can anyone give advice about “inclusion” in a regular class. My son is dyslexic and is removed from the class three times a day —twice for reading once for math. It is during these times that the class does some special projects. activity or extra outdoor time yet he generally misses it due to the “support” services. Now that he has been tested his teacher tells me he is alraedy receiving all the services possible yat these services by there progress standards have not worked all year.. Our IEP meeting is coming up and we are at a stand still for what to do; we fought for the title 1 help and the testing to only now be told this is as good as it gets???? Outside tutor?? leave the public school system?? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated :? :?
Re: inclusion question for my 7year old second grader
It is usually much easier to remediate if you use an outside tutor rather than relying on the school. You always have the option of refusing services at school. This way your son could benefit from the special activities of the class and still get remediation services.
You can also do a lot at home.
If you haven’t read the book “Reading Reflex” by McGuiness, I would suggest borrowing it from your library and reading the first three chapters.
For math, programs such as those at http://www.citycreek.com and http://www.thequartermile.com are often very helpful for dyslexics (who usually have no difficulty with math concepts, but have great difficulty becoming fluent with math facts).
Nancy
Re: inclusion question for my 7year old second grader
It’s well worth doing detective work to figure out whether the “special” services are really any better than the projects he’s missing.
If not, you may decide that you’re better off dealing with the skills issues at home — but if so, be sure this is clearly and explicitly documented. You don’t want the paper trail & teacher talk to indicate that you “didn’t want the help,” especially if he starts doing better, because then it will be clear that “he didn’t really need anything…” all the while he’s working his eyeballs off at home. (You could also make sure that he’s not wearing himself out, though that’s highly individual; coming home from school and doing “school” stuff can be hard for some kids, just good structure & self-discipline for others, depending on their biology & psychology. I’ve known parents to bring their kids in late regularly — missing the “reading” instruction that does their kids so “much” good — so they can get enough sleep…)
Do you know what program they are doing at school? I know from personal experience as both a parent and SLP that I had to do more at home to get my dyslexic daughter back on track. I ended up pulling her out of school in 5th grade and doing our own thing for 18 months.
Perhaps your son should have a speech and language evaluation to see if there are some other underlying language issues, ie., phonological processes that are interfering in his acquisition of reading.