Katherine-- 


I remembered the name of the specialist: an audiologist. An audiologist can give your daughter a "speech discrimination and recognition test." I am quoting from the web. But don't do anything until you check this through your pediatrician. 


Andrea 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brant Hayenga" <bhayenga at rrps.net> 
To: "The Learning Disabilities Discussion List" <learningdisabilities at nifl.gov> 
Sent: Friday, November 6, 2009 12:38:07 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4278] Re: Example of student Profile 




Katherine: 

Students in special education are required to have a re-evaluation every 3 years. The IEP team can decide that an informal re-evaluation is appropriate, which is hopefully why she has not had a formal re-evaluation in 5 years. You can request an evaluation at any time, as one of your rights as a parent of a student in SPED. I would make the request in writing and include your concerns about your daughter’s lack of progress. It is best practice for elementary students to have a second formal evaluation to monitor all of the academic and cognitive processes listed previously. 



on her last IQ assessment, when she was six, my daughter scored below average. 



More than ½ of students with a speech/language disability also have a reading disability. Her IQ score might be depressed due to her speech/language deficit. Most IQ tests load heavily on verbal skills. Ask for a test that yields a nonverbal intelligence score ( UNIT , Wechsler Nonverbal, KAB C-II, etc.) in addition to the cognitive processing information. 



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. 




Don’t sweat the fluency score so much. At this point the most important thing is to greatly increase her word reading accuracy and comprehension . Fluency is very difficult to remediate in older students. I like the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE), as it yields a standard score for how many words a student can read in 45 seconds. What it measures, in my opinion, is how many words your daughter can recognize automatically on sight without effortful decoding. Functional reading requires a certain size body of words that are recognized automatically, and they only become automatic words after having been correctly decoded many times (in a relatively close time period). 



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. 



She should have different goals for the different aspects of her reading. She needs decoding/phonics goals (When presented with a list of CVC words, student can decode 50 CVC words correctly in 1 minute, with 90% accuracy). She also needs vocabulary goals, comprehension goals, writing goals, and spelling goals. Different instructional activities support these different goals. Most of all the goals need to be clearly measurable – so that at the end of the year you are not left to deduce whether or not she is making adequate progress. Clearly written academic goals should be like athletic goals. Today I ran a mile in 10 minutes, at the end of the year I want to be able to run that mile in 7 minutes. When I run at the end of the year it is completely transparent if I met my goal or not. Most academic goals are written in a way that makes this type of direct observation of progress difficult. Ask for better goals. At the end of the year she should be closer to her peers, not further away. 



My daughter receives 300 minutes per week of pull-out language arts instruction. 



This is not enough time. That is 60 minutes per day, 5 days per week. Is this in addition to other instruction? She needs a minimum of 90 minutes/day language arts instruction. Dyslexic students need much more instruction and practice than other students. 



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." 



At home you should be working with leveled materials that are at her instructional level. That means she can read 90% correctly without assistance. Ensure that the materials you are working with are properly leveled. Repeated reading is an instructional activity that is better suited to home implementation. Download this fluency manual from UT Austin. It is great. http://www.meadowscenter.org/vgc/materials/primary_fluency.asp 

Also download this manual, as it has exactly the information you need http://www.meadowscenter.org/vgc/materials/primary_dyslexia.asp 

You can’t help your daughter unless you self-educate yourself. 



Are you knowledgeable about the structure of English (open and closed syllables and the such?) If not, you need to get up to speed on that. Go to American Educator Magazine and read this entire issue (really) Spring/summer 1998 http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/spring-summer98/index.htm 

Especially read the article by Louisa Moats about teaching decoding. 

http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring_sum98/moats.pdf 



Thanks- and you must try extremely hard right now if you want to get ahead of this. If you pull out all the stops now, you will get your daughter to a level that will enable her to succeed at school. The schools will likely never be able to supply the intensity needed, so it is up to you. 





Brant Hayenga 

Educational Diagnostician 

Stapleton Elementary/Rio Rancho Middle School 

(505) 896-0667 ext. 226 (District Office) 

(505) 891-8473 ext. 519 (Stapleton Elementary) 

bhayenga at rrps.net 




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