Hello all, I am new!
I am writing because we are trying to figure out if there is anything else we need to do for our daughter.
She has been transposing letters and numbers since preschool, however her teachers told me not to worry it was normal. We just moved to a new school district in mid-February. This school is more challenging, I have noticed. I think they have higher academic standards.
After she had been there 3 weeks we had a parent-teacher conference, and discussed this. The teacher thought that it was possibly just a muscle memory issue that she was writing things backwards (sometimes her whole name, letters order etc, will be backwards). Well, during the 2 months she has been there, she has not improved in reading much at all. In fact she has been testing at reading level 10-12 consistantly since November or December.
So they have decided to move her to Title I reading. There are other indicators of possible LD, and her teacher is pushing for a formal evaluation this school year, however they don’t want to test until she is in second grade, next year.
I am so new to this, I don’t know what to expect. I know to encourage her and try to keep her self-esteem up. She told me last night she was excited about the change, but I still worry. She tends to stew and not always tell me there is something bothering her.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Cari
Re: Destiny
If the teacher is pushing for a formal eval, I’d push as well.
If you send written notice that you want formal testing the school is bound by law to test within a certain number of school days (it varies by state). Since it normally takes upwards of two months to test and do reports, and another few weeks to get resources in line, if you wait until next year you are looking at Christmas before anything gets done. I’d much rather have a new plan in place at the start of the school year. If nothing else, it makes scheduling much easier.
Many people feel it helps to sent the letter by certified mail so you have proof of delivery.
Really the key *IS* early intervention. Did they tell you *why* they wanted to wait?
Barb
Re: Destiny
I agree with Barb. It will take a while for them to implement a plan. Also you might want to work with her over the summer.
Re: Destiny
Ask about availability for summer testing
Often there are a few days set aside in the summer that are kept quiet and held for ‘emergencies’
You could phrase it in terms of your willingness to bring her in to any nearby school that would see her over the summer(it might just be one in the area)
I am a fan of Sound Reading-not too expensive, in terms of how expensive things can be. It would be an excellent summer program for you-very specific about what you do each day. It should come up with a quick search
Re: Destiny
Testing can give you useful information so of course do it. Meanwhile, testing does *not* teach the child anything.
While you are waiting for the formal diagnosis, it is a very good idea to treat the symptoms and prevent things from getting worse.
I work every day with kids with reversals. I am seeing more and more of this every year as the teaching of handwriting has almost ceased to exist in the schools around where I’ve been living; kids apparently are suposed to re-invent handwriting for themselves and unfortunately a large number of them are unlucky and guess wrong about what directions you’re supposed to write in.
I strongly recommend you re-teach handwriting stressing directionality. Correct directionaliy is left-to right and top-to-bottom, for each letter and for the full word and sentence. If the child is moving in the opposite direction, reading, writing, and spelling all get messed up. Handwriting is both a physical and a mental skill, and habits become ingrained; the younger you start correcting these habits, the less conflict there has to be — there will still be conflict as the physical habits have been developed, but better now than after two more years of writing and reading backwards.
I find that correcting directionality in handwriting also corrects tracking and directionality in reading and straightens out a lot of other problems, even in math; it looks like magic but it isn’t, it is retraining of the hand and eye together, getting an ordered system to replace a confused muddle.
You are welcome to my old posts on writing and reading (I am late sending them out this week but will get at it shortly, sorry to everyone who asked and hasn’t heard back) - just email a request to [email protected]
In these posts I also list a number of good programs that others here have used successfully and tht you can look into using.
Hi Cari,
Reversal of letters and numbers is common symptom of Dyslexia.
So I would suggest that you consider this.