Any "good" public schools for Dyslexics?

There are deninitely some districts that are doing things right. Within those districts you would have to look at specific schools and then specific teachers. You know effective programs..what do they use, how trained is the teacher, how experienced is the teacher, how will they measure progress, what about accomodations so your child gets an education too. Unfortunately, I don’t know any easy way to find this out other than phone calls to special ed departments, then school principals, then teachers. You might try the Learning Disabilities Association or Team of Advocates for Special Kids (TASK) to see if they recommend some districts or schools. Are you in Southern Cal? Have we “talked”? If you are in one of my areas I may know some specifics.

Hi Angela,
I’m in southern California (L.A./Santa Clarita), but we’re contemplating a possible move. Since we’re not completely limited to a particular location, I wanted to research various areas and try to choose one that might have a good program for my dyslexic son (9 years old).

Are you in the L.A. Unified District? If so, do you happen to know off-hand of any good elementary schools in the district?

Hi Laura.
If you are interested in relocating to Colorado, we have Denver Academy (http://www.denveracademy.org) and The Havern Center (http://www.haverncenter.org), nationally recognized and accredited schools for students with learning disabilities. I don’t know if they could give you additional information regarding similar programs in alternate areas. Sorry I can’t be more helpful. :(

-Jaime West
Learning Specialist
Aurora, CO[/quote]

We were in the eastern end of LA county ((La Verne), but have now moved to San Diego. I don’t know any LA Unified schools. You have two good private schools (Westmark, Summit View (??) I think, in the San Fernando Valley, perhaps they or a learning disabilities clinic can steer you in the direction of some good teaching. My son is now 16 and we kept him in public school through middle school - but I never found a good reading program except in a private clinic. We moved to San Diego for a private high school, so our son would have a future. My district in San Diego is training a lot of teachers, but still there are teachers who get it and teachers who don’t. You’ll have to be very careful.

Another problem is that there may be administrators (are administrators) who really push the RSP to do collaborative instruction in general ed. classrooms. Generally this precludes explicit teaching and just handholds the student. The RSP needs to run the program more like a clinic and emphasize remediation rather than hand holding. There really is not time to engage in both activities in most CA elem. schools where one RSP handles K-5 or K-6. The caseloads are too large and much to diverse (sometimes a greater challenge than the size of the caseload).

My nephew was at a “good” district in suburban Chicago. He is severely dyslexic. His mom asked if anyone did OG. They told her it was too “old”.(!!!) I was at that ISP, and then I said “Well how about LMB or one of the Orton spin offs, they aren’t old.” No because they didn’t have anyone to teach him those (either). His IEP ended up with the inane goal of “___ will tolerate (tolerate?!) decoding words for __ minutes” !!! Why should he tolerate what he doesn’t know how to do. He learned zip reading. The next year his mom sent him to a private school that taught Spaulding (you know one of the old fashioned OG spin offs). He learned more reading and spelling in a couple years than he learned the rest of his school experience put together.

It’s very hard to tell what an otherwise good school might do with it’s special needs kids. Her daughter, bright and non-special needs did very well at that same school.

—des

Angela,

You are so right. There are teachers who get it and teachers who don’t. I think this is true no matter where you are. The more I learn the more I am beginning to believe the problem lies with new teacher training at the college level.

I really am hoping we get a teacher who gets it this year.

Laura,

I would start by contacting the lindamood bell people and asking what school districts use their program system wide. I would also be interested in schools that utilize reading reflex, interactive metronome and fast forward so try contacting them as well. I am of the opinion that schools that use these programs are more focused on remediation.

I would look at child to teacher ratio and would also want to know if children placed in sped are successfully remediated and mainstreamed in the later grades.

The school district in San Ramon, CA has a itinerant resource teacher who specializes in Slingerland. Her caseload is comprised of the most difficult reading cases, no matter which district site they attend (ie she travels). She also does some specialized assessments for other RSPs, as needed.

San Ramon is on 680, east of the SF Bay area.
Good luck.

Thanks for the great replies! We’re researching all options. It’s surprising how difficult it is to find schools that use good research based materials to teach dyslexic children.

Capistrano Unified School District has many teachers trained in Lindamood-Bell, and Project read methologies. There are some great RSP teachers and SLP’s who GET it but then again there are others who don’t. Capistrano has a new model where they assess all the kids in a particular school and those in need of specific instruction will get the instruction they need to catch up in whatever area they have a deficit in and then move back to their regular classroom.

This new and improved model is based on a what has happened in Hesperia School District. They are trying to be more proactive and less reactive however, I can tell you all the changes they are making are from Due Process cases they have lost in court…

I had a friend who worked in Hesperia School District before they were really into Lindamood-Bell back about 6 years ago. She made incredible gains with the kids in her program as she worked with the kids in continuation school and taught them to read.

In defense of the statement that there are teachers who get it and teachers who don’t…

I think more teachers get it than receive credit. As a teacher, I would love to get more training in the programs you are speaking of, but our district cannot afford to send us because of all the budget cuts. We cannot afford to pay for it on our own - those trainings are expensive.

We do with what we are given the best that we can. If you want programs for your children - don’t blame the teachers. They do not control the curriculum or the materials taught. Talk with your administration and then to your legislation.

Most teachers, like parents, want what is right for the children.

I don’t blame the teachers. I blame the districts, the higher ups, whoever decides on the current fads (Four blocks, Whole language, whatever kooky thing they are doing this year in math), the departments of ed in colleges and universities.

Teachers here who have learned PG, LiPs, Orton, etc. etc. are often doing at their own expense. However for $20 or so you can pick up “Reading Reflex”. With some adaptations you can use that for a whole class. It is highly user friendly. I’ve heard of teachers who put that on their word walls, etc. You can get the packs of materials. Another book you might take a look at is “Straight Talk on Reading”.

You could also do some research here (reading the archives is interesting), and pick out something you’d like to study. Some districts do provide funding for workshops, but some are not so lenient.

—des

I bought reading reflex for my son’s teacher. She was a very nice lady but she just didn’t get it.

She made if very clear that she did not agree with the ideas in that book.

I was, of course, talking to the person logged in as “teacher”. I thought she might be receptive to doing some research and getting the book. I would bet just handing something like that to many teachers would come off as saying “I don’t think you know what you are doing”. Of course, maybe she didn’t!!!! :-} Even so quite a lot of teachers are heavily invested in not doing the right thing, but as I said I don’t really blame it on them. Since their educations have been so bad, sad to say, and they get indoctrinated in this whole language stuff, for example.

—des
in the land fo 4 Squares (I like this Janis) not the idea, just the Land thing.

Another comment on “the teacher’s” comment. I think some of us who will do other things are a bit of mavericks. And teacher’s who strictly toe the line are the one’s that get the good evaluations, praise from the principal, etc. I was not always so popular with public school principals who saw me as a trouble maker, that is that I went outside the standard curriculum and did what was best for the kids, as I saw it. It is not easy to be that. So you need to decide if you want to have a lot of trouble or be a good in the eyes of the administration.

I took the standard curriculum and twisted it for my (and in my view) the kid’s benefit. I don’t think this is an easy thing to do. And many teachers can’t do it. I bet that that’s why there are so many private tutors in this group.

—des

Well, I guess I’m a maverick, too, des! No one has paid for my trainings. But I couldn’t in good conscience know I was not teaching my kids what they need, so I bit the bullet and paid for the training myself. We can blame others all we want and there is plenty to go around. But it ultimately comes down to whether we are really committed or not. I’ve offered lots of LD teachers Reading Reflex and have had little interest. We had a PG training in our own town this summer and only ONE teacher I invited from the public schools came. My feeling is alot of teachers are very content the way they are.

(Des, I’ve already decided not to use the math curriculum I was told to use!)

Janis

>Well, I guess I’m a maverick, too, des! No one has paid for my trainings.

Now why doesn’t that surprise me. You were one I was thinking of. Actually I think there are a few of us here who would all get along very well in person, and could, no doubt, tell war stories all night to each other. :-)

> We can blame others all we want and there is plenty to go around.
But it ultimately comes down to whether we are really committed or not.

Though, as I said, I think it comes down to a certain sense of adventure and ability to say to heck with them (the administration) because by and large they aren’t going to support you if you go against the “rules”. The rules are that good little teachers follow the curriculum, however ridiculous it may be. And if they say “4 Blocks” you do it even if you see it isn’t working. The interesting thing is that you totally lose the adversial relationship that teachers often have with parents, that the system creates, imo.

I think there is a lot of fear out there in education land (this is right by 4 blocks land). Even though it must be obvious that what they are doing isn’t working. Or perhaps not. You can always blame the kids, the parents, the game boys, etc.

>I’ve offered lots of LD teachers Reading Reflex and have had little interest. We had a PG training in our own town this summer and only ONE teacher I invited from the public schools came. My feeling is alot of teachers are very content the way they are.

This doesn’t surprise me. You could give it away free and they wouldn’t come.

>(Des, I’ve already decided not to use the math curriculum I was told to use!)

Was this the mathematical 4 Blocks by any chance?
Janis, Janis, Janis! :-)
Someday I can tell you the one about providing the kids with breakfast (out of my pocket) and getting severely reprimanded by the principal.

>Janis


—des

Lol! You’re kidding right? Feed the kids? How terrible of you, des. Your principal would rather have hungry kids. That’s just great for learning, huh?

4 blocks math? Lol, too!!! Actually, the special ed. department prefers Saxon, whcih I actually like in k-3 for regular ed. My child is in it now and it is wonderful for her. But in my case, when I am tutoring kids who are two years behind, I have to teach skills, and not a full year, daily incremental curriculum like Saxon.

I want to use On Cloud Nine but need something like Math-u-See or Stern Structural Artithmetic (EPS) to give me the workbooks, etc. to use with it. I’d like to take a look at both of those. I’m not telling anyone, I’m just doing it. I don’t think anyone will bother me if I keep my mouth shut. ;-) I probably should make up a name to use on this forum, though!

Janis

My district had paid staff development days before school in August. The planning committee had no special ed teachers on it and the special ed admin did not offer a single class in reading instruction. So, I jumped in and scheduled a PG trainer. There was good attendance, but the district wouldn’t follow up with any materials or support. To teach most good reading programs you need more than an isolated week’s training… you need materials and support. I pushed myself to incorportate better reading instruction into my classroom. I pushed my dept, five special ed teachers, to put our materials together into a reading lab, where we could all use the same materials and help each other. Still, while most teachers mean well, many allow themselves to do what is comfortable and my former district did not train, support and REQUIRE teachers to use effective reading strategies. Fortunately my new district had the right idea.

>Lol! You’re kidding right? Feed the kids? How terrible of you, des. Your principal would rather have hungry kids. That’s just great for learning, huh?

I wish I were kidding about that. But I doubt even with my excellent imagination, I could make up anything so bizarrre. I was also reprimanded by the same fine lady for reporting one fo the families as neglecting to family services, even though it is the law! (It was a good thing, after finally finding their house, they found that they didn’t have indoor plumbing. This is in a major urban city.)

I’m sure I could go on and on. :-)

>4 blocks math? Lol, too!!! Actually, the special ed. department prefers

Well there is something like this isn’t there? Not having worked in the public school for years, but some Marilyn Burns, I think. Doesn’t she advocate the kids sort of rediscovering the rules of adding and so on; writing in math journals; and reading math in literature (“5 little bunnies who met 5 more little bunnies and whose numbers grew exponentially”? or something). :-)

>I want to use On Cloud Nine but need something like Math-u-See or Stern Structural Artithmetic (EPS) to give me the workbooks, etc. to use with it. \

Have been working on the OCN and think it is so cool. Math U See might have a free video? There’s a guy here that reads this list, Dave I think,— maybe he could send you some sample info. I don’t know about Stern.

>I’d like to take a look at both of those. I’m not telling anyone, I’m just doing it. I don’t think anyone will bother me if I keep my mouth shut. ;-)

You sneaky woman! This is exactly like what I do. I didn’t inform the principal I was feeding breakfast— just did it. Or any of the hundreds of other things I have done that were not in the curriculum guide. One guide spend pages and pages describing how to make things like candy necklaces on a string! Pla-ese!

>I probably should make up a name to use on this forum, though!

You think there might be spies. :-) Of course, des is my real name. :-)

>Janis

—des (my real name)

Just to add to the topic of fearful administrations….because of the recent budget cuts, my son’s school will have no reading intervention whatsoever (and this year he was suppose to start Rewards! I’m soooo disappointed!!!!!).

Our district layed off all their reading intervention teachers. And although they still have an RSP teacher, my son doesn’t qualify because he’s not considered 3 years behind (thanks to me and some pretty intensive home remediation over the last few years!).

Last week when I spoke to the vice principal about this, I mentioned that I’d be happy to volunteer two times a week and work with a small group of struggling readers (my son included). Although I’m not a teacher, I do have an MA in English, am familar with RR, Seeing Stars, and have Romalda Spalding’s book. The main thing is I want my son to get extra reading instruction in school (not just after school!). I think he’s getting “burnt out” after years of working with me, and I think working with a group of kids might help with motivation. Also, it seems like such a shame that children like my son are just going to fall through the cracks. I understand I might not be the perfect candidate for this, (since I’m only a parent), but I can’t help thinking that my volunteering would be better than having nothing. It makes me sick to think that my son will get nothing next year.

The VP declined my offer. She was worried there might be a problem witht having parent volunteers helping in an “instructional” capacity (and yet I believe there are”Read by 9” volunteers that help tutor reading in the schools!). The whole thing seems really stupid. Last year , during my scheduled volunteer time, I regularly helped a few kids who were having great difficulty with math.

Laura,

That stinks. Did you suggest to the prinicipal that you write a letter to parents of “elgible” children giving them the choice of whether to participate? If parents “choose” as opposed to the school “assigning”, perhaps the school would see it differently.

I am sorry your son won’t have the Rewards program.

Beth

Laura,

Maybe she was worried the parent volunteer using effective methods would show up her backwards curriculum.

I have found that some administrators have a fear of effective methods. It borders on bizarre.

Laura,

That is so absurd I think I’d take my kid out of that school!!! NO reading intervention??? Um, have they not heard of No Child Left Behind???

And someone with a master’s in English who is familiar with PG and Seeing Stars offers to tutor ansd you are TURNED DOWN??? How ignorant are these people anyway???!!!

(Sorry, got a little carried away, but stupidity never ceases to amaze me).

des….is that your former school she’s talking about?

Janis

I wish I could say I’m surprised. I think the theory of worrying about you outshowing the regular curriculum has merit. I think the Read by 9, well don’t know about it specifically, but I know many tutoring programs work with untrained volunteers (maybe get a bit of training but nothing like LMB or something). So possibly intimidated.

>That is so absurd I think I’d take my kid out of that school!!! NO reading intervention??? Um, have they not heard of No Child Left Behind???

I always thought these kind of things with names like that were a bit of a fraud. One place I interviewed claimed that NCLBehind was the rationale for complete inclusion. If no child is really left behind there could never be complete inclusion.

I think no reading intervention is somewhat a norm. My nephew is still not getting anything to my knowledge. Admittedly we are in a very poor state. But we were in a wealthier state and he didnt’ get any there either. I’m just amazed by all this but kids are not taught how to read. You’d think this would be the biggest priority, but there are other ones and I don’t think they have much to do with education.

>And someone with a master’s in English who is familiar with PG and Seeing Stars offers to tutor ansd you are TURNED DOWN??? How ignorant are these people anyway???!!!

They are school administrators, isn’t that reason enough? Sorry to be so cynical but I think it is the exception that really want what is best for kids. I once had a (different) principal who knew everyone’s reading level, she said to me “____ doesn’t read anywhere near grade level, but she fools everyone because she is so well behaved.” BTW, she was not popular with most of the other teachers (except me). Also her higher ups did not like her and “punished” her by sending her to an inner city school which she loved. I thought she was VERY unusual.

>des….is that your former school she’s talking about?

I’d love to say so, sounds like it all right! However there is so much stupidity that I doubt it would need to be.

>Janis

—des

Actually….I am thinking of taking my son out of the school. I’m looking at private schools and I have a neuro-psych eval. scheduled for next month (My son has reams of test data, but not a comprehensive neuro-psych, nor a diagnosis). I’ve stopped “helping” my son because I want the results to be as accurate as possible. And if I get a diagnosis (dyslexia and possibly ADD without the H, or even high functioning autism…just some type of diagnosis!), I plan to contact the district with the results, research data outlining the best methods of educating someone with his deficits and a request that my son be taught with solid research-based methods. If the school ignores me I will look into setting up a due process hearing.

If possible, I’d like to avoid fighting the district, but I’m a little worried the results from the neuro-psych won’t be accepted. I need to research this further. Although, I do have another option! A family friend of ours is a doctor who works at an organization that independently tests LDs for LAUnified. This friend offered to look at my son’s test results, do some testing and provide us with a diagnosis. Right now I’m just trying to look at all options, but I’m very worried about the time element. I don’t think I have three years to wait while battling the district. My son is starting to fail miserably now and his self esteem is plummeting daily. Part of me thinks I should just pull him out tomorrow, stick him in LMB for 8-10 weeks, follow up with PACE…then, if he’s still struggling, sell my house and put him in private school…

Laura,

Can you tell me the name of the organization which your doctor who is reviewing your son’s testing is affiliated? I want my son to have a complete psychoed eval privately (he’s not due until next year thru school anyway, and the psych who does it is nice, but the testing was too limited and the conclusions not sufficient). If it’s an org LAUSD trusts, they’ll have a harder time rejecting recommendations..

We had an independent neuropsych eval done and yup, the district said they didn’t agree since the doctor was not at our meeting…I did get some programs since our advocate was sitting right next to us. But, the district wants to do 6 weeks of a program and then say…see it didn’t work!!

I also think remediation belongs during the school day, not when my son comes home tired after a full day of school. We started out paying for two hours a week after school and it was clear it was not going to be enough…he needed several intensive hours every day. That’s why I’m so pleased with the program I now teach in..two hours a day, five days a week, one-to-one instruction in LMB and other programs for one to two years..Fast ForWord, The Listening Program. A district can do it if they try.

Angela, sounds like we all need to move to your district for a couple of years!

Janis

Amy,

Unfortunately, the organization dosen’t do private evaluations. They only take Medi-Cal recipients. (The only reason this doctor offered to help me is she has known my mom for over 20 years and consders her “like family”).

The neuro-psych is scheduled at UCLA. I was told they do the most complete testing. If you like I can give you the names that were recommended to me. I can’t say this would have any clout in your district (LAU), but I’ve been told these are top neuro-psychs.

Angela,
I want to move to your district!!!! How awesome!!!! We should all move there!

Headline “Sudden influx of special ed students to San Diego”. I wonder what my bosses would think? Still, it is a positive comment-much better than what I said about my old district on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.

Laura, it has been a long time since we were at UCLA. I don’t want to be negative, but just to let you know that when my son was nine we took him for an informal informational appointment with the then head of neuropsych and a speaker at the Orton Dyslexia Conference. He told us not to bother teaching our son to read. I asked if he realized that our district was not using any research based program. Anyway we left disappointed and did not schedule testing there. We had a poor experience at UCI also. I hope your experiences are better.