I haven’t posted in a long time, but thought I’d give an update on my 14 year old son. He entered special ed in 5th grade, with a learning disability in written expression. He’s dyslexic too. At that point, we got a private tutor (former English teacher) who’s been working with him weekly ever since. He was removed from special ed 2 months ago due to the results of the 3 year re-evaluation. Tonight, at the 8th grade honors assembly, he was one of only 3 kids who got an award for academic excellence in Language Arts. (2 years ago, this kid was writing well below grade level). He wouldn’t have gotten to this point without all the help from his tutor and without us working with him intensely at home (the school learning lab program was really not very useful). So for all of you struggling with your kids…keep up the hope! Hard work really does pay off…just don’t count on the school to do it all for you.
Kay
Re: there is a light at the end of the tunnel
Wow!!!!!! That’s impressive! Thanks so much for sharing.
Stories like this definitely do bring hope! :-)
Re: there is a light at the end of the tunnel
What programs /approaches did you work on at home!!
Great Story ! Congratulations!
what we did
My son’s tutor started off working with basic phonics when he was in 5th grade. (He had gone through a whole language program that was a total disaster for him.) She then introduced words with irregular spellings, and had start a small notebook that he would write words that he missed or didn’t even know how to start spelling. She also worked on the mechanics of handwriting, including calligraphy (and that made it fun). She had him read a grade level book one summer, and walked him through the process of making an outline, writing the essay, editing the essay, and talked with him about the sorts of points to look for in the book, and what LA teachers wanted to see. I gave her the list of things on his IEP that were deemed deficient, and step by step she worked with him on them, using his homework assignments to do it (so my son didn’t feel like it was wasted time.) He met with her twice a week to start, then once a week during the school year, then eventually switched to once every two weeks. We also kept up tutoring during the summer.
Important tools that we got were a Franklin speller for him to take to school. (They’re wonderful, you type something in phonetically, and it gives you choices as to the actual spelling. If you’re still not sure, it has a dictionary that you can look up the different spellings to get the work you really want.) We also got a laptop computer with a word processor and taught him how to use it, and how spell check can also be abused. We encouraged him to write as though he were talking aloud, even if he knew he couldn’t spell the words. To get him started on that, we’d scribe for him in 6th grade. He went from struggling to write one paragraph to being able to write essays during 6th grade.
We stressed than every paper needs to be edited. It didn’t matter whether it was his tutor, us, his sister, or one of his friends, but we made sure everything was read by somebody else before it was handed in.
Assistive technology for spelling brought his gifts out.
We spent hours working on math concepts (especially on how to decipher word problems.) We made him keep an agenda in 6th grade, so we knew what homework was due. In 7th, we made sure he had an agenda, but didn’t check it all the time. At some point, I figured he had to learn how to be responsible for his school work. In 8th grade, we still asked what was due, and helped quiz him for test preparation. If there was too much reading, we’d read pertinent sections aloud (as he has an incrediable memory for what he hears). I think next year, we’ll make sure he has an agenda again, just until we assess what the challenges in high school are going to be.
If he had a toxic teacher, we got him out of that class. (I’m sure the administration just loved us, but we made sure the special ed teacher was our friend.) We kept him out of a foreign language class, figuring he needed time to catch up with English. He will have to take it next year, but he’ll be doing Spanish, which is reasonably phonetic.
We also made sure there was time for fun stuff. He played baseball, and participated in band and theater.
I never found a magic bullet program. He needed a lot of individualized instruction, which the schools can’t or won’t do with their large class sizes. In the evenings, we just tried to fill the gaps. I won’t have the results of the state testing for awhile, but we did just get his report card. He had all A’s and B’s.
We’re lucky that he wants to succeed, so is willing to work with us and his tutor with minimal resistance. He also gets along pretty well with his teachers, so is able to negotiate things on his own.
He’ll be on a 504 plan next year. His goal is to go to college. We’re going to try him help meet that goal.
Cheers,
Kay
Congratulations to you and your son, it is nice to see the hard work has paid off.