Going in Circles of Confussion

Does he have a split between verbal and performance IQ, with verbal being higher? Does he hate legos and puzzles? Does he seem not to “get it” socially? These could be signs of a nonverbal learning disability (NLD). Has he been evaluated for LD? NLD can look like ADHD. It can look like ED (emotionally disturbed) as well.

FIrst off, it is quite probable that even an improper program or no program at all could be better than the school situation. There are some good homeschool support groups for folks with special needs (there’s a yahoo group called HSSN tha’ts active and supportive).
Are you prepared to be a student all over again and do a lot of homework yourself? (How to approach the problem depends on that — you don’t want to set yourself up to have to do what you won’t get around to, so you need to figure out just how “readymade” your materials need to be.)
What are his strenghts? What are his interests?
WHat are his challenges?
YOu could be being an overprotective mom…. but I have seen kids just get eaten alive in sped classes, too, to the point that they just stopped going.

Yes my 14 year old son has been classified with specific learning disabilities and multi-handicapped status due to the great variuos numbers in his testing scores. He does however like legos, and does well with hands on material much better than things he has to do strictly through reading and writing and comprehension. Like the study of Pearl Harbor he wasn’t getting it, however watching the movie and talking about it as it played seemed to help him get it much more and it held his interest much better. His schools answer is now to take him out of a sped class and put him in an ED class setting. yes socially he does have problems fitting in and he most definetely has problems with comprehension, receptive and expressive language barriers, math is extremely weak, he is a good speller but very challenged in trying to writing main ideas and details of written work. The school never thought he needing a ED class before now, I wonder if they are trying to just cover their own butts, because I am making alot of waves about the fact that my son never meets his so called IEP goals, and the school is worried and just wants to quiet me up. What do you think????

Yes my 14 year old son has been classified with specific learning disabilities and multi-handicapped status due to the great variuos numbers in his testing scores. He does however like legos, and does well with hands on material much better than things he has to do strictly through reading and writing and comprehension. Like the study of Pearl Harbor he wasn’t getting it, however watching the movie and talking about it as it played seemed to help him get it much more and it held his interest much better. His schools answer is now to take him out of a sped class and put him in an ED class setting. yes socially he does have problems fitting in and he most definetely has problems with comprehension, receptive and expressive language barriers, math is extremely weak, he is a good speller but very challenged in trying to writing main ideas and details of written work. The school never thought he needing a ED class before now, I wonder if they are trying to just cover their own butts, because I am making alot of waves about the fact that my son never meets his so called IEP goals, and the school is worried and just wants to quiet me up. What do you think????

Hard to guess their motivation. Generally wanting him in an ED class can be as simple as his current teacher finding him disruptive enough to want him in another setting. Often the teachers & admins just basically don’t have expectations for sped kids. Heck, most sped kids don’t… must be the kids, not the programs, right?
IT’s not too hard to teach content areas with a *whole* lot more visual stuff and activities when you’re homeschooling. (For starters, you can rent videos or DVDs — go to www.teachwithmovies.org for a whole mess of ideas in that department… you can go to most states’ education websites and get their curricula ;states like Virginia have their Stan dards of LEarning pretty well spelled out in detail.)
Homeschooling *is* a big step and you’d need to get yourself organized and make your own IEP goals — and little goals, too, and if you’re not reaching them, making changes. And figure out other structured things to do to build interest & skills — it generally doesn’t take from 8 to 3 to do school at home (think of all the administrative crap that doesn’t have to happen).
There are also virtual schools (and you might even see if your state has a virtual charter school option — though many of them are very reading intensive, too. (One of these days one of ‘em will hire me to make a more multisensory version…)
I’ve got some info on homeschooling at my site (www.resourceroom.net ) for places to look at. HOw well does your son work with you?

Yes, indeed homeschooling is sounding better and better, however I still have alot of concerns in regards to the matter of how to find a good program, that works Someone told me that Abeka has a good program but I worry about it being the right one for his needs especially mainly with math, my son needs more skills on multiplication,division,percentages,money and checkbook skills and so forth, life skills that he will need, much more than algebra where can I find a program package complete with the needs of a LD child, I worry about credits and so forth since he is at the eighth grade level now and I want him to have credits for graduatation. Any suggestions?? Advise Me please?????

Yes, indeed homeschooling is sounding better and better, however I still have alot of concerns in regards to the matter of how to find a good program, that works Someone told me that Abeka has a good program but I worry about it being the right one for his needs especially mainly with math, my son needs more skills on multiplication,division,percentages,money and checkbook skills and so forth, life skills that he will need, much more than algebra where can I find a program package complete with the needs of a LD child, I worry about credits and so forth since he is at the eighth grade level now and I want him to have credits for graduatation. Any suggestions?? Advise Me please?????

Rather than choosing a single “name brand” packaged curriculum, you would want to hand-pick curriculum materials to suit your son.

If he does well with hands on, then you may want a math curriculum such as Math-U-See (http://www.mathusee.com ) or Moving With Math (http://www.movingwithmath.com ). These both use manipulatives to illustrate concepts. I personally prefer Moving With Math because it is objectives-based.

Most states do not require credits for high school graduation from a homeschool. Basically, the homeschool simply issues a graduation certificate. However, every state has its own laws and regulations. It’s a good idea to join one of your state’s homeschooling associations (every state has at least one, and most have several), as they are the most reliable source of information. Try doing a Google search on “your state name” “homeschooling” to find some.

Nancy

Some homeschoolers issue their own certificate. However it may be difficult to get outside organizations to accept tha t— or it may not.

Some homeschoolers join virtual homeschools, where they work at home but meet over the internet for mutual support and curriculum guidance, and this school could issue a certificate. Again acceptance is variable.

Quite a few homeschoolers have their kids write the GED, which gives you a nationally-accepted high school graduation.

Some homeschooled kids return to pubic high school for senior high. Most of the time they seem to be placed with their age peers, although subjects like math would be placed by what they have achieved — a high school counsellor would make that decision.

If he is applying to colleges, of course he will take the SAT’s. He should take them twice, once two years before he plans to go to college — you can call that Grade 11; and again a year before he plans to attend, call that Grade 12. Remember that there is a turnaround time for SAT’s and college applications are getting ever earlier, so he should do the SAT’s in fall so he can apply in January through March.
A combination of a GED pass plus OK SAT scores seems to be accepted by the majority of colleges now.

I would figure out the legal necessities, and then also figure out a hands-on set of skills that he can learn and get *good* at — how is he with visual things? How are his fine motor skills? There’s the obvious “car mechanic” track, but there are also many more options these days for visual thinkers, such as graphic design. (A hard-working dyslexic kiddo could do very well in my community college’s graphic design program — they have things like a syllabus so you know what to expect, and course materials online, and open lab hours and…) For that matter, if he developed genuinely good handy-man around-the-house skills it would be a whole lot better for everybody and for his self-esteem if instead of feeling like a misfit, he felt like he had an important role (which he wouldn’t have time for going to school and trying to keep up with pointless homework that he thought was a waste of time).

There are also online schools… though they are often very reading dependend :-(
Did you say what state you’re in? There are links with the assorted state requirements I could point you to :-)

Yes, I am in the state of Maryland. Which I think I can be under the supervision of the local school district or under an umbrella for his grades and so forth. Can you piece together programs I thought it had to be under like one program ??? My son is good with hands on type’s of things and visual aids to help him learn like for example learning some about Pearl Harbor, comprehension of the written work was hard for him to stay with, watching the movie of Pearl Harbor and talking about it seemed to help. He is a very strong speller, I guess I would say that academically thats his strong point.

Does your son like his school and like his current classroom? Does he seem happy and content to be going to school each day and does he come home speaking well of school?

Those can helpful questions to ask when considering a change in educational placement for any child. It can also be helpful for you to go and observe in the emotionally disturbed classroom. It’s your right to do so and your right to spend some time looking over the program. I likely wouldn’t turn down any placement or make any great change until I had gathered as much information as I could and visiting the emotionally disturbed classroom, seeing the teacher and how the teacher treats students and seeing the other students would be valuable information for me.

One of my own sons was offered placement in a self-contained special ed classroom in his first year of school. Despite the fact that my son was very special ed, I said no way and refused the placement. They asked me just to spend some time in the classroom before I turned it down for good. When I did that, to my great surprise I found one of the best classroom teachers I’ve ever seen. Even though some of the students were far more special needs than was my own son, I wanted him to have that great teacher.

It never hurts to look. And be sure to look around for other homeschoolers in your area so if you do go with homeschooling, you’ll have a support network to help you and guide you.

Good luck.

Well. to answer a few questions, no my son does not feel positive about school, his class, his teacher, or the kids for the most part. This year I can’t really say I myslef like his teacher, the previous teacher was a good teacher, even though the class wasn’t so great as far as the students. My son has been trying to reach the same goals for years now on his IEP in a self contained setting, and that’s why I feel also that we are just going in circles. It has been very discouraging for him, and that concerns me a lot, I don’t want him to stop trying to learn, but I fear he will if he doesn’t get some confidence back. I just think its wrong to label these kids any old way in order to get him services. No one ever even mention the label ED until just this year, when my son starting verbally speaking up some about his feelings of frusteration and not fitting in, so now he must be emotional disturbed according to his teacher and all, I mean after all isn’t that the way the schools think first “It must be the kids not us”. I think enviromentally factors play a big role in being able to learn and succeed.