I just wanted to say a great big “Thank You” to those of you who replied to my post about Second Opinions. I am feeling a little better today. I feel like I should give you all a little more info on the situation.
My soon to be step-daughter was adopted by my fiance and his wife when she was born. She was a premature baby by one month. As far as I know, she met milestones in a normal time period. When she was in Kindergarten she missed school one day becasue her mother passed out from cysts pressing on her brain. Her mother was in the hospital for a month. From what my finace tells me my daughter spent an hour on homework a night in the first grade. At the beginning of second grade her mother died suddenly of a problem with her heart.
When I met her at the beginning of this past summer, her father informed me that she had some difficulty reading. I don’t think he really knew how much difficulty. When I confronted the school about it at the beginning of the school year they basically tried to hide knowing anything. I told them that we all knew that she should never have been promoted to the 3rd grade. Their response was that they didn’t know if it was true academic problems or if it was due to the grief over losing her mother.
I am a fourth grade teacher and the first time I watched her read, I won’t lie, it was painful. There are many simple four and five letter words that she does not know. But when given some more complex words she doesn’t seem to have much difficulty “reading” them. It absolutely baffles me. There are other problems too when it comes to phonics. She doesn’t seem to have a concept that there is a difference between b & m, and d & n. She if forever mixing the two sets up. Math is another very difficult area. If I say to her what is 5 + 2? She will tell me 6. If I ask what 5 + 1 is she has no idea and pulls out her fingers. But if I say to her, “You have 5 cookies and I give you one more, how many do you have?” She can instantly tell me 6. It has become very frustrating.
She currently attends a parochial school. I love the parochial school system, I teach in it myself. But I can’t help but wonder if she should be moved to the public school system. I know our schools are not equiped and cannot handle special needs kids. She is pulled out of class twice a week to go to the van for extra services. When she is gone, class goes on (as it should). However, whatever she misses is sent home to be finished as homework. Also, any work that isn’t finished in class is sent home as homework. We generally do 2-3 hours of homework a night. I think it is absolutely ridiculous! When I brought this up at our IAT meeting Friday morning they all looked at me like I was nuts. And I was basically told that I needed do continue doing this much homework in order to do less homework when my daughter gets older. That’s all fine and dandy for them, but right now it’s making me nuts.
My finace also has another child, a son who is in Kindergarten. I have not seen any issues with him thus far, thank God! I just want to be able to spend as much time with him, as I do with his sister and it kills me that they are not backing down. When we do Math CD’s in the car he usually picks up on them a lot faster than his sister.
So, what do I do? How do I obtain remedial help for her without taking away her childhood? I look forward to hearing from the true “experts”. Thank you so much in advance!
Ann Marie
Re: Thank you and more info
Ann Marie,
You are such a gift to this child. When I think of the perserverance it took to help my son I have always wondered what would happen to him if I wasn’t around. I have had to defend him in so many ways and my mommy instincts often put me in a position of feeling like a lion protecting her young from predators. I have loved this little boy since he was born so am pretty motivated, I can’t even imagine just stepping into this. Ok, enough, I just think you are great.
Look at the homework and try to adjust it so that he is only doing work that is truely helping and not doing work just to do work. My son’s last teacher had us doing things that I found pretty useless like cutting out letters in words. It took so much time and the time would be better spent in other ways. His current teacher gives out excellent homework in my opinion. I used to write on his homework when I thought it was useless that he wasn’t doing it. One was having to write his spelling words 5 times. He hated it, I hated it so I told him if you can spell the words you don’t have to do it.
Even though your step daughter is not in the public school system the public school system is required to test her. I am not clear about whether or not they have to give her services, others, like socks are better in this area than me. One way or another she should be tested to find out what her core deficits are. Once you have that information you will be better equiped to help her.
I don’t know if you are aware of the book reading reflex. It is the program phonographix that many of us here have used with good success. As a teacher you really could help her alot with this book.
Keep doing the 6 cookies give you 2 more thing. She needs help understanding that the squiggly line “6” on the page represent 6 cookies. I can remember the day when my son got that, we were doing something very similar then I was doing it with the numbers on the page and he said, “But what does that have to do with that.” Once I explicitly explained that this is the symbol that represents all the cookies on the table he said, “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Math still isn’t his strong suit but he can get it. He has always had trouble with symbols ie letters and numbers. He needs very clear cut, direct explanations of lessons involving symbols.
Re: Thank you and more info
hmm,sounding like dyslexia to me. Very similar problems as my two and I.
about private school: they MUST evaluate. Under child find sections of IDEA,the public school is under an obligation to identify ANY child in their district,whether they are in public or private school. Once identified they are NOT under the same obligation to provide services. Sounds like maybe she is getting some? When you say she goes out to the van? Who is providing services there? The way it works,the federal government gives the public school system a certain amount of money once they have identified all the students. A certain amount for all public school kids and a certain amount for private school kids. They do NOT in any way have to disperse this amount equally. They decide who they will provide services to,and when the money is gone it is gone. You and the school have the right to request the public school consider your child,but that is it. The public school decides and they are not under any obligation to provide anything. A LOT of parrochial schools recieve federal funds or assistance,if they do,then the private school is obligated to provide protection under 504,which is providing reasonable accomodations and remedial efforts to your child,either by way of the public school or the private school. They can request the parent pay extra,but generally they are more motivated to request help from the public schools,afterall by recieveing federal funds they have already asked for help. Now this means ANY federal funds. Milk money is federal funds.
my opinion and some off-topic comments
Ann Marie,
I agree that the public school will have to make modifications and you can limit the homework, etc. But I can tell you that you need to get remediation from outside the school if you want to make the most of her time. I was just reading a post of an LD teacher who has 11 students in her room most of the day ranging from 2nd to 6th grade, varied disabilites and achievement levels. How much can that poor teacher possibly accomplish? How much one-on-one will those children receive which is aimed toward their particular deficits? Please try something like Phono-Graphix and then go to an Orton Gillingham type program if that doesn’t work. I agree that she should have been retained. She was really set up to fail this year since they knew she didn’t have the skills to go on. But other than the modifications like reduced homework, I personally don’t think public schools have that much to offer a child. It is really a struggle to find a good school. But if you can get her meds regulated and get her some excellent remediation, then she may do well in either setting. If you do move her to public school, it’ll be easy to have her repeat third grade since she’ll be new anyway.
Now if I may approach a very personal topic, I want to express a few thoughts about adoption, step-children, etc. I have both birth and adopted children and I am just a little sensitive about how we sometimes refer to children. Since your fiance’s former wife is no longer living, I consider that you will become these children’s mother, not step-mother when you marry their father. You are effectively marrying a family! I have a friend who adopted two children as a single mother, and when she married, her husband adopted the children as well and they all took his last name to be a united family. My heart breaks for children who do not have the love of a mother. And it sounds like these children are greatly blessed to have such a caring person as you in their lives. But my hope is that you will be their “Mom” and not just a step-mother. (Sorry, I know this is none of my business, but adoption and special ed are two of the subjects I hold most dear).
Best wishes to you!
Janis
Re: Thank you and more info
I just wanted to address the being pulled out part of your post and then having to make up the missed work as homework. This can happen in public school too. My son is pulled out for resource and speech and the missed work comes home. If it looks worthwhile we do it. If it’s busy work we don’t do it. After spending an hour and half on homework eveynight I decided to take charge of his homework and that is when I started deciding what we would do or not do. Since he has an IEP the teachers agree to whatever I decide. So if you move her to public you might have the same issue.
I’m no expert. I’m just a mom. Interesting thing about the longer words. Are these words, by chance, in context? My daughter in 2nd and 3rd grade could figure out asteroid an meteorite if she was in a Science book, but couldn’t figure out “great” on a list. Scary.
Second, I have to admit I’m a proponent of public school unless your child is severe. If your child is LD, public school HAS to give your child an IEP and has to follow it or you can cause them a whole lot of grief. Besides, it frees up your finances to provide 1:1 tutoring in the areas of deficits.
Third, in public school you can also have limited homework on her IEP. BTW, although I am no pusher of meds, but when my daughter went on Concerta we went from 2-3 hrs. per night to about 30-45 minutes. It was incredible! It wasn’t that her LD was keeping her from understanding it, it was that she couldn’t stay on task long enough to get anything done!
Finally, how do remediate without taking away their childhood? That’s a toughie. My daughter in 2nd grade, left school 1 &1/2 hours early 2 days a week to attend LMB, came in late 1 day per week so she could go to keyboarding and also did OT for 30 minutes during the school week and 30 minutes 1 night per week. It was tough, but at 7 she didn’t know any other way of life, so it worked (she also had soccer practice 2 nights per week). Now? She just graduated from LMB after 2 years and is doing very well academically. She is happy, has a good self esteem and is proud of her reading.
Just a side note, but she had to write a “thankful” letter for Thanksgiving and she said she was thankful she could read now and now it was fun. - And how hard it is when people think your “dumb” b/c you can’t read well.
Might have taken a couple of years away from her childhood - but the payoff is worth it.