Hello,

I teach special education at an elementary school, in a resource room setting.  I'm concerned when you say that the ability assessment shows below average ability.  Did you mean her educational tests showed this or her full scale ability score is below average?  If you look at the psych report, it should break it down by subtests and overall score (her standard score).  If she has lower than average ability, then that may be playing into the higher order thinking - such as comprehension.  Not that she can't understand, but that it needs to be taught at a slower pace and her understanding of what she reads may need to come from multiple readings of the same story/passage and presented in different ways.

Her decoding skills should be coming along though and you may want to ask exactly what they are using to teach her the sounds of the English language (Wilson, etc).  There are many programs not all teachers use just one program (me), but instead use what fits the student and start where the skills left off (vs. spending time on what she already knows).  Is she using word families/rhyming?  Sounds in isolation or are they teaching the sounds and then showing your child words lists that contain those sounds and having her practice those sounds to automaticity?  There are a ton of sites that you can let her use at night/weekends to help build phono awareness/skills.  Especially during the school year, and especially where she is receiving intense instruction in school, the more fun at home, the more she will hopefully want to practice at home.  You could also ask for weekly reports on what sounds they are teaching/reinforcing and reinforce at home with computer fun.

Keep an eye on her math skills.  If again, you meant what you said when you said she has a lower than average ability, then you "may" start to see a decline in acquired skills when they move to higher order math.  If she is directly taught - how to think - using metacognitive strategies, how to use systematic rules and learns the language of math (not an inclusive list of what she will need to learn if math problems start at a higher grade-level) she will probably move along fine.  Many students show reading comp. problems in the younger grades, but because math is fairly concrete until 3/4th grade, they don't show the math discrepancy.

You said she did not qualify under any category of disability.  I'm not sure I understand that system - we use RtI, but we still categorize the disabilities under IDEA's listed categories.  

When we have an IEP meeting for an initial or reeval - we (meaning me - teachers) report ability as a range and we report in vague terms (average, low-average, high-average, etc.)  Nothing a parent can walk out of the room with and say, gee - I know where my child's ability is (at least in my opinion).  If I was a parent of a child that qualified, I would want to know the exact scores and then have it explained where the ranges fall.  If a parent asks for this, the psych will always explain the actual test scores and I will help the parent understand also.  I worked with one psych that would review not only my interpretation of the assessments, but would also review their testing and the actual scores.  However, that was one psychologist.   At the initial meeting, the psychologist should have been present and you can always contact this psych so to explain the report to you and if you do contact this person, ask questions until you understand.

I'm curious though - you said she has some form of dyslexia, were you told this at the IEP meeting?  We do not use this term but instead use Specific Learning Disability (SLD) which is a broad term to describe various processing disorders or disabilities.  The term doesn't help anyone determine where the problem is, but in my opinion, dyslexia was over-used for so many years and began to mean so many different types of learning disabilities that it became this watered-down diagnosis that lost its meaning.  The scores and the psych report help me determine where the student's learning break-down is occurring and I target those skills that need the most remediation and then work from that point out - out toward the strengths.  (Hope that makes sense.)  We use not only the formal assessments, but many items - the classroom teacher's report/observations, my own observations, a review of report cards and cum folder, listening and talking with the parent because I do believe they know their child best, and we review as a team other items (health reports when requested, social history, vision/hearing, etc.)  Everything should be reviewed - they may not all be important to the issue at hand, but you won't know until reviewed and discussed.

I hope this helps - I did want to add that 50 minutes for one area of academics, strictly from a special ed. typical pull-out standpoint, is a bit on the high end and is probably appropriate (again, in my humble opinion).  You may want to look at what else is available before asking a team to increase her time.  Right now she is at what would be considered a regular placement, if you increase much more it may constitute a change in placement.  To change placement - and not sure how your district works - but it usually involves a lot of documentation that what you have tried is not working and why its not working - plus including why the other remediation she is receiving is not helping her make expected gains.  Not a bad thing at all - I increase pull-out time when necessary and change placement and it's not the documentation, but you always want to be very thoughtful before changing a student's placement and assure that all is done within the current placement before changing to a more restrictive environment.  The team must follow certain laws including least restrictive environment, FAPE, and many more local, state, and federal guidelines/laws.

Finally - is she meeting/making expected growth toward Language Arts objectives?  What are her objectives and what is the mastery level for each and what are they using for documentation for mastery/attained?

Kathy (Sorry - did not edit this note.)

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: andreawilder at comcast.net 
  To: The Learning Disabilities Discussion List 
  Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:57 AM
  Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4277] Re: Example of student Profile


  Katherine--


  On the IQ--what got reported to you was a mean score.  For the whole IQ, there is a learner profile which maps the ups and downs of the scores of the sub-tests.  You need to find out where your daughter is on the sub-tests, and the meaning of the ups and downs.  The assessor can tell you, OR you can get a book that translates the meaning of these scores.  I used to use Myklebust (can't remember more of the name) which is still good.
  Your daughter's problem, as you describe it with glaze/gaze, is in not being able to sort out the differences between sounds.  (I've forgotten--for now-- the name of the type of doctor who specializes in this.)  At home, try using scrabble tiles, ALSO color-code blends and middles of words so they stand out.  
  This is a lot to throw at you.  See what you can do with it.  


  And DEFINITELY get the learning profiles from the other assessments.  Have a sped person explain them to you. 


  Andrea

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt" <katherine.gotthardt at gmail.com>
  To: Learningdisabilities at nifl.gov
  Sent: Friday, November 6, 2009 10:36:39 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
  Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4274]  Example of student Profile


  Hi everyone--

  This is in follow-up to the discussion with Brant, Barbara and Andrea on which tests students with learning disabilities should have and what their special education instruction might look like.  I have been writing about my daughter as kind of a case study.

  Much appreciation to all who have contributed thus far!

  --------------------------------------------------

  My daughter receives 300 minutes per week of pull-out language arts instruction.  She also receives two sessions of speech (I have to re-visit the minutes on those sessions).  Her regular ed teacher recently put my daughter and one other girl into their own reading group (two students, one teacher ratio) and is implementing additioanl word studies (which include spelling and writing definitions).  

  My daughter gets extended time for tests and she gets her tests read aloud.  She takes her tests in a separate room.

  Over the summer, my daughter attended summer school and received additional instructional hours when summer school ended.  Yet, she is still scoring 2nd grade in fluency, 3rd in comprehension.  

  Some other tidbits:  on her last IQ assessment, when she was six, my daughter scored below average.  I have to re-visit her other test scores (as well as the names of those tests).  I know she has some form of dyslexia, but VA school systems don't separate that out.  

  Both the LD and regular ed teachers work with her on breaking words apart to increase fluency, but she just doesn't seem to get it.  For example, last night, when she was working on her word study, she was trying to sound out the word "gaze."  She kept putting an "l" in the word. I tried covering the first part of the word, having her just say "aze", having her spell the word for me...she just kept saying "glaze."  This is just one example, of course.  She just can't seem to decode.

  It may be she needs more pull-out time, or it may be she needs something else, but it worries me that she seems to fall further and further behind. 
  -- 
  Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt
  Community Writer for NEWS AND MESSENGER
  www.insidenova.com

  ---------------------------------------------------- National Institute for Literacy Learning Disabilities mailing list LearningDisabilities at nifl.gov To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/learningdisabilities Email delivered to andreawilder at comcast.net


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