Parent resources.

I am a special education teacher in the city. I teach 1st and 2nd graders 8:1:1 with ASD and ED diagnoses.

I had a really rough IEP meeting today with a parent of one of my students. She is so upset that her DS is not reading yet (he's 7). We are doing Wilson Fundations and we were actually meeting to increase his speech mandate so the SLT can work on on his comprehension skills. Basically-we are doing everything we can do for him right now. I also give him a ton of 1:1 instruction to target his reading.

His mom is just so upset about the fact that he is not reading and puts a lot of pressure on him (which is resulting on anxiety and increased behaviors from him-including self-injury from frustration). I know his mom is hurting and having a very hard time coming to terms with her son's disability. She asked me today if he would be reading by the end of the year, and honestly, he might be reading some words, but it would be VERY hard to get him from not recognizing all of his letters (his current level) to being a fluent reader in 5 months. I don't want to set him up for failure or set the bar too high for what I see his progress being, because it would devastate his mother if he didn't make the goal. I want to try to provide her with something to read or some resources on places she could go to talk to other moms with these issues (besides LIF :) Can any moms on here recommend some resources I could provide her, or maybe shed some light on a better way to communicate with her? She is a low income, single mom and he is the only child, so I know that things are really hard for her-so I just want to find a way to ease her fear and anxiety about her son.

Thanks and sorry if that was long or rambly.

Re: Parent resources.

First off thanks for being an educator that really cares !!!

Could this child possibly be dyslexic ? or dealing with auditory processing disorder ? I am not that familiar with Wilson Fundation however, I do think it takes dyslexia into account in it's approach but perhaps he needs more of some strategies and less of others. I know most of how we teach reading is using a lot of "visual cues" and perhaps he needs to focus more on auditory or tactile cues.

Maybe the mom could take him to a neuro ophthamologist ? He may need some kind of specialized lense or vision therapy ?

It's heartbreaking ! I remember I had a boy in my kindergarten who was there for the second year, and he just could NOT identify his letters or recall sounds they would make. He also struggled so much with speech. As a general ed teacher, I couldn't figure how to get him over the hump.

And not for nothing, perhaps he has never seen the leapfrog videos. ? I would have her look into them !

Re: Parent resources.

She did mention the possibility of dyslexia to me, but the school won't do the testing yet because his delays are so significant in other areas, that the letter recognition is more likely related to his processing delays. He is still writing strings of made-up letters with no spacing between them, which is a very early developmental stage. Because of where he is, they want to wait to test him (and its also the city, so they don't want to spend the money unless they are forced, to be honest) She could get the testing done on her own, but I don't think she has health insurance. I can sort of nudge her in that direction, maybe. She could maybe get medicare to pay for it.

I do have a computer center in my ELA block that the kids do leapfrog-ish games, so he is getting the instruction there too.

I am more concerned about his mom-she cries in every meeting we have with her. I am hoping that if I can find a way to support her, she will calm down enough to work with me to help her son. Right now, she gets so emotional about his deficits that she doesn't see the clear lay of the land, so to speak. She asked me the other day about the possibility of inclusion for him in the near future (like next year) and I felt horrible telling her that it is not something that we would probably consider for him at this point. She just wants him to be typical so badly, you know?

Thanks for the thoughtful response!

Re: Parent resources.

I am crashing here a bit. But some kids do not learn language in its parts (which is what Wilson asks them to do essentially). How are his expressive and receptive speech skills? If those are still weak, then it makes sense that reading is lagging.

If he has very low speech and language skills Edmark might be another alternative. I don't love the program for all kids, but it can be useful for students with weaker language skills.

If his language skills are ok, or at least not too weak, you could try focusing on the guided reading approach could prove useful, too. Although Wilson is great for many kids, it might not be the fit for this kid if he needs schema and vocabulary development to help him learn to read words as a a whole, use picture cues and context cues. Just a thought.

Re: Parent resources.

What is the child's IQ? I teach the wilsonreading at the high school level. Can you also provide some of the work for the mom to carry over at home?

Re: Parent resources.

I am assuming you are asking for the MOM and support groups.

Many agencies offer parent support.

It would better to know what the diagnostic of the child is so I can see what I can find in term of support groups.

I find support groups related to a specific diagnostic to be so much more effective in term of feeling someone can relate to you.

Re: Parent resources.

Re: Parent resources.

I had made powerpoints for my childrenn with high frequency site words on them. When they identified the word correctly a favorite picture or sound would come up.

I have also done spelling for kids who were not reading to teach them letter sounds. I would take away letters (similiar to backward chaining). As they could spell more they started to id more words.

For children with ASD I have used colored paper to help them focus on words. Then fade as needed.

Re: Parent resources.

Message edited 2/14/2012 10:25:37 PM.