Because our LD son didn’t pass the reading portion of the third grade CT-Terra Nova, we were offered, via letter from the principal, summer reading intervention, to take place for 20 days (which began yesterday) for two hours per day. I should hasten to add that approximately 75% of the third graders did not pass the reading portion in this particular elementary school.
My husband (a schoolteacher) uses Phonographix at home with Kevin and then he also gets private tutoring with LMB every week. But we thought, what the heck, maybe they’ll do something in summer intervention which will be helpful.
Well, so far, it doesn’t look like it. Yesterday when my husband took Kevin for the first time, the school was mobbed by parents and their children who never sent the forms back to enroll their child and therefore, never had their children tested, as Kevin had been the previous week. So what we were promised in terms of class size, no more than 12 children per teacher, is now 24 kids in Kevin’s class. We were told they would “hire more teachers” to deal with this “unexpected” overflow, but how long is that gonna take?
My husband just called me at the office and told me that for two hours in class this morning, all Kevin has to show for it is one sentence on a piece of paper. Kevin reports that the teacher reads aloud to the students for the entire time. I’m not sure how this could possibly be helpful to our CAPD son.
I just want to pull him out of the whole debacle. I think my husband can get more done with him in 20-30 minutes a day than the intervention program can in two hours a day. Of course, it will only add to my beloved reputation at the elem school!
How would others handle this?
JAO
Re: Summer Intervention?
I totally understand signing him up for it; I’d have done the same thing.
Now that you know more, you know it’s not the right thing for him. As Beth said, you could probably get out of it pretty gracefully.
Our kiddos work so hard I’d hate to have mine spend time in a situation that wasn’t really helping.
Good luck,
Ive had 2 different experiences
My son qualified for the summer program after 2nd grade. I thought it was a waste of time. The groups were too big and the teachers seemed to do exactly the same thing they did during the year
But this year(5th gr) he qualified for after school help based on his pre-ISATs. For some reason, this went wonderfully. They worked mostly on writing as that was the most common overall weakness, but it seemed to help everything verbal for him
We ARE in a different state and school and I dont know if this school is just more on the ball or if there is a concrete difference I can pinpoint. They had big groups but 3-4 teachers(we live in a university town and some were students)so it might have been ratios. They moved around the room and got to every kid for some one on one
Could you go observe a day just to see if there is anything worthwhile going on(from my experience, I wouldnt knock writing, but I would hate to see one teacher who never gets up from her desk)
Gut feeling is he would get more from your dh if his patience lasts-sometimes its hard for me to tutor instead of parent
Re: Summer Intervention?
My husband did go over and observe for awhile yesterday. The teacher read aloud (which is of tremendous help for our CAPD son - NOT, but I realize he is not the only one in the intervention group - far from it - there are 23 besides him) for a great majority of time, and then the students got out a piece of paper and worked on writing down things that come from a garden. Kevin wrote about six lines and then just kind of sat there, as no further prompt came from the teacher. She was too busy trying to get other kids to sit down, be quiet, get on task, etc. When my husband asked (I realize we should have asked this question sooner) what reading program the teacher was using, she kind of hemmed and hawed around, saying she really didn’t know the name of it, blah, blah… huh :shock: ? How can you not know the name of the intervention program you’re teaching :?:
Anyway, we came to the conclusion this was a sorry excuse for intervention, and ultimately, a waste of Kevin’s time and energy. So we decided not to send him back. We will just continue with his private tutoring and what my dh is doing at home with him daily. I just can’t believe (yes, I actually can) that the school district gets away with this bulls@#$! When I spoke to the assistant to the CO commando who is charge of elementary summer reading intervention, she admittted to me that “it is like this every year… it takes about 1-2 weeks for the program to ‘come together’ ”. Hello :!: It’s only a 20-day program to begin with. If it takes 5-10 days to pull together, how much good can it do anyway :?:
Thanks for listening!
jao
Re: Summer Intervention?
I’m glad you pulled him out! For one thing, if the school knew anything whatsoever about reading instruction, they wouldn’t have had 75% of the kids fail the test in the first place!!! I wouldn’t have trusted for one minute that the summer program would have had one ounce of anything positive even if there were only 4 kids per group. I think I’d be looking for a new school!
Janis
Wow
If that many kids are failing it isn’t the kids who are failing it is the school. Classic dysteachia!
summer reading program
I’d agree. 24 children in a room is too many to be helpful. The school clearly is in process with its summer program and hasn’t worked out all the bugs. If your son would enjoy it, that would be one thing but if he doesn’t, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull him out and work with him at home.
of course, in fall the district is likely to say to you “If you had let him in, he’s be much farther along right now” so when I left I’d say this. Tell them you were told 12 to a class and you’ll be back when they’ve hired the 2nd teacher.
Re: Summer Intervention?
Well, they probably would like to say that if we hadn’t pulled him out, he’d “be much farther along”, but then they’ll have to deal with my husband, an educator himself, saying, “Wait a minute. I attended and observed with my son. I know first-hand the kind of ‘intervention’ being offered.” I’m guessing that will shut them up real fast.
They had the nerve to send us an evaluation to fill out just this week. Well, if they want evaluation, that’s what they’ll get! What a disgrace!
jao
I’d pull him out. You don’t want to waste your son’s time, frankly. I would just kindly tell them that because so many kids showed up at the last moment, the situation is not what you thought your child would have. Given that, you’ve elected to pursue tutoring privately.
You don’t need to tell them that your private tutor lives in your house.
They might be glad to have the numbers down!!!
Beth