I am new to this board. I am considering placing my soon to be 10 yo LD/ADD child in a small private school that specializes in Dyslexic kids. His LD is mainly related to severe motor output and sequencing issues. He has had private Orton-Gill tutoring for a yr,and I must say that most of his successful learning has happened with the wonderful tutor. Until this year, the school would not recognize the dx of LD from qualified psych…that’s another story!! The school has told us that our son is not ld enough to get services, and the class size next year will be in the range of 27-30. He is reading at grade level (thanks to the tutoring) and can write cursive (also thanks to the tutoring), but it is slow and he cannot keep up with his classmates. He tells us that he is lost for most of the school day. His teacher is kind and helpful, but is limited in what she can do with 26 other kids. His self-esteem has been plumetting for a few years..he once was extremely popular, but now seems to be the subject of teasing.
The school uses a multi-sensory approach with daily tutoring. The cost is about $2000 more than we spend on tutoring. When we visited to the school we noticed a great emphasis on verbal and visual work (and a lot of squirmy-type, but happy, kids).
Sorry for the length. My dilemma is..do I pull my son from the neighbourhood school with his friends and from his wonderful tutor to put him in a place that would arguably work to his learning style? I must say that due to the intervention we have taken, he does barely function in the public school.
He is not on meds for ADHD because here in Canada, we only have Ritalin and Dexedrine, both of which caused horrendous side effects. Rumour has it that other options (Adderall and maybe straterra) are in the offing, so it is possible that the inattention part may improve. Another factor is that my older son is gifted/LD/tourettes, so that the stress level around here is EXTREMELY high. I work full time and spend at least 3 hours helping my sons at night.
Any thoughts would be most appreciated.
Re: Experience with special ld schools?
If I had a child is class size of 27-30, I’d consider pulling them out, LD or not. Such large class sizes in the elementary years are not good for any child.
They’re especially not good for LD children and/or for children who are not happy in school. Children can never receive individual attention with so many classmates either for their learning needs or for their social and emotional needs. I think your son is saying something very powerful when he says he feels lost for most of the school day.
With that, why would you keep him there? Do you think in the year ahead he will no longer feel lost? And what changes will there be that will help him to feel found?
If there’s some wonderful teacher in the next grade and you know he will get this wonderful teacher, that might make me think about leaving him in his neighborhood school. The very phrase ‘neighborhood school’ suggests good things and safe things. It suggests a sense of the familiar and being known and understood and having friends close to you. Yet you say he’s being teased and feels lost.
For me this decision would be one of the easy ones if I could afford it. All good parents want to do the right thing. Much good luck figuring out which that might be.
Re: Experience with special ld schools?
When I pulled my child out of the school she was attending and placed her in a school to fit her needs, a load was taken off of me and her. Prior to this placement, she had tutoring and other therapies four days a week. The school placement alleviated the need for additional tutoring.
Re: Experience with special ld schools?
Since I know how hard it is to try to make the right decision, I will briefly share our experience. Since I am a special ed teacher I was able to maintain our dyslexic son in my own public school through 8th grade. While there were difficulties, there were benefits, too, and we all did the best we could. For high school we enrolled him in a private LD college prep school, which goes from about 5th through 12th grade. He is now a big fish in a very small pond. He is so happy and able to tackle the challenges of grade level curriculum without all the other stress of a big school where he did not fit in. We had to sell our house and move 100 miles away which has been lonely for all of us. It is now his second year at the school and he is well liked, a leader, involved in things that never would have been offered to him in a large school. We are so grateful that we have been able to provide this very positive experience for our son. We feel that his future is bright with possibilities. We do not regret the past too much, but we are very satisfied with the private LD school. So, I would encourage you to look ahead and think about where your child would do best. Nothing is set in stone, so at some time you may transition back to a middle or high school. Good luck!
Re: Experience with special ld schools?
Wonderful, insightful comments. Thank you to all who responded.
The reasons for keeping him where his is are:
*logistics of getting him to the school
* a nagging feeling that since his reading is okay, that all the other things (spelling, writing, sequencing, short term memory) can be dealt with
* there is a chance that he will get the best teacher in the school (but with 29 other parents wanting her too, it will be a big class)
The scary bit is that he will be in the last year of elem school next year, and the jump to middle school in terms of expectations and volume of work is HUGE!
So, I think that I will drive out to the LD school tomorrow with the application.
Re: Experience with special ld schools?
We made the decision that next year (4th grade) my son will attend a private LD school, and as a result we are moving the whole family closer and now my other child will also attend a new (regular public) school. Whew! its alot of change.
But since making the decision we all feel relieved. I can’t speak with any experience, but our reasons for doing this are that he is a very bright kid, and that just getting by (albeit with hours and hours of tutoring and therapy) just isn’t good enough. He told me he needs to go to this school so that “his reading can catch up with my intelligence” and that he hopes the teachers at his new school “realize that I’m smart too”
I think these late elementary early middle school years can establish a foundation of skills that will allow him to be mainstreamed for high school. Its about time he got what he needs instead of all of us beating our heads against the wall trying to make him fit into the wrong school environment.
I’d lean to the school that is a good fit. Friends will happen there, too — and after another year under his belt of success and good remediation, he could possibly do more than get by (and “getting by” has its hidden costs — is he spending time on activities that are difficult for him, but don’t teach him that well? WHile he’s thinking about the handwriting, the other kid’s thinking about the learning process and he’s getting further behind…)