I just want to make sure I’m making the right decision for my daughter (8 yrs / 3rd grade). Currently she is in a fulltime LD room (which I hate). Here’s the story:
We always felt “why can’t we teach her”. Her preschool teachers taught her how to write her name. She finished K not knowing all her letters and even began 1st grade not knowing all the letter sounds. The school put her in Title 1. she was doing o.k. until winter break, then it seemed she forgot some stuff. Then end of 1ST grade had her tested w/ RIAS, WJ-III and YCAT. They tell me Non verbal is very high and reading writing is avg to below avg. and she has LD. She started 2nd grade using the resource rm. She hated it and always complained saying it wasn’t helping. what i think, she didn’t like leaving her peers. when she returned, she would just stand around waiting for her teacher to basically hold her by the hand and help her on the next assignment. This teacher taught her 1st and 2nd grade along w/ tutoring during the summer. We both thought she would do great in 2nd grade. But, as things got harder and faster, she was showing more and more anxiety. In the meantime, we had her see a Psychologist and as the anxiety increased, we put her on Zoloft. But the zoloft didn’t help much cuz the “wall was up” and it seemed we couldn’t get “thru to her”. We/I decided I needed to do something drastic and put her in a fulltime LD room. Problem is, it is at a different school. From the beginning, Last year Feb to current Feb ‘07. I feel I have been railroaded. I currently found an advocate, which will help w/ her IEP that is scheduled this month. But first, we are going to have an informal mtg Feb 14th to discuss what everyone feels is best for her. She is very social and loves to be surrounded by friends. She takes it very personal and gets emotional if a classmate gives her an odd look. She has lots of friends at her homeschool, and none except for the kids in her LD rm. They want to remcommend her be introduced slowly in the mainroom while using the ld room. I was considering her to be removed and brought back to her homeschool using modifications and the resource room. She has personally told me if she was to be mainstreamed she wants to go home. I’m not sure. Yes, we have somewhere to go if she can’t handle the work load, but isn’t that what the mofications are there for? I also feel (from the beginning), that my daughter is way too smart to be in this LD room, plus, I feel it is way TOO slow for her and if she stays there any longer, she will never be able to keep up w/ the pace of a reg classroom. I also don’t appreciate all the “standing” around time she does. I think there’s more “wasted” time than production.
Please, I really could use some input/help!
Re: HELP, Mainstream or fulltime LD Rm?!
Hi!
Well, we finally had our meeting. The other one was cancelled due to a “snow day”. The team and I decided it would be best to keep her where she’s at and just put her in one new class which is social studies and is only taught two days a week. With this subject, they read aloud and have group discussions and with science there’s alot more individual reading. So they thought this would be better for her, plus, she can still use the LD basic room for backup and tests. If I took her to her homeschool. They feared it would be too much for her at all once and I agreed. Plus, like my husband said, if she can handle this, she will hopefully handle her homeschool next year.
Thanks for your insight.
Hi there,
I obviously cannot tell you exactly what to do, but here is our story.
My daughter just turned 8. She is in 2nd grade. She has a language disorder, making anything involving language difficult. She has been going to the resource room this year quite a bit, but honestly, last year her teacher preferred that she stay in the classroom because in the resource room they are using a different program and the teacher thought she might get confused, plus the teacher we had was awesome and was able to keep Michelle involved, even though she was clearly the lowest student in the class. She did ok too. Now she is being pulled constantly and I think it was hard for her at the beginning of the year, causing separation anxiety, which we hadn’t seen since kindergarten. The school psychologist mentioned putting her into the self contained classroom (probably the same as your full time LD classroom) for summer school and our regular teacher said not to do that because those kids have different kinds of problems. I think they are more severe. She has told me over and over again not to put her there, but at every meeting it seems like they are trying to suggest it or else increase her level of service to be pulled out more and more. My problem with being pulled out is that she is missing the second grade curriculum while she is being pulled out. When she gets to 3rd grade she will have missed 50% of second grade! So when they asked about increasing her time being pulled I said no. They all looked at me like I was nuts in the IEP meeting, but I don’t like her being pulled so much. Also, I do tons of work with her at home, which is the main reason she is doing as well as she is. I don’t mind taking full credit either because the stuff they are doing with her is way too low. She brought home a paper with all short vowel words like “cat”. She told me she did that in the resource room. OMG! She is reading much more difficult words than that. When I asked about it they told me it was review and that she still needs help with that. When I showed them what we are doing at home they were surprised that she knew words like “grow”.
So, don’t get railroaded into doing anything you don’t want to do with your daughter. It is possible to keep her in the mainstream class where her friends are. My daughter would absolutely melt if I were to separate her from her friends. She too is very social. I fear that it will get more difficult if her language does not get better because the other kids don’t always understand her and she talks about things that are unrelated to the current conversation. I’m sure there will be some social problems, but as long as she has a few good friends who understand her that’s what matters. And her language is getting better and better all the time. It’s been a very tough school year for us because I don’t have good communication with the teacher this year and I have felt like things were going on behind my back, trying to put her somewhere else as if she was a burden on the teacher. I plan to interview the 3rd grade teachers next year before we pick one for her. The problem is we don’t have very many teachers because we are a small school. My older daughter was in a 3rd/4th combination class so that teacher will not be an option for Michelle if she teaches another combination class next year.
My advice is to put your daughter where you and she feels most comfortable.
How did your IEP meeting go?
Kathryn