My son is being tested this week for possible learning disabilities. He is five and a half and has a pretty extensive family learning disability history. His teacher is considered because he is not recognizing letters, remembering their sounds. She started to notice a problem when he couldn’t remember the letter C and it is in his own name. He is having a speech and lang eval, and a cognitive and achievement test.
That said, my question is, how do I set up a schedule at home that will help him. I have been using http://www.learningpage.com to print letter sheets and other sheets for him to do every nite. I also bought three book by peggy kaye, games for reading, games for math, and games for learning. They were all recommended by his kindergarten teacher. I am not sure how much to do with him every night and what I should be doing. I don’t want to overload his brain. He is in (private) school 8:15a to 2:45p. The school is fantastic and they are really working hard to help him but I want to be able to help too! The head of the school things 2-3 weeks of real one on one would help significantly. I can give him that at night but I feel really lost. I want to make sure I am doing the right thing!!
I posted this on the homeschooling with ld too!!
Thanks
Dawn
Re: Working at home with kindergartener
I wouldn’t do anything different until I had the results of those tests. The head of the school’s opinion that “2-3 weeks of real 1 on 1” would help significantly is an interesting one. Rarely is any child remediated in 2-3 weeks. If the head of school is so sure of that, why are they doing testing at all?
Your son is 5 1/2. That’s young. And he’s in school most of the day. I’d do only fun things with him at night.
Have fun.
Agree with Sara...
… I’ve heard a few too many administrators say (and believe) that gosh, if the parents would just work with the kid for a bit… what a shame they won’t…
http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/ has a lot of “fun stuff” to get a young learner “tuned in” to the sounds of words and lay the groundwork for good reading skills, as well as more “work” type stuff.
Re: Working at home with kindergartener
I think that the school does realize there is a problem but their entire philosophy is one on one attention. That is one of the reason we chose this school. I think what she was saying was that he needs one on one help outside of class. They are really willing to do whatever is recommended to help my son. There is no big “fight” like I have had to do with my siblings public school.
He is starting to realize he can’t do all the work and is looking toward his friends to help.They don’t want him to become frustrated and stop wanting to learn.
I do play fun learning games with him at night but I also do a few papers. He doesn’t ever complain and if he becomes frustrated we stop and do something else. I don’t want to stop until I get the results becuase it will take the school district until april to get me the test results and I don’t want to not be doing anything for that lenglth of time.
Thanks
Dawn
Re: Working at home with kindergartener
So then use your good judgement. There doesn’t need to be a schedule, per say. If you’re doing this to keep up the momentum of the school day at night, whatever you do will accomplish that. If you’re doing this to help him catch up in his work at school, certainly you would do whatever papers need doing.
As the school has requested this, wouldn’t they also help you work out an evening schedule of work?
Re: Working at home with kindergartener
I agree with Sara. Wait until your son is tested. Any intervention before testing might affect the results of the tests which might lead everyone to believe that your son is okay with regular instruction and no special instruction is needed from the school.
However, once you start working with your son use multisensory methods. The brain has three learning pathways: visual (what we see), auditory (what we hear) and kinesthetic/tactle (feeling from movement and touch). Using all three pathways at the same time helps engrain the information.
Have your son write the letter in sand (or on carpet or other rought surface) using bit arm movements, while saying the name of the letter outloud and giving the sound of the letter. Do this five times. Show him the letter, and if he can’t remember it have him write the letter on the table to help trigger memory. If he still can’t remember, give him the name and sound again; and have him write and say 5 times again.
How is you son at rhyming?
L. Starr
Re: Working at home with kindergartener
He has some minor difficulty with rhyming but has gotten significantly better. I think that is what the teacher initially noticed he was having trouble with. We try to play alot of rhyming games.
I dont’ think it is that big of a problem anymore, since I have seen such a marked improvment.
When possible, times when regular homework does not
take up all our time, I work with my dyslexic, 12-yr-old son 20 minutes a night
on two different activities.
We’ll do something for 10 minutes, take a break for about
5, then do something else for 10 minutes.
But, if he all of a sudden, starts flipping letters around,
or sees letters that aren’t in the word,
we stop right away and take a break.
Over six years, me being the only one who ever taught him
phonics, he has reached the decoding level of a sophomore
in high school – doesn’t mean he can read swiftly and surely,
but given time he sure can decode!
So you don’t have to do much, just do it as often as you can, and the more you can turn it
into a game the better.
The most important thing is watch his stress level.
Home, first and foremost, should be a safe harbor for
a LD child.
Anne