Private parochial school, 4th grade. My child is ADD inattentive and also has auditory processing difficulties. I have had several conferences with her teacher and counselor this year. Every time we have a conference, the teacher’s #1 topic is disorganization. Her teacher is grading her with modifications but continues to take off points for such things as not having the page number in her heading or not highlighting the vocab word. Her heading in her composition book needs to have the chapter, lesson, title of the exercise, page # and date. I think if she is grading with modifications for this child she shouldn’t count off for the page number missing if the chapter #, lesson # and the title of the exercise is provided. Wouldn’t you be able to understand what work was completed if the heading was written as this example: Chapter 5, Lesson 1, Remembering What You Read? She takes up the comp. books after a chapter test and grades the chapter work. My child has the answers right but instead of receiving a 100, receives a high B because she may not have listed the page #’s or forgot to underline the vocab words after writing the definitions on each of the lessons. Modifications the teacher has picked include extra time on completing work, extra time on tests, reduced (odd/even) math problems, circling words spelled wrong but not counting off (unless it’s the subject spelling). I just think if she is modifying for these, why count off for page #’s. Am I wrong in thinking this?
Re: organizational issues
I agree with Patti M. Your child can probably be more organized, it just takes so much WORK, that, LIKE MY DAUGHTER, she’s deadset against it. My daughter’s coming along, with help from mom (?!), good teachers and OT. She used to hate the “O” word (as she called it) “Don’t say it MOM!”. Now she’s beginning to find out that organization can be a good thing. It takes time and perserverance.
I am impressed that a private, parochial school is willing to give the accoms. that she’s getting. I haven’t heard of that being typical at all.
Get a template :)
What does she write these assignments on? Figure out a way to have the data there so she can copy it — a “layover” with holes in it (see http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/writing/dysgraphia.html
- there’s a cute graphic, yes it’s the same Susan :))
I can sympathize — this is my kind of mistake. It’s even more of a bunbite when it’s an IEP and you’ve left off the date…
Re: organizational issues
Organization is a key problem for most student with attention problems. Her auditory processing problems are going compound this problem. To often students with attention and processing problems are given too many directions at one time and will miss parts of the directions. The best way to teach organization is to set up a check list that she can go by in order make sure she has complete the tasks requested. As a teacher I personally would not take off marks for this until I felt the child had learned these skills to the point of being intrinsict. Her lack of attention to details is a result of the attention and processing difficulties and she should not be penalized for this until she has learned the skills effectively.
J. Ekern
GMS Sped Department Head.
Wow
My COLLEGE students could barely be convinced to put their names and the page number on their papers. I had one who insisted on signing himself just “Steve”. I pointed out that it was a large college with several Steves, including one in his own group; he took this as a deathly insult and a reason to hate me and math and an excuse to fail yet again.
Of course the college actively encouraged this level of stupidity; I got fired after I argued with the test center who told me of course they had blue books for subjects like English and History, but this was MATH and so the students had to write on the back of garbage paper.
Yes, organization is important, and no, this teacher is going a bit too far. I want my students to spend their time thinking about the questions they write, not a whole hour on the title of the assignment and nothing on the content. A simple page number OR title, and student’s name, and please, numbers down the left margin (Many of my students had been taught to “save paper” by cramming their math problems higgledy piggledy all over the page — hours of work for me to actually read them) — this is the minimum. I’m not sure why some teachers freak out over writing the date, since they should know when they assigned page 15; however, yes, it is a good habit for students to learn to date their work.
Again, I got in trouble for taking marks off students for their *work* — leaving out math steps and so on. I also got in trouble for correcting (but *not* marking down) spelling.
There must be a happy medium — if marks are taken off for things like the page number or the date, the number of marks should be small enough not to mess up the kid’s grade; one point just as a reminder, say.
The idea of having a template is a good one. Tape the template to her desk.
I think the teacher is trying to teach her how to be organized and it sounds like she makes it explicit what her expetations are for the entire class The teacher is making some accomodations for your daughter but in her own way she is trying to teach your daughter to be accountable and how to organize her assignments. What some of my daughters teachers do for the WHOLE class is to give the rubric of the assignment to the kids at the beginning of the assignment, kind of like a check off list… and then the kids are given the same rubric to conduct a peer review on their buddies assignment and what they could do to make it better. Then the student reveiws it again with the help of the peer reviewed rubric and puts down the grade they think they have earned. After they have checked their assignment for completeness they turn in the peer reviews and the completed assignment.. This works out well for all the kids not just those with ADD;.perhaps this would work out for your daughter
My daughter’s best years before she was diagnosed with ADD were when she had very organized teachers who explicitly taught what their expectations were. Everything fell apart in 5th grade when she went into a classroom where organization wasn’t paramount. The organizational skills that the elementary teachers taught my daughter are helping her do better in middle school with organization but it took a lot of failures before she learned what the teachers expectations were and what she had to do to meet the mark. Now my daughter has made her weakness a strength.