Lori My heart goes out to you and your son. He is lucky he has such an advocate in you. I work in an elementary school with children like your son every day. We as a profession need to work to help our colleagues understand that we are teaching children, not a curriculum and that it is our JOB to make learning accessible to all. If children fail to learn, it is our responsibility to find a way to get that done. Have you read Richard Gentry's work on spelling? It would help you and your son understand the wiring in his brain that affects his ability to write. Jennifer In a message dated 6/14/2009 9:48:34 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
My youngest son is a brilliant thinker, a real outside the box kind of kid, but he reads slowly (with great understanding) and struggles with handwriting and spelling. This year, as an eight grader, we began noticing that he was struggling to correctly copy mathematical equations. He would err in the transcription, not in the solution, and then correctly solve an incorrect problem. He had a great year in language arts, but my husband was his teacher and believes that when laptops are available to students, they should all have the opportunity/choice to use them for drafting to publishing. Unlike his previous middle school language arts teachers, one in particular, who harped on him constantly about neatness, letter formation and spelling, his dad grades all kids journals for thinking. Even with the support of word processing, we both saw Isaac struggle with spelling of even simple words and began to push for evaluation in February. Sadly, because he is a brilliant kid who still scores well on the standardized tests by local standards, we met with resistance. I could point to the decline in his test scores but since they were high in comparison to our general population, we ere dismissed. His math instructor was quick to label him lazy and a behavior problem (something we have discovered she does with any child who is struggling) and he was pretty quick to let her know she was an idot (which she is not, but she was a non-certified, math phobic person assigned to proctor a poorly designed distance learning class and is does appear she pretty much hates boys). I ended up having to threaten to call the State Department of Education and file a complaint before they finally decided to test him. He did not qualify for services BUT was clinically diagnosed as dyslexic with a specific focus on dysgraphia. In other words, he could spell and visualize words correctly but then scramble them when asked to write the same thing. He cannot transcribe information well, makes reversals and transpositions that impact meaning. He is not lazy, he CANNOT do this due to a specific processing disorder. I had met someone about about a year ago with a son with the same diagnosis and as she described her son to me, along with the fight it took to get him services, she could have been talking about my son. **************Refinance and lower payments online with Ditech. Visit www.ditech.com Today! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1221879746x1201405835/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2FDEG%2Fgo%2F155848685%2Fdirect%2F01%2F ) _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
