child not ld, can she get help?

Look for the No Child Left Behind Law that was recently passed.

It addresses the needs of all children not just LD. If you think your school is not providing an adequate education you have a legal right to send her to another public school. I think the law is that the child has to be failing for 3 years. I am not sure though.
It also addresses a requirement that schools follow scientificly proven teaching methods (many don’t)
There may be more to it, you will have to check.
If you can perhaps point out this law and show your school that she will be left behind without some services they may be willing to comply.
Knowledge is power. If you are professional and can back you up your case with facts and the law you have a much better chance.

Good Luck

I am not in any way an expert but I read a lot and from reading about phonemic awareness I think perhaps it is a matter of a difference in some of the phonemes used in the english lang. versus the chinese lang. Since your daughter’s first language wasn’t english perhaps she can’t hear or duplicate certain phonemes that are in the english lang., in other words her ‘ear’ wasn’t trained to hear some sounds common to english.

There are others here who could perhaps say if I am way off base or not.

What I think though, is that if that is her difficulty (lack of phonemic awareness) then she would benefit from programs that teach it. I also think that if that is the problem then it would be considered an ld since it affects her ability to read and thus learn, especially at 10 yrs. when students are reading to learn.

Remember though I am not one of the experts, I am pretty sure one of them will chime in shortly. Best wishes.

http://www.cesl.arizona.edu

It is the University of Arizona and they may have information that would be helpful or could point you that way…

then there is

www.eslconnect.com

which is maintained by an ESL teacher named Marie Nuzzi and has many sections you may find helpful including a great links page.

She should be eligible for services- and the school should have a continuum of serviecs in regular ed- but there is no way, unless she was identified in China which is unlikely- that you could sort out ld at this point- and ESL is not a special ed issue under the law.

Robin

Was she tested in Chinese? You may want to go back to the drawing board if this did not occur. It is her legal right to be tested in her native tongue.

First things first.

You say she had very little schooling in China. Since Chinese is very difficult to learn to read and children can’t read fluently until they have four or five years of schooling at least, that means she is probably a non-reader in any language.

Then she has had little or no instruction in English reading; much of her class time so far (six months at most?) has probably been spent learning to speak English (and quite rightly so!) and only a little reading has been done.

So what you have is a child of normal intelligence and abilities who simply has not really yet started to read, because nobody has yet taught her! So what she needs is basic reading and writing instruction, as would be done in a *good* Grade 1 and 2 class. She needs a sound phonetically-based instructional system and good basic books to practice.

You can teach her yourself, or you can get a tutor. I would not look to the school to do this; yes they *should*, and no they *don’t usually* provide this essential basic service; by the time you have fought over the issue for years, she could have already succeeded if you had put the time and money into teaching her rather than fighting.

Many people on the Teaching Reading board speak highly of “Reading Reflex” as a basic sound/symbol program. Ask Shay for more details.
Or, I can tell you what programs I use. You can email me.
Then you need good books to read; school book sales and used book stores are good sources for old textbooks (remember, she needs a whole program, from Grades 1 to 4, that she just hasn’t had yet). I can also give you some sources for programs I use.

If you start now and get in a week or two before school starts you can help her a lot even in a short time. Continuing on after school and over next summer, she should be able to catch up close to grade level in a year.

At age 10, she should be able to learn spoken English fluently in a year or two total, ie a year or so from now. She may or may not retain a slight accent but it should be no problem. Don’t worry, just get the basic reading instruction that she has missed into high gear and she should do very well.

Email me and I’ll get info back to you as soon as I can. Or ask Shay too.

“„,I would not look to the school to do this; yes they *should*, and no they *don’t usually* provide this essential basic service; by the time you have fought over the issue for years, she could have already succeeded if you had put the time and money into teaching her rather than fighting….”.

A sad but true commentary.