn an important skill. If the child is visually handicapped to the point this activity is impossible to her, there is no choice, but if she can possibly learn to do it, then she needs *more* practice, not less.

As my daughter got into high school, the assignments became more structured and she was able to work out her own ways of doing things.

Sometimes you just have to tell your kid honestly that much of what goes on in elementary school is just to keep the teachers and the system happy and all you can do is keep your head down. Elementary school grades are never seen again after you enter high school anyway. In high school, the expectations are more standardized and academic and you can work out a system. Again, think twice about any adaptations; are they really necessary, and have you adapted away the subject matter that was supposed to be learned?

Assessment measures and modifications are to be listed in your child’s IEP. However if assesment modifications are not listed in your child’s IEP or if the ones listed are inappropriate, I would recomend you going to talk with your child’s teacher about experimenting with different methods of testing and assessing your child. Approach the teacher in a possitive manner and discuss with him or her your child’s trouble with rote memorization. While focusing on your child’s strenghts and abilities, the two of you can create different methods of assessment to try with your child. For example, if your child excels in communicating with others maybe you could recomend partner or group projects dealing with the subject that the class is studying. If your child has a strong personality and enjoys being in front of a crowd, maybe she could perform a drama or present additional information related to their studies.
I would also suggest that you rely on the parents and teachers of your child’s friends as a valuable resource. Ask them about assessment in other classes and subjects. They will have many ideas that you can modify to promote your child’s talents and strengths.