I just received last years test scores.

Better advice, I have never heard! Thanks again…as you may know, you were the first one I found who ‘rejected sped’ and it was a real shot in the arm for me to know I was ‘not alone’!

Just make sure that when you reject the expert’s conclusions you actually take some steps to do something to help the child, like Linda F did. SPED may be terrible in some schools and great in others. A child may benefit more from an intervention that is different than what the experts recommend. Use your instinct by all means, but if that instinct is telling you that nothing is wrong with your kid and anyone who tells you to the contrary is just pathologizing normal behavior, you might want to get a second opinion. Sometimes parents have difficulty accepting bad news and the human tendency is to deny the problem or blame it on someone else. Sometimes there really is someone else to blame, but often, if a child is having difficulties, it is the result of something other than being a victim of a misguided teacher or expert. You need to be sure you figure out what is really going on and that you do something to help that child. The longer you wait, the worse it gets. You might end up doing something different than what the experts recommend, but please do something. I know too many kids who could have been helped but weren’t because Mom or Dad couldn’t accept the possibility that there was something wrong.

In spring of Grade 1, during a meeting with his teacher and the ‘In School Support Program’ TA (who introduced him to Davis Clay work and agreed with me that he had a TASK problem, not an ATTENTION problem, BIG difference!) my son’s teacher expressed dismay that I was planning to send him to a summer program at a local private school for reading instruction. She said ‘But you HAVE to let him have a summer!’…I replied, ‘NO, I HAVE to have him taught to read!!!’

So that’s what I did — and my decisions for his education (including rejection of the SPED offered, no offense to those reading this who provide excellent services , but I think we all know that ‘Reading recovery’ will not help a child who has spent 9 months in a whole language classroom learning NOTHING) have largely been based on the advice of the person who DID teach him to read — or at least get him started, IN 6 WEEKS of appropriate and skilled instruction. She got him started — I’ve continued the job. He’s in 5th grade — by the time he graduates HS, he’ll be a fully literate adult, ready for college, university, or whatever trade he may choose. That is MY job — not the school’s job.

SPED is usually provided by hardworking people who really care about their students — but that doesn’t make it effective OR appropriate for every child and every situation. Rejecting it doesn’t even constitute a condemnation of the services offered - they simply were NOT APPROPRIATE for MY child. Would YOU accept services/instruction/programmes that had every indication of being useless for your child? Especially if, after a happy summer school experience, 4 weeks into school-recommeded ‘SPED’ pending official ‘designation, he was starting to cry before school and beg to be allowed to stay home - a clear indication that something is NOT working? Not every parent who rejects SPED so is hiding from their child’s disability because they have a problem accepting it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, in the meeting where the school psych provided her ‘results’, which were only opinions and very broad based recommendations for ‘suitable accomodations’, until I made a stink and DEMANDED the subtest scores so I could get an idea what his deficits really were, they ALSO told me that I was ‘unwise’ to avoid IEP and expose my child to the future Gr. 10 literacy test which he ‘would NOT be able to pass’, and that I needed to ‘accept my son’s level of disability’. Sorry, once again, I am the type who just has to pigheadedly ignore the ‘experts’ until I have proof of their expertise…

I was formulating some snippy remarks about the condescending tone of your post, but I guess I’ll just put you on the side of those at that initial ‘LD Revelation’ meeting…obviously you have already typecast me with very little evidence, but that tells me VOLUJMES about your beliefs and attitude towards the education of people who don’t have ‘typical’ learning styles…

By the way, my son is independently reading the first book of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ presently, regaling me with his opinions on Tolkien’s ‘tendency to go off on a tangent, Mum — really slows down the story!’ and giving me details on exactly how the story was changed for the movie and whether or not he feels the changes were justified…he can’t spell well yet, but you might understand that I have NO WORRIES that he will do so one day!!!

Elizbeth TO, I have no idea what you are talking about. it sounds as though you did exactly what I was suggesting — you didn’t just ignore the problem, you formulated your own plan to address it. Sorry I left your name out of my post as someone who had done something. I know you have. My concern is those who refuse to hear that there is a problem at all and make up their minds that they shouldn’t have to do anything because nothing is wrong. I have seen this happen a number of times and the kid always suffers. The whole family suffers, in fact. Some parents worry about labels, and I don’t blame them, but even if you reject a particular label you should make awfully sure that you do something to support the child in his learning rather than ignoring and expecting things to just magically go away or get better. Obviously you didn’t take that approach. You simply chose your own path for helping your child.

…I think we have to agree that THIS type of parent is NOT likely to be posting here!!!! It is really hard to watch your child caught in the system like a fly in a spider’s web…and with greatest respect, I maintain that your post was NOT a helpful one, IMO. I don’t think it would serve to reach the type of parent you speak of, but unintentionally supports a ‘systemic’ problem that says ‘educators know all, parents know nothing’, a very poor situation for children caught in a system that isn’t working for them. I don’t mean this disrespectfully — obviously, if you are posting here, you are probably one of the teachers we’d all DREAM of for our children, and I might have accepted the type of services you provide — together, we’d be quite a team!

LindaF and I have taken quite a bit of flack, in real life and on the net, for our stand — only now that we are able to prove the appropriateness of our decisions do we get ANY kind of encouragement. Not that the principal refers to my choices and pats me on the back, for being right, of course, but then, IMO, he is a politician and a funding aquisitions expert, NOT an educator…they DO exist, as I’m sure you will agree.

However, I realize you have suffered the same type of pain on behalf of your students, as I did for my son when he was so unhappy in second grade, so please forgive me for my somewhat heated response…

I think everyone has to go with their gut as to what will work for their kiddo. Unfortunately, there are no right and wrong answers. If there were, we would all be in line eagerly waiting for their distribution!!!

It may be, however, that the teachers were basing their concerns for writing help on observations made in class, NOT on test scores. And ultimately this is what we want them to do, isnt it?

My son was recommended for remedial language arts in 6th grade, especially for writing skills. All other classes were to be typical.

His 5th grade test scores were average in that area, including the subcategory specifically for writing.

But having schooled him for 5 months? He STILL struggles to identify verbs. His vocab is very weak. He is just becoming confident recognizing a fragment.

They were definitely right on with their recommendation IMO. I think it was observant of them to pick up on his struggles in class.

Hi Linda! Thought I would stop in and found your post:-) I am so glad things are going so well for your son,that is awsome:-)

My two are doing well also. They are still in a private school for gifted/LD. Got all A’s and B’s this last report card a week or so ago. You would NOT believe their standford achievment scores:-)! Makes me want to go back to their old schools and look up a few teacher’s.

I too,believe that special education, in public school, is anything but special,the whole system is set up for failure. We send them away to a special room,usually a closet, or the basement. We expect nothing out of them,we drill into their heads that they are not capable of doing the same work,because some teacher can’t accomodate them! Set them up for self hatred and then we sit and wonder why kids are acting out?! The real shame of it is,the reality being,the educators are not capable,the kids are victims ,and some legislator out there decides ,well let’s make some more laws that sounds good,but are ineffective,make them impossible to hold anyone accountable and we’ll pat ourselves on the back. Hell kids today deserve a combat medal of honor for surviving what we call public school.

AND THANKS for your as-always CHILD CENTERED opinion!!!
I remember saying to my darling in Gr. 2, after a melt-down about Ms. Witch of the 2nd Grade, ‘Don’t worry honey…YOU will learn to read, and write, and do math, as well or better than she can…but SHE has all the imagination she will EVER have…’ he agreed that she did deserve our pity!

It has taken until this year, with a GREAT teacher whose main objective is to create an environment where children feel SAFE, to repair the damage done by Ms. Grade 2 and her team of ‘SPED’ specialists…this is not a comment on the individuals involved, but on the system — I don’t believe in teaching children that there is something wrong with them when they are in most cases simply extreme examples of NORMAL variations of the human brain..or, even in the case of children whose learning difficulties are the result of ‘damage’, in teaching children about their limitations…as the uber-teacher who got my son reading in 6 weeks of spalding instruction after 10months of failure in the first grade told me, ‘If learning doesn’t happen…TEACHING DIDN’T TAKE PLACE!’

While teaching my son, she was also working with a little girl who suffered brain damage in a car accident…bet her attitude to this child’s potential was JUST as ‘limitless’ as her opinion of my son’s potential…if that was the general attitude I saw in the teachers at my son’s school, I might have taken their advice.

Much like Christopher Reeve’s attitude to spinal cord damage — we don’t KNOW until we TRY…our schools have lost this attitude somewhere, and we need to find a better way for ALL children.