tell the teacher he is out of order ?

[sawjd]

Hello everyone,

 

Firstly let me apologise for not being on here for sometime. I have had so many problems with emails and setting up a new account. I do not understand about emails being stored elsewhere and that you could pick them up.(Just found out last week) I am terrible with technology. I finally got this sorted (we had a virus and wiped out windows completely, l lost every email, picture, addresses the lot). I had to sort out security on this computer aswell.

 

I am doing this all on my own and i am struggling to the point of tears.

 

I will come to the question in the title but before i do a little bit of background information so that i am clear in what i am emailing to you.

 

On a recent assessment we have done on our K (he is 8 soon to be 9 years old)he was found to have a reading age of a 13 year old. His spelling is down though under his age group by about two years and he has major trouble writing stories, we are still having problems in getting him to school thankfully its not everyday as it was before. He refuses to go on school trips and days out with the school. He had the chance to go to an adventure playground and play on the grounds with all the other children. What boy would not want to go ?. He is missing out. The school are not bothered and just accept it. He is receiving 40 minutes support a week in handwriting.

 

On his IEP he is supposed to be receiving support in guided reading 4 times a week. Now this is where it gets a bit annoying. Our k told us he has a reading teacher ONCE A WEEK, our k told us that he was on a green book, yet when k told the teacher (we had been talking about his reading age)about his reading age, accourding to k (and i will have to check this) the reading teacher immediatley swapped the lower level book to a higher reading book without any internal assessment and just on Ks say so. Can they do this ?. Its going to be strange when they try and explain this sudden improvement.

 

The last IEP our k had he was on 2c and that was done in march of this year. On the IEP it says they are hoping that he gets to 2b next term. We had the assessment in the first week in June. How can i believe what the teachers say ?. If they say anything different tonight (parents evening) how do i handle this?. He can't have suddenly improved in a month. I say month because i have long list of absent dates that need to be explained. He has not been in school for quite a few mornings over the past two months and given the fact they had two weeks easter holidays,there is not enough time to justify such drastic improvement, if the school say he has gained or improved enormously how do i handle the fact they are blatently lying. Things could go the other way of course and they could stick to what they originally said.

 

I need to prove the school are not meeting his needs. Could this assessment be used ?. Its so hard to prove that he needs help even though edcuationally he seems not so bad (spelling and story writing main problems). Not sure where i go with this. The consultant that did the assessment says she will send me the report with age related ability instead of using centiles. I do not understand centiles. Our k is under the dietician and the GP is having to refer our k to have a bowel scan as our k cannot feel his bowls move until its too late. He is having trouble in using his muscles in the bowels. This is particularly worse at night. It might be he has a slow digestive system. Its so irregular and we have tried the usual methods when trying to train his bowels. With all of this going on and my partners ms (multiple scherlosis) we are under a bit of stress. How do you prove he strongly needs help in other areas when he is doing ok in others. Its the spikey profile syndrome again.

 

yours, who is sincerely stressed and has a cold.

 

sarni.

[JsMum]

To have a reading age of an 13yr old but reaching a level 2b/c could indicate a litracey impairment such a Dyslexia or other Speech and Language impairments.

 

There could be discrepancies between the results and Percentiles are very important as they give a pointer to where your son is to where other children.

 

So at 8yrs old he has a reading age of 13 that could place your son on the percentil of say out of a 100 children your son is 100 percent better at reading than other children.

 

But if your son has a spelling age of a 5yr old then his spelling pecentile could be 5 or 6 so 95/96 children have a better advantage of spelling than your son.

 

It could be an indicator your son has a specific learning difficulty.

 

I recommend you contact your nearest Dyslexia Action support group who do assessments on literacy and language.

 

Another recommendation is an assessment of Speech and Language and if you can afford it a private assessment as this what we did without it we would not of accessed SALT.

 

 

JsMumxx

[baddad]

Hi sawjd -

not entirely sure what you're asking (sorry!), but it's not unusual for children to have a higher reading age than spelling or comprehension age... the first is a 'word recognition' test, where effectively they're processing an image, while spelling and comprehension are 'thinking skills' (that's probably a bad way of describing it, but I can't think of a better way right now) that demand a different kind of understanding.

 

Suddenly jumping your son from one age group to another for reading because of his reading ability will improve his reading 'vocabulary' but won't have any effect - or possibly could have a detrimental effect - on his comprehension or spelling ability, because it actually widens the gap he's already struggling to bridge.

 

Best thing is to talk to the school first and find out what they are doing and why and see if it makes sense.

 

One of the problems my son has with reading (with pretty much everything he finds 'boring' in fact) is that he can talk the talk (read) brilliantly, but is actually walking a very different walk in his head to the one he should be walking. He's now learnt that with me there will be 'questions after' and actually at least tries to absorb the meaning, but if he can get away with skating over the words with anyone else will do so

 

Hope that's helpful

 

L&P

 

BD

[sawjd]

To have a reading age of an 13yr old but reaching a level 2b/c could indicate a litracey impairment such a Dyslexia or other Speech and Language impairments.

 

There could be discrepancies between the results and Percentiles are very important as they give a pointer to where your son is to where other children.

 

So at 8yrs old he has a reading age of 13 that could place your son on the percentil of say out of a 100 children your son is 100 percent better at reading than other children.

 

But if your son has a spelling age of a 5yr old then his spelling pecentile could be 5 or 6 so 95/96 children have a better advantage of spelling than your son.

 

It could be an indicator your son has a specific learning difficulty.

 

I recommend you contact your nearest Dyslexia Action support group who do assessments on literacy and language.

 

Another recommendation is an assessment of Speech and Language and if you can afford it a private assessment as this what we did without it we would not of accessed SALT.

 

 

JsMumxx

[KezT]

adding on to what BD said:

 

My son is hyperlexic - he could read fluently the moment he realised that each letter represented a sound - approx age 4. We have never found a word he can not read (although his pronunciation is not always correct) so his reading age is 16+ and has been for several years.

 

However up until he start of this year he still only scored a 2c or 2b in litracy each year because a) he wouldn't do it under test conditions b ) his writing is atrocious and he almost always refuses to write more than a word or two and c) his comprehension does not match his reading level. In a year he has jumped straight up to a 4B because we have managd to pesuade him that sitting the exams is important!!!

 

The Litracy score is an aveage of reading, writing and comprehension, so in my son's case his reading pulls it up and his writing/comprehension pull it down. You should get individual scores too though. It sonds as though your son's reading would pull is overall score up too. 2c to 2b is not much of a jump - the level is 2 and the a/b/c just tells you how close to the middle of that level they are (c=just scraped in, b=spot on that level, a=almost a 3)

 

If you think the school is not meeting his IEP you should ask for a review meeting and discuss your concerns there really.

Edited July 11, 2011 by KezT

[bid]

Hi Sarni,

 

I think the best thing to do is to make an appointment to see the teacher, and then just explain you're a bit confused over his reading books, rather than going in with all guns blazing accusing her of all sorts!

 

HTH

 

Bid