Parent Post
Parent Post
This spring I wrote a post asking if people had had success with Sylvan Learning Centers. My daughter wasn’t making progress with reading at school, had been behind for years, and we were getting more concerned than we already had been. Throughout school we’d heard things like “she’ll get over the hump,” (she’s going into 5th grade and we’ve heard this from every teacher since kindergarten), and “read more at home,” (we’ve required her to read for an hour after school since 2nd grade, it would be temporally impossible to read more, do her homework, and eat dinner before having to go to bed).
She went to Sylvan, but despite having been told by the school she didn’t have a learning disability, I started doing some research on my own. When I looked at symptoms of dyslexia I could go right down the line, “Abby does that, and that, yep, that too.” Since school was out, there was nothing we could do there. I looked at private options for testing and found one that fit the bill. She did many hours of testing with a psychologist and academic tester.
We got the results yesterday and Abby does, in fact, have Specific Learning Disorder in reading. This is the fancy new DSM V way of saying dyslexia. They gave us a huge report/diagnosis to use with the school. We’ve got a list of accommodations that should be made, either through Special Education or a 504 program. Things like, test-taking in a quiet room, extra time on tests, shorter homework assignments and some other smaller things.
Abby slipped through the cracks because she was a good, bright kid who was not a troublemaker at school. Her teachers liked her and she did her work, so problems she was having were not noticed or glossed over. She worked really, really hard, and because of that was able to (just barely) maintain grade level in reading and writing while excelling in math and other areas.
Knowing what the problem has been all this time and a plan for moving forward is a huge relief. I just wish we could have avoided these years of watching her struggle and our frustration with both her and the school. It was heartbreaking.
So, other parents, if your otherwise bright kid has trouble with reading, I encourage you to not wait to ask the school for testing. Check out this list of symptoms:
http://www.ida-umb.org/signs-of-dyslexia.html
And if the school won’t test, find somewhere that will do it. This process was not cheap since we did it outside of the school system. I have a lot of sympathy low income people and especially english as a second language kids going through this.
One of the recommendations they made was reading graphic novels (which of course we were doing anyway, I'm her dad after all) , and here she is reading the new Raina Telgemeier book, Sisters.
Excellent news. Knowing the problem is the only way to solve it.
ReplyDeleteAwesome news. Way to be proactive.
ReplyDeleteZita the Space Girl is a good one.
ReplyDeleteI just wish we'd done it sooner, but one would think the school would say something. That's not the case though.
ReplyDeleteI'm relieved you guys were able to identify the problem, and it seems like you have a plan moving forward to deal with it. Excellent news! But...how do you find age-appropriate graphic novels?
ReplyDeletethe incentives in "special education" are all out of whack. essentially there's no pressure to actually help a struggling kid whose test scores aren't low enough to have a negative impact on the funding model. even if getting that kid some extra support could push them from being a good student to a great one. mediocrity is seen as good enough.
ReplyDeletei've got no specific experience with dyslexia. although gavin has never taken to reading the way his sister (or mother or father) did and our history there sounds similar to yours. he's also going into 5th grade. hrm.
but anyway, i took a bunch of advanced lit classes in college with a dude who was a painting major and dyslexic. he loved literature but the act of reading was difficult for him. one of his tricks was to read along with an audio book. then he'd re-listen to the audio book while he painted stuff inspired by the story. that's a home grown coping mechanism, and possibly a terrible one. but it's the best i've got to offer.
Alex Hakobian Raina Telgemeier is good for preteens or a little younger. There's the Bone series. Barnes & Noble's kids section has a good selection. We've also read some of Marvel and DC's comics for younger readers. Superman Family Adventures, Teeny Titans, etc.
ReplyDeleteDerek Pennycuff reading along with an audiobook was a recommendation for when she's older and being assigned literature. Also, recording lectures for later review and note taking. They also listed a bunch of text to speech Chrome plug-ins for using the Web.
ReplyDeleteIt is astonishing just how much action we have to take on behalf of our kids that one would think would be handled by schools, daycare, instructors etc. I mean mine's only 3 but it's been a wake-up call.
ReplyDeleteCasey Garske the local school system uses MyOn.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.myon.com/
it's got a built in text to voice plugin that at first i was discouraging G from using. but then i thought if that really does help him "get over this hump" like everyone's been saying for 5 years now…
Yeah, we'd kind of been against typing everything, but her handwriting is fine, she's much faster at writing when typing, and why should she struggle with spelling when she can get pretty close and correct with spell check?
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for her to have trouble with stuff that was supposed to be "easy". I hope knowing the problem helps her get to where she wants to go.
ReplyDeletei'm gonna reshare this to just my wife.
ReplyDeleteI'm bookmarking this privately for later reference.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend Groo as graphic novel fodder. I love it.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me to check if Groo vs Conan #2 is out yet. She liked the first issue.
ReplyDeleteTonya Wershow looking back at my other thread, you were right on. You can see I hadn't delved into research on dyslexia yet and just thought of it as the "b" and "d" mixup thing.
ReplyDeleteThank my mom. She was an elementary school teacher for 30+ years and most stuff about things I've found through/talked with her. I'm super glad something was diagnosed because even just having a name for a problem can make it feel a million times easier. I wish you and your family tons of luck.
ReplyDeleteWanted to separately address the issues raised about the comment that 'schools/teachers/daycares should catch more than they do' but that's a rant and not appropriate for this thread. Anyone who wants to hear my views, though, can feel free to ping me.
Speaking from experience in the classroom, make sure she is actually getting her accommodations during the school year and not just during testing. She's not SPED, she's just a kid with 504 accommodations. Especially if she's a good kid teachers will frequently, as you surmised, gloss over her 504 at times.
ReplyDeleteWe talked about advocating for the student a lot Scott Croom . And about Abby advocating for herself.
ReplyDeleteI wish more kids would self advocate. It's the only way to really be sure. Kids are so afraid to speak up.
ReplyDeleteI thought nuking it from orbit was the only way to be sure. Oh wait - wrong topic.
ReplyDeleteGonna toss this out as a possiblity-- not all kids labelled as Dyslexic or ADHD have those conditions. Some of them may have trouble reading black text on a white background.
ReplyDeletehttp://irlen.com/what-is-irlen-syndrome/
I'm happy that you found out the root cause. Hopefully it's all easier from here.
ReplyDeleteThe thing to remember about 504 plans is that its really her legal protection. If you move suddenly part way through the school year and she goes to a new school, that document goes with her. Also principals have to make hard decisions with staffing, funding, etc and they may have to tell a teacher to do something that is not in the best interest of Abby. This is her legal protection against that. So watch out for things like that. If suddenly all of the paraprofessionals quit at her school because they were in a pool that won the lottery together, the principal may not allow her to have a test read allowed to her. This is her legal protection that might allow her to retake the test when they can accommodate appropriately the terms in the 504 plan.
ReplyDeleteIts not just her against the teacher, it might be Abby against the administration in most cases.