Test scores and reading programs

We need to have performance and verbal IQ scores. You compare IQ scores to the standard scores. His IQ looks like it is borderline to very low average, this would predict standard scores from the 70-85ish range. If this is the case, you may or may not have much. Also, a profile of past testing scores and school history would be important at his age, I believe.

His performance was 81 and his verbal was 77.

He has never had an IQ until the one he had last year. They pretty much only ever gave him a speech and language and woodcock johnson.

He was evaluated in 2nd grade and 4th grade, and I believe the scores are pretty much the same, there are some subtest that went up and some that went down. He has really been pretty much the same for a long time.

Thank
K.

I wish I could promise you everything will be great, if you can just get proper intervention. Sadly, with borderline to low average ability, much of school academics are going to be hard for him and there may not be a permanant fix for this.

He has abilities and he can be taught. I am personally saddened we are so intent on getting everyone to college that we are overlooking the need for good vocational programs for students who really don’t have an interest or profile suggestive of college. He can do fine, he just needs the appropriate education and that may not be traditional special education.

That is what I need to figure out. He definately, at least at this point, has no need for college. He laughs when people ask him where he is planning on going to college!!

I just want to make sure he gets the right interventions and services before school begins. At least then he will have academic success as well as vocational success. All around school success would be unbelievable!

Thanks
K

I think the reason we as parents push for our kids to go to college is it seems more and more employers require them. Gone are the days that our parents grew up in. My dad is 65 years old, he dropped out of school in 10th grade and joined the army. He did 6 years between the army and the guard–and still did not complete a high school program. He has been a truck driver since getting out of the army. Now a days he would not qualify for the job because he does not have the right training or meet the requirements, does that make him any less of a person or less qualified to do his job? He has raised 7 kids 3 with special needs and continues to drive his truck. He is a very happy self educated man who I have more respect for then some college graudates. I don’t mean to get on a soap box but I think this need for “higher” education is getting out of hand. My humble opinion only. What makes this hard is I have 2 special needs children, I do not know how far they will make it in school and will become of them. As the years go by there is less and less demand for worker without a college degree. I get out of the AF in 16 months and have no degree and have been told by many potential employers “I dont care you have 20 years experience, you dont have a degree. As if a piece of paper is going to make me a “better person.” Sorry for ranting but it feels good to get off my chest.

I agree, my brother will be probably not go to college but he will come out of high school with a trade. When he is a junior in high school he can get a job instead of going to school on his shop weeks.

He is incredibly tight with his money now so I can only imagine how he will be when he gets a full time job. However, it will be a good release from school, to be able to go to a job and work and earn money for something he is good.

I agree having a college degree isn’t everything. People put too much into book knowledge instead of common sense.

A member of my family is a pharmacist and had to go to pharmacy school for 5 years and prior to that went to another college for 4 years. Don’t get me wrong they are smart, but it is book smart not common sense smart. My family acts like this person is the smartest person around becuase they have a degree and they are the only one in the family with a college degree. I personally don’t care but well, whatever!! I am so insulted when at family dinners other members of the family say things to this person like, well you are the smartest woman in the room. I say, speak for yourself!!

Anyhow, just a little ranting, never killed anyone!!

K.

Our family (Scottish heritage) values both knowledge and common sense. Certainly people with degrees were praised, and we were encouraged to get as much education as possible. But one of the neighbours that my father held up to us as a good example was a Grade 3 dropout. This neighbour, Mr. D, went to school when people from poor families were expected to learn their catechism and then go to work as soon as they were big enough. When he was sixteen and had had enough of the farm, he came to the big city to make his fortune. He got a job doing valet parking; he lied about being able to speak two languages and taught himself on the job. For over twenty years, ten hours a day, he parked cars. He saved his money and bought a very nice suburban house near ours, among the middle class/professional group. He sent his daughters to learn two languages and anything else they could in school so they would have better job opportunities (very forward-thinking in a time and culture when most of his contemporaries told girls not to pay attention to school because they would just get married.) On weekends, he did fairly large construction projects around his yard to make his home even nicer. My dad, who would have finished university except that the war intervened and who worked as an electrical engineer, saw Mr. D as someone we should be encouraged to emulate. I think this is an attitude that we as parents and teachers need to encourage more.

I believe the reason that college is a requirement these days is due to fact that when children graduate from high school they have not been prepared to enter the work force after 12 years of school.

How sad is that? But it is true. Many are not reading at grade level, cannot write a coherent, cohesive paragraph, cannot spell for dink and math skills, YIKES. Look at the test scores. Therefore, they honestly do need another 4 to 8 years of education.

Unless we change our educational values and get serious at school, even a bachelor’s degree will not be enough. We can see that happening already.

Frankly, I don’t agree with you at all. To say that most are not capable of entering the workforce? Some are not capable and when this is the case, there are other factors operating. They may not get it that you go to work, on time, call in if you are sick……these are values learned at home.

I teach at the college level and I will tell you that the presumption is that you can already do these things. Students who can not are at a serious disadvantage.

I also teach a lot of evening students who have jobs already—with their high school education. They don’t always have the mobility they would like and thus return to school. Frankly, I enjoy teaching them more than traditional students because they have life experiences as well.

Our country is unique because we don’t decide what is possible for people at a very young age. This isn’t to say that there isn’t tracking at the highest levels (Havard graduates ect). Still, I have had students whose kids are in college too.

Beth

Well, I have to disagree. My husband and I have both taught at the college level and papers that are turned in are unacceptable at times. Nothing more than a 6th grade writing level. How is this so if we have prepared these children in 12 years time?

I taught and atttempted to teach college math part-time for five years. Some of my students were adults (of all ages) who came to learn something, and they were lovely people and I did my best for them. Unfortunately a large proportion of the classes were kids (I use the word advisedly) who were *neither* academically *nor* socially *nor* emotionally prepared for college; their work and their actions would have embarrassed a competent seventh-grader.
Emotionally: you should not take it as a personal insult and a sign the teacher hates you when you fail a test, especially if you blatantly did no homework and no studying. By high school, much less college or the work force, you should realize that you have certain work to do and you are judged on whether you do it, not your cute smile and funny excuses.
Socially: you should not start rumours and complaints against an instructor because you aren’t doing well in the class. Getting everyone in class mad at the teacher and disrupting class time as much as possible is not going to improve your education (or career). Also, you should realize that you do not pass pre-engineering math by whining hardest. And you shoudn’t spend your classes (or work time) having private conversations, reading Mad magazine, or hanging out in the washroom; by high school, much less college, you should realize that class time is there to learn something and work time is there to work.
Academically: You should realize that if you cheat on the placement test, or sneak out of taking it, you will find yourself in a class that you are guaranteed to fail. You should realize that semester three depends on the material from semesters one and two and you have to remember at least the high points. You should know that assignments are there for you to learn something and you shouldn’t have to be watched every second to be sure you work.

I could tell horror stories about totally unready college kids for hours. The point is that these kids had finished twelve years of school totally unready either for higher education or for work. Personally I have great respect for a good auto mechanic or farmer or cook; these people have worked hard to learn a difficult skill. The problem being diuscussed here is people who have no work habits or skills in any area, and it is a real problem.

Well said Victoria! You are correct that by the time these “kids” reach college they should not be making the errors you noted. My oldest son 14 with LD’s even realizes this. He came home upset from summer school one day because 4 of 20 students did NOT complete the assigned work and it was NOT because they couldn’t but because they did not want to. My son said he could not understand how these kids expected to pass a class without applying themselves and holding themselves accountable. He said mom health is a requirement we must pass the class to graduate why wouldn’t you at least try? He is a little slow in that he is just getting this lesson but at least he got it before he graduated. I make it a point to let him know how proud I am of him for trying so hard. I explain that it is okay to fail as long as you put your best foot forward. I have “lost my littl boy” sometime this summer, he was replaced by a maturing young man. Granted he may have many more miles to travel but has learned a very important lesson.

I couldn’t afford college so I worked for 2 years before I started. Amazing how 2 years working in a factory at dull repetitive work for minimum wage can organize the mind. Gettting to get up in the morning and go to class instead of work feels like a priviledge instead of a chore or bore. Yet having fixed up a number of houses over the last 12 years I sometimes regret not having studied plumbing. A good conscientious creative plumber who can figure out how to put a shower in where there’s only a sink and create water pressure where there’s no mains access and analyze and resolve why drains aren’t draining properly is worth the respect of kings. ( As the Duke and Duchess residing at Blenheim Palace found this weekend . We were there and there was an emergency drains pump parked and pumping at their private quarters.Plumbing,as the Romans knew, is the mark of civilisation. When I find a good plumber I feel I’ve found an artist. It makes me angry that these professions are looked down on and you have to have soem crummy overvalued degree to be granted respect. Andby the way from what I’ve been reading Winston Churchill had learning difficulties but compensated by dictating all of his books and speeches and having much read to him. He composed almost entirely in his head while in bed. His stenographers just had to cope and he had a bad lisp that made him hard to understand.

Although I totally agree with everything you said, my point is that after 12 years it should not be so obvious that a student has been passed along without anyone catching this and setting them straight. Be it teachers at school and parents at home.

The problem that I notice is this: the descriptions you give are much to common for comfort (my experience). In no way would I imply that everyone should attend college to be a decent person. College is not for everyone. But, if our traditional 12 years of schooling is mass producing the students you describe, we are doing something inadequately during those years and what should we do about this? What are the true reasons some of these “kids” opt out of college? Have THEY been prepared properly in those 12 years?