Hi! My name is Lisa and I am a SAHM to Matthew & Christopher, my 9 year old 4th graders and Ryan, my 5 year old kindergartener.
Christopher has been dx ADHD since December 2003, anxiety dx as of 3/06 and AS newly dx 12/15/06. He has been excelling in school until this year. His anxiety has gotten the best of him as well as his self esteem due to peer relationships. We’re working on getting him all the help he needs.
Matthew has been struggling since 1st grade with reading and writing and we haev finally gotten to the bottom of things. I knew he wasn’t lazy, distracted, stupid or anything else. He is very smart and learns very well when he sees, hears, touches, tastes and smells things. Reading and writing are another story. Anyway, he was finally evaluated by his school (we have only been in this school since April 2005) and found to be a child in need of special education services due to specific learning disabilities. Pseudoword decoding, spelling and written expression were the areas of concern. We had a meeting Friday to go over the testing results. Now we have 30 calender days to put together his IEP. Does anyone have any suggestions? He already attends a reading tutoring program before school and receives Title 1 reading services. He is in a 10:1 reading group with a teacher, aide and reading specialist.
As far as Ryan, so far so good. He is in K and loves it. He is reading many sight words and sounds out literally everything! He has started a before school reading enrichment program to supplement what he is learning in K. I figured it couldn’t hurt.
Re: New here
Thanks for all the info Nancy. I am not 100% sure where he is reading level wise. His phnological awareness is very weak. We were working with Earobics last school year. It helped some but obviously not enough. I try to read with him as much as I can. He is in an inclusion classroom which is helpful. One teacher seems more in tume with his needs than the other. She is the one who will be working with us on the IEP team. He attends a tutoring program before school which is a small group. I think are are maybe 5 other kids (the max they allow is 10 kids). I will check out the other sites and such that you recommended.
Lisa,
Schools are very limited in what they provide, and often their programs for reading remediation are poor. Whatever happens with the IEP, I would recommend that you look for outside help for the reading. It isn’t so much the amount of reading help that he gets, but rather the quality of the reading help. (Incidentally, 1:1 is *much* more effective than 10:1. Schools usually can’t offer 1:1, but as a parent you can offer 1:1 at home.)
You don’t mention your son’s actual reading level. That would be helpful in making recommendations.
The most common cause of reading difficulties is weak phonemic awareness skills. There are some programs that address this very well. If you want to work with your son at home, I would recommend that you join the ABeCeDarian email list at http://groups.yahoo.com and learn more about that program. The materials are very parent-friendly, and I’d rate this program as number one in quality. Other email lists that tend to provide good information are ReadNOW and dyslexiasupport2.
If your son’s reading level is less than beginning 3rd grade, I recommend getting the computer CD from http://www.soundreading.com, as it makes an excellent supplement to any reading program. Call the company to be sure you order the right CD for your child, but don’t get talked into the company’s other products. The CD is wonderful, but the other materials are not that great. Typically the child can work independently with this CD once he understands how. You would want him to spend perhaps 20 minutes per day on it.
Once your son is reading on a solid ending 3rd grade level, the Rewards Intermediate program from http://www.sopriswest.com can be very helpful. It is scripted, so is easy for a parent to do at home.
As for the IEP, others can give you recommendations. (There is a parent advocate on the dyslexiasupport2 list that might be able to help.) In general, you want a research-based, explicit, multi-sensory program. There is an article in the “LD in Depth” section of this website that lists MSSL programs.
You should be aware that there are underlying problems other than phonemic awareness that can delay reading. One commonly overlooked issue is developmental vision delay. You can find more information about this at http://www.childrensvision.com . Developmental vision skills are not assessed in regular eye exams. The best way to check this out is to go to a board-certified developmental optometrist (see http://www.covd.org). This type of eval takes about two hours and costs in the neighborhood of $300. Most developmental vision problems are responsive to vision therapy. If money is tight, you should find out more about vision therapy before choosing a developmental optometrist.
Nancy