still having doubts(really long)

Amy,

Your situation is complex and can’t add much to most of it but thought I’d tell you about an approach that works well for multiplication. Math Facts The Fun Way uses stories and visual cues to teach multiplication. You can find the website on the internet. My LD son is in 3rd grade and learning them this way. He has multiple LDs and is getting 100s on the regular classroom quizes. So I am very impressed.

Betj

In the perfect world, all children with learning differences would be helped to be very successful in school and they would be helped to perfectly learn all the things that are difficult for them to learn.

Sadly we don’t live in that world yet. Some people go through their lives spelling with difficulty and spelling imperfectly. My husband still struggles to spell and I still struggle to do math without a calculator. In some areas people have natural abilities - in others we struggle to do simple things.

You can put some of your concerns into his next IEP such as the use or not of a calculator. Other things need to be monitored through many years.

Having an LD child and having them in school is a constant trial. It makes us old before our time and gives us too many sleepless nights. My own son is in 11th grade and I look forward to his graduation after these many years of helping him to manage his learning differences.

Good luck to you and your son.

You’re not psychic enough to know what’s perfect, and what help would be most useful — actually, that’s true for every kid in the world, but for our kids it’s more painfully obvious when they aren’t getting what they need. We’ll never know if some little or big intervention would have changed a kid’s life… or just been a tedious waste of time… or *deprived* him of a different life-changing experience. SO we have to make the best judgement we can and not waste too much time in the ‘but what if it isn’t right’ corner because that doesn’t help anything.
Based on teaching kiddos with dyslexia for 15 years or so, and having gotten to know a *lot* of kids and adults with different learning styles and spelling abilities, I’ve found out that the kinds of mistakes that seem so completely OBVIOUS to me are very, very common to bright, high achieving people — and that “double the consonant or not” thing is one of them. My theory is that I had those basic suffix addition rules imbued in me — whether I intuited it or it was drilled enough in those phonics lessons at Catholic school, I don’t know. But lots and lots and lots of people just see Mom — y. You add the y to make that e sound, done deal. Why stick two letters in there??? IT’s only one sound! Some of my brightest college-bound future scientists spelled that way in the writing process and that was one of the things they proofread for. And these guys weren’t really terrible spellers (most of ‘em, some of ‘em were :)).
And the bottom line is, spelling is the last thing to come ‘round.
Unfortunately as far as math goes, it usually goes too fast. It’s why there are so **&^*& many people like you out there who got left high and dry after about fourth grade. You might want to look into Peggy Kaye’s books on “math games,” or Marilyn Burns’ books — you’d like the latter yourself, quite possibly.

Amyf, have you thought of hiring a tutor? It won’t have the stigma of going to a resource room, but can have a very positive effect on his learning. It may cost a little bit of money. But it would be money well spent. You may even be able to find a tutor who has experience with ld/add kids and will really know what to do. Sometimes just having a little one on one can make all the difference!

Thanks for all your input, I am unfortunately one of those people who obsesses every so often about the what ifs. Thank goodness not too often I hope :o)

I actually am considering getting him a tutor, I have talked with one already and will probably hire her.Soon!

About the resource room, it is available for test taking and completing assignments as needed. Usually he takes the tests with the class and if he bombs, he can retake it. At our iep meeting, we discussed his quizzes and tests and agreed that he should be taking the tests with the resource teacher, he is doing fine on homework but 38’s on quizzes and 64’s on tests. He usually does better with less distraction. This is for math. My son has been resistant since the day he found out he would be going to resource room back in 4th grade (you know, I hate you mom, I am not going to the r*** class, trying to explain the definition of ld to a 4th grader, still an ongoing discussion).

Anyway, today is a different day, hopefully my perspective will be better. You all have a good one too.

Thanks again y’all.

Amy

Amy,

At that age, the resource room can be such a stigma, that I would suggest that he take tests in the classroom and retake failed ones after school, if that would make him feel better. There probably would be other things going on in the resource room during the school day anyway, so taking a test in there might not be any better.

Also, I agree that I would use outside tutoring, but I would not even consider a tutor that did not have training and knowledge in one of the Orton-Gillingham based programs. That should help him with spelling. However, I am not sure what you mean by the sixth grade tests showing no deficits. Are you saying he tested on grade level in reading and math? In that case, I’m not sure tutoring would be warranted, but it seems you are concerned about his reading ability for some reason.

I have a little concern about the APD not being addressed. You cannot attribute slow processing to just ADD is he is APD. Slow temporal processing is one component of APD. Unfortunately there are few education professionals who are knowledgeable about APD, so everything may be attributed to ADD when it is not true. Are you even sure that he is ADD?

Janis

Have you asked your son what he thought of the IEP and specificly why he wrote no,and not? I am curious what his perspective is,not “I just don’t “answers of course. Wondering if he has more to say?

If your in Fla. you could possiblly look into a private school,that specializing in this kind of kid.
A state voucher called the McKay Scholarship. I did,and it was undoubtely the very best move of my kids lives.

He was dxed with the add by a dev. ped and apd by a slp within the same week back in 1st grade. He was having tremendous difficulty learning to read, actually just learning the sounds the letters made.He has been on ritalin since 1st grade and it made a positive difference in the first 2 days.Huge amount of family evidence of add as well.(mom,dad, brother,uncle).

I don’t really have a clue where exactly he is on reading level, the w-j in 6th grade gave us a lot of broad this and that and some lows, nothing stood out except processing. The summary stated that he showed evidence of learning differences not deficits. All computerized. In the early grades he was pretty good at math but has gone down because of lack of multi. facts in his head. He’s been allowed accommodations for that. As far as the apd, I was given handouts for me and teachers. I noted that environmental changes were pretty much the same for add and apd, we talked about the fm trainer but decided that it would make him stand out and he has been aware of standing out since 2nd grade, he was/is very sensitive. One thing that did come about because of the w-j is that he has as an accommodation ‘increased wait time for him to process questions and come up with answers’.

We came up with stories about where he went if a kid asked him, when he started pullout. He was taken out of pullout when he was reevaluated here in the 6th grade. He already was in remedial reading class from 1st through 4th grade so we kept that as an explanation. It was decided in 4th grade through testing and testimony from me and teacher plus his class examples that he needed the resource room for lan. arts and supplemental math. The reading has always been a concern ,even now he has a hard time reading my email over my shoulder. Stuff I expect him to know, he doesn’t. I asked about this at the iep meeting, they went over the 6th grade w-j with me, there isn’t really anything there that raises flags.

I have posted about this before(the testing I mean), I am in Germany, he attends a dep. of defense school. Although he seems to be doing alright here in school, he has even made honor roll several times, I feel kind of like what happened in Florida is going to happen with this school system. The difference is 6mos. in Fl as opposed to 3 yrs in the dodds system.

There are advantages to being here that aren’t academic, such as stricter behavior standards imposed, if kids get into serious trouble, they get the servicemember in trouble. Kids here for the majority care about their moms and dads and don’t want them kicked out of the service and don’t want to get sent back to the states because they got into that trouble.Don’t have to worry about my kid wearing the wrong color or anything.Gang stuff.

There isn’t really anything concrete I can put a finger on, it is just a feeling that something isn’t completely right and this is all going to come back and bite us in the butt. Like I said, this was kind of me rambling out my doubts, things may just be ok and I am thinking too much. You might have read about the add symptom where a person organizes around a worry and I think that could be what is going on with me. I appreciate y’all’s ideas and opinions though.

Socks,
he wrote no and not at the end of all the sentences, even the ones that said he was allowed use of a calculator or spell checker. Or that the teacher was to assist in the use of home/school communication(the planner). I tried to talk to him, he just says he doesn’t need any accommodations, and if he does, it means he is stupid. Of course I have attempted to explain the def. of ld, he is very resistant to me. One reason I wouldn’t dare homeschool him, we butt heads over just getting him to brush his teeth! Thank goodness he likes girls, that gets him in the shower and brushing teeth, at least he listened when I told him girls don’t like guys who stink or have bad breath!

We were in Pensacola for 6mos.,when my son was in his second half of 1st grade and only recently dxed add and mild apd.It was pitiful, when I asked about a reading teacher I was told there wasn’t any money for a reading teacher(even with the lottery), and then he was graded as on grade level. They say the first kid is a guinea pig for their parents, and of course I was a dummy for not pursuing anything further. I went to high school in Pensacola, it was a pretty good school so I thought the elementary school next door to my old high school would be good also. Little did I know.

Anyway, we spent 4 years in VA, had a very good experience for 3 out of 4 of them schoolwise(actually my younger son had a good experience all 4 yrs) and we have been in the dodds system for 18 mos with another 18 to go. I appreciate all that you all have said, it has given me some other things to think about. I’ll keep y’all informed as things go. Thanks everyone.

I, too, have a 12 year-old son with the inattentive form of ADD. And he, too, is weak on spelling and math (although he’s generally very bright). So, to begin with, I know where you’re coming from.

Having said that, my take on the situation (based on my son, my observations, and your description) is that much of the fault is simply poor teaching at the school. When our son was learning to read, we were told not to worry about spelling and grammar; it was important for the child to learn how to express himself. (whole language versus phonics debate). We tried at home, but he received absolutely no help at school (nor did any of the other kids) in spelling or grammar. It’s no wonder our son (and his friends) have more trouble spelling than we did when we grew up!

It’s similar with math. There are so many exercises on “estimating” and “guessing” that they don’t spend much time doing actual math. When I was a kid, I had to memorize the multiplication tables. That’s not considered appropriate any more. God forbid we should make kids memorize anything! My son’s quite bright, but ask him to multiply 9 times 7, or 12 times 8, and he’s very shaky. We’ve not allowed him to use a calculator. Calculators have their places, but they can’t/shouldn’t substitute for the rudimentary knowledge that all kids should have.

Yes, ADD and other learning disabilities can make the tasks of learning spelling and math more difficult. And accommodations are often appropriate. But even “regular” kids aren’t learning how to spell and how to multiply numbers. And, in particular, watch out for “accommodations” that will only exacerbate the problem. The real goal is to get an education for our children, not to have schools bypass their responsibilities through accommodations.

Hope that helps.

Word,
Your note does help, thanks. I did notice when my son first started 1st grade, at least 4 boys from his kindergarten class were in remedial reading along with my son. They did a computer program in kindergarten called write to read, at the time it looked good(ya know, technology in the classroom and all) but he went through the whole program without actually learning all the words. I got a note two weeks before kindergarten ended with a list that said he needed to learn all those words. Bear in mind I volunteered in class and went to all the parent/teacher conferences so the fact that he hadn’t learned the words and consequently was doing so badly in first grade came as a complete surprise. They had him redo the computer program in 1st, apparently it didn’t help. When the teacher started taking away his behavior cards because he wasn’t paying attention,I took him in to have his hearing checked first and when it came up normal, the doc asked me if I had thought of a learning disability. That is when he was dxed add/in. I totally agree with the notion that it was poor teaching as well, it continued until he was in 2nd grade in VA where finally someone noticed that this bright kid just wasn’t getting it. He’s played catch up ever since I think. Thanks and I hope all is well with your 12 yr old. Aren’t they fun?