Puzzled over spelling accommodation

[Anonymous]

We had a 504 meeting for DD who is in middle school. We had her evaluation report from Mindwell which indicated she has dyslexia and a specific learning disability in writing from dyslexia that affects spelling and grammar.
We asked during the meeting that she not be penalized for spelling or punctuation mistakes. This was a recommendation made by the psychologist and recommended for language arts class and her Spanish elective class.
The school team acted like this was highly unusual and would have to check with other across the county before they agreed to it. I was surprised, this seemed pretty straightforward to me. The testing showed that her spelling accuracy can be as low as 9th percentile given the specific learning disability - dyslexia.
Anyone else have issues with this accommodation? Her school counselor is going to get back to us tomorrow with what she was able to find out from others. I am doing my own research as well. This is an huge area of deficiency for DD, it seems highly unfair to not provide this accommodation. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Is the spelling related to dyslexia or dysgraphia? For my child, it was related to dysgraphia. They weren’t willing to give accommodations for world language, but individual teachers would give some leeway for spelling in other subjects. This was with an IEP in FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Typically it’s something like access to a dictionary rather than just skipping spelling all together.

[Anonymous]

Teachers and IEP teams rarely actually understand dyslexia/dysgraphia.

[Anonymous]

I’ve never heard of anyone allowed to skip spelling.

[Anonymous]

DS had keyboard with spell and gramner check accommodations. I know that spell check is not easy for a dyslexic person but it helps. When she out in the world she will need to be able to get an email out in most/many jobs. Good news is AI will help enormously.

[Anonymous]

My understanding is it's very common to have spelling count only in spelling tests in an IEP. Not sure about 504. It certainly sounds like a reasonable accommodation and I agree with PP that anyone saying it isn't has an extremely poor understanding of dyslexia.

Spell check/dictionaries won't fix it all and even if yet would, a dyslexic will take way more time to do their work that way and they literally don't see the mistakes that spell check doesn't pick up. It affects cognitive load, etc.

Sorry that I do not have specific advice, but please keep fighting for her for this because she absolutely needs it.

[Anonymous]

Could it be that kids in general are not penalized for spelling? You need to insist, because even though most teachers look the other way, some teachers are more rigid about it and take points off (especially world language teachers, understandably).

[Anonymous]

I’d ask for dictionary accommodation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve never heard of anyone allowed to skip spelling.

There's a difference between skipping spelling -- as in the part of the curriculum dedicated to teaching students how to spell -- and a student not losing points for misspelling when spelling isn't the point of the assignment. Another possible accommodation is being allowed to use spell check (and provided extra time with which to do so).

[Anonymous]

You shouldn't get every accomodation you ask for. Can my kid get accomodation for math mistakes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve never heard of anyone allowed to skip spelling.

There's a difference between skipping spelling -- as in the part of the curriculum dedicated to teaching students how to spell -- and a student not losing points for misspelling when spelling isn't the point of the assignment. Another possible accommodation is being allowed to use spell check (and provided extra time with which to do so).

Spell check does not help all issues. Literally today a dyslexic texted me "Which interest?" Instead of "Which entrance?" Honestly, I'd fight for this kid to have an IEP. 9th percentile needs way more help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You shouldn't get every accomodation you ask for. Can my kid get accomodation for math mistakes?

Maybe. The more standard accommodation for dyscalculia is using a calculator. But, yes, overlooking careless calculation errors when the point of the assignment is higher level understanding might be appropriate.

And if so requested accommodations are reasonable, why shouldn't they all be granted?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You shouldn't get every accomodation you ask for. Can my kid get accomodation for math mistakes?

Please stop and educate yourself on dyslexia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve never heard of anyone allowed to skip spelling.

There's a difference between skipping spelling -- as in the part of the curriculum dedicated to teaching students how to spell -- and a student not losing points for misspelling when spelling isn't the point of the assignment. Another possible accommodation is being allowed to use spell check (and provided extra time with which to do so).

Spell check does not help all issues. Literally today a dyslexic texted me "Which interest?" Instead of "Which entrance?" Honestly, I'd fight for this kid to have an IEP. 9th percentile needs way more help.

If that’s your child I hope you corrected them. They won’t learn by skipping the correct answer.