IEP goals met, but.....

Lisa, When was your son’s last year 3 yr. eval?

ISAT???? Idaho? Illinois? Neither?…just wondering

Sue C

Sue, his last complete evaluation was in 4th grade-he is currently in 9th grade. Although he completes all his assignments it takes him a significantly longer time then his peers. I don’t think taking 55 minutes to read 5 pages of text is very efficient. The ISAT is the Illinois Standard Achievement test, the MAT7 is the Metropolitan Achievement Test 7th edition. On the ISAT reading portion he scored significantly below standards on the Math portion he scored below standards. On the MAT 7 he scored at the 6.5 grade level for reading and the 7th grade level for math. He is currently in a regular ed Lit class and is failing. He is taking Algebra over 2 years and is getting an A in that class. I just think that a student who has made it as far as he has with his reading skills can go even further but I get the feeling the school has given up. One teacher even stated that if he has not caught up by now he never will. What kind of non-sense is that? He started 7th grade with a 3rd grade reading level and has worked his way up steadily. With his homework taking so much time it is hard for us to work on his reading. We do partner read his homework with him and do discuss the subjects with him. I just feel the school should be doing more then just saying we can get him books on tape, we can read his tests to him, ect. It is hard though because we want him to be successful. As you can see we are at a loss. Any recommendations for reading programs for older students? Ones where he will not feel like he is being treated like a child? He has become very sensative to what others think since turning 14. Thanks for your concern.

When you held an evaluation report meeting (3years ago, 2 years ago, one year ago?) to review testing/assessment, in what area of LD did your child qualify? If reading, then each IEP should state quantitative things in the Present Level of Educational Performance about reading being low—giving scores, examples of *current* level achievement in this area. Then, the law mandates that IEP goals and objectives be written to support this area of weakness.

If your child qualifies in reading, then reading should be addressed in every IEP.

Susan he is qualified as a student with a language disorder, his official dx’s the school uses are CAPD, ADD, inattentive, and mixed receptive/expressive language disorder. At his last triannual review the only tests they felt needed was language testing which still showed him with moderate delays in expressive language and mild ones in receptive. I really messed up his last IEP because I allowed them to only concentrate on his missing assignments and not why he had them. Now I am having to try and correct my mistake.

A form that says something like, “Notice of Eligibility Determination.” Very important form. I don’t notice anything about reading in this post. Receptive and expressive are language issues, not reading issues. Yes, I know that one can lead to the other; however, in the eyes of sped law, GnO’s need only be written for areas in which the child is eligible for and in need of special education services. Thus that form name: Eligibility Determination Notice.

You may ask for the team to reconvene at any time and request a reading evaluation. You may use the standardized tests as evidence for your claim that a disabling condition, such as a reading disability exists. Be sure to put your requests in writing and be careful of the tests they use.

What are the specific problems your child experiences in reading? Slow rate? Lots of errors in pronouncing words? Doesn’t seem to understand what has read even though is saying words correctly?

It is very hard to say when he reads aloud it is very halting, very slow and labored, he does self correct. I think part of the problem could also be poor vocabulary. The district we moved from in 2000 was 2 years behind the district we are in now. This made my sons delays very glaring when we got here. He was placed in an LD reading, writing, and math class. I do believe although this helped him to catch up some it also hindered him because he was not exposed to the same vocabulary and other instruction as his peers. I quess he will be forever playing catch up. I am very pleased with his progress to date just wondering how to keep it up. How do you keep him in regular ed exposed to the same things his peers are and still help to remediate. Maybe this is why there is such difficulty in special ed. How do you determine what is best for the child when they have progressed to the point my son has?

As a reading teacher, I would have kids keep up with their class by having a listening center available so that they could discuss and be involved in the story without worrying about reading independently. Whenever possible, I had them follow along in a copy of the book with the tape.

Now, above that, twice weekly during their reading time, they would meet with me in small group that worked on their particular skills. Some worked comprehension, some decoding. Others only came for 5 minutes to do fluency repeated readings to improve speed.

In your son’s case, we still don’t know the root cause of the reading problem. Slow reading can have many causes. A good reading teacher—who knows phonemic awareness, phonics, and whole language instructional methods can give an individual classroom reading inventory and uncover wherein the problem lies. The test should include a listening comprehension piece, too. Words read in isolation and in context (stories) as well as timing for reading rate should be included, along with questions about the story to discover reading comprehension level. Hallie Yopp’s Test of Phonemic Awareness is also a nice criterion referenced test for that (phonemic awareness)skill.

Susan I got an e-mail today from my sons resource teacher stating she would like my son to start using the books on tape. The school is a member of the Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic and they have several of the texts and stories on tape. She is going to help me get a reader for these tapes free from the state of Illinois. She was surprised when I told her his last complete evaluation was in 4th grade. I explained to her the reason for this is it was never questioned after that if he qualified for services. She wants to speak to the school psychologist to review his records and scores. She feels at the very least he should have an individual reading assessment given since he scored below standards on the state assessment for reading. Several tests have been mentioned here what ones would be appropriatte for a 9th grader? They do have different levels of reading intervention in this school but according to the resource teacher my sons needs don’t fit neatly into 1 of the established programs. They have a reading skills class, this is a class for students who are significantly below reading level; ie the 9th grader who made it to school with early elementry reading skills. They have a reading development class for students with a 3-5 grade reading skills, and they have another class for students who are only a year or two behind. My sons score on the group test shows him to be at the 6.5 level too high to qualify for the first two groups. The other class is for both reading and writing, his writing skills tested at the 11th grade level (except spelling) so he don’t qualify for this class either. They are going to have to come up with an individual plan for him. Everyone on the team is in agreement that the regular ed class with accomodations is the best way to go. They are going to look at getting a reading professional to work with him and a group of other students who have his same profile. The school commented that they are now getting students like my son who are about 3 years behind in reading with solid skills in other areas. I think it would be nice if they had a level of instruction for these kids since they have seen an increase in their numbers. I will continue to partner read with him at home because I feel the discussions we have when doing this is very beneficial to him. We basically disect the book! (and I hated biology—lol) Thanks for answering all my silly questions. Hope you have a great school year.

that deal with students reading below grade level and mandating what schools must do. Missouri has a fairly stiff one and Illinois may, too.

If I were doing the test, I would just give a classroom reading inventory and do an error-analysis on syllable types, word families, regular and irregular consonants, vowel digraphs and diphthongs, and more so that I know what the student knows and does not know about decoding. The classroom reading inventory would also pick up fluency and comprehension problems.

In the absence of a reading professional with really good phonics/phonemic awareness skills, I’d go for the Woodcock Reading Master or the Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery (first choice if they’ve got it). Since this test doesn’t measure fluency, I’d pull out something like the GORT for the fluency segment but would give the whole thing because I like the comprehension on it better than the any of the Woodcock series.

Like I said, with an very good reading teacher, a classroom reading inventory will get you where you need to go. They have to be good a hearing and analyzing errors. That isn’t a common skill in our whole-language world.

You are most welcome to ask any and all questions anytime. I remember what it was like having a child who couldn’t read and a school who wouldn’t provide meaningful services. Sometimes I just thought I’d lose my mind—and there was no LDonline BB to prop me up!

Thank you Susan your support and the support I have received from others on this board has been greatly appreciatted. Have a wonderful school year.

Lisa — I thought I had posted on this one but the post doensn’t show, sop let me repeat myself and give some suggestions.

(1) If he is that slow and still testing at a 7 reading level, you must be doing the tests untimed. Untimed tests are a good thing for him to show what he really can do, and a bad thing when you want a comparative measure to justify special services. (I hope you follow this distinction carefully!)
Have the school give him a standardized TIMED test of reading. He will score much lower than his actual knowledge, probably 3 or 4, and this will justify getting him the help he needs to improve.

(2) Shay works with this group of students too, and has posted the same thing I find: in over 90% of cases, a very slow older reader has weak decoding skills. Sometimes the student knows the phonics in isolation but has never been taught to connect it to real reading. Very very often the student “passes” a phonics test which only tests the very basic single-letter sounds and doesn’t get into what PG calls the “advanced code”, the letter combinations and syllables; thgis is a serious problem that can realy hold back reading. Often the student has learned a memorization habit and is slow because every single word is laboriously checked against the memory banks; such students may have decoding skills but don’t trust themselves. In almost all cases, a good one-to-one tutoring program, with a teacher who is knowledgeable ( Susan Long is right, and be careful on the open market), can turn things right around and help make the reading much less laborious and therefore faster; then you get into positive feedback, that the more you practice doing things right, the better you get. Right now you have negative feedback, practicing doing things the hard way.

(3) You have rejected the reading course offered by the school because the class at his grade level also teaches writing and spelling, which in your opinion isn’t a problem. Well, even if only half the time is spent on reading, that’s a lot more help than he’s getting now. And spelling can be a back door into teaching those advanced phonics skills, especialy in “whole-lanmguage” districts; even if they don’t dare teach phonics, it’s OK to teach spelling, and the same letter-spound patterns are learned in both places. And extra writing teaching is always a bonus; most kids don’t get nearly enough. I would in general recommend putting him in this class as an option, ie not instead of but as well as the regular classes at his grade level — this means dropping one other option, but it’s only for a year.
The only reason that it might be a bad idea is IF the school then washes their hands of him and says he’s getting extra reading and that’s all the help they’ll give; watch out for this ploy.

(4) There are some people, including one who got into a lot of arguments on this board, who wash their hands of students and say that after age ten oir eleven they’ll never read any better, so give up. This is a ridiculous statement and historically totally inaccurate (Historically, a lot of people never got much education at all before age ten, or had educations frequently interrupted, and many of them went on to become not just successful readers but, oh, say, Supreme Court Justices, professors, senators, doctors, … . read any nineteenth century biographies for proofs by the score. Then look at the success of Laubach and other adult literacy programs.) Of course washing your hands of students absolves you of any responsibility for actually teaching something, and you can have fun playing the games of your choice. Shay and I and many others here can attest that *most* students of any age can achieve huge improvements in reading if they are effectively taught. Fight this one; tell them to their faces that they are both wrong and terribly out of date. (Rigid age progressions were all the rage in the 1940’s and 50’s, and have since been debunked in almost all fields.)

Thanks Victoria. You are correct he tests at this high level on untimed tests. I just got his scores back from the ISAT taken last year, they strictly followed the time limit. He scored significantly below grade level in reading. Just earlier this week his resource teacher got a hold of me to ask permission to review his file and plans on asking for individual timed reading tests. The school is helping me to get a reader for books on tape and plan on providing all his books this way. They are no longer requiring him to come ask to have his test read but having it built into his schedule. All his teachers are going to supply the resource teacher with study notes and guides so he can get them discretely. He had his Lit test read to him on Thursday and instead of scoring a 50 he scored in the 80’s. They now believe me when I tell him he has good comprehension but trying to figure out what is on the paper sometimes interferes. The course that offers both the reading and the writing the school says he does not qualify for because it is for students who are behind in both areas. My son minus the spelling scores well above grade level here. It is strange but shortly after my orginal post the school contacted me. I don’t know what tests they plan on giving him but they now seem to think there is a problem. The ISAT is Illinois achievement test given in reading, writing, and math in 3, 5, and 8th grade. The same day my youngest sons teacher also offered to provide his books on tape. I have not seen his score sheet but I assume from the offer that he also scored below standards (this does not surprise me but the oldest ones did because I knew untimed he could get by, but the youngest has always had severe delays). Ken my youngest sons teacher reviewd my copy of GREAT LEAPS loved it, presented it to the school, and this is a program they will use in school this year. The first year they are going to use it with the LD students only. Thanks for the good program. Thank you all for your support and great advise