Learning disability in mcps

[Anonymous]

I wonder what have helped if your kid struggles with academic due to learning disabilities. Kid has IEP, but the academic gap is still really wide. Does mcps provide anything that is really helpful? Or do you just pay fot private tutoring? Parents can teach, but kids do not want to learn from parents.

[Anonymous]

We pay for tutoring.

[Anonymous]

I would post on special needs forum. You will get more responses there.

[Anonymous]

Private tutoring and therapy in the early grades. I worked with him myself as well. What MCPS provided for intervention was always vague and poorly defined. He had a disorder of written expression/dysgraphia and the intervention was just graphic organizers or editing his work for him. It was awful. There was no attempt to remediate the disability by explicitly teaching spelling, grammar, etc. We did eventually move to a private school (mainstream) that had a very strong language arts curriculum and the teacher modified assignments by scaffolding so he could learn essential writing skills. He was a strong writer by the end of HS and even joined his school paper - an outcome we never imagined. But he didn’t get there because of anything MCPS did for him.

[Anonymous]

Parent of a kid with dyslexia - we supplemented with tutoring first to catch up - got IEP in 4th grade and was way behind. He’s now on grade level for reading in 7th grade, but writing is challenging so we are continuing. We use a tutor experienced in helping with reading disabilities. We were lucky to have great special ed reading supports at our respective schools, but the supplemental support has been worth it.

[Anonymous]

You need to heavily supplement- MCPS does a terrible job with remediation.

[Anonymous]

My son with very low processing speed, dyscalculia and dysgraphia (but not dyslesxia) had an IEP with a scribe in elementary. I also retaught everything at home - he didn't have a choice, because we could not afford a tutor at that time. Then he had pull-outs where he managed to write without distractions, with an aide. All throughout this time I was still working intensively at home with him on his handwriting, reading comprehension, math, etc.

Then in middle school he had a typing and a calculator accommodation included in his IEP and managed to type quite well, after completing a typing training program at home. He had a writing tutor in middle school, because his ADHD and ASD level 1 were impeding his reading comprehension and he had a major writing block. In high school we went all out with expensive tutors, because by then we could afford it and he was in advanced and AP classes, and needed test prep as well. Despite his numerous diagnoses, he was able, by dint of extremely hard work, to overcome all these obstacles and do very well academically (socially is another kettle of fish...)

You do what you need to do, OP.

[Anonymous]

So much depends on how serious the disability is and what the prognosis is. If tutoring will catch them up, then that is an obvious solution. For my oldest, there was no way he would ever catch up. So we had to prioritize and really focus on what he could achieve and accept that his disabilities were going to prevent him from every getting college ready. I felt like reading was the single most important thing and, now that he's an adult, I think I was right here. So we poured everything into that - tutoring, family support, whatever we could think of. We downgraded math classes to what he could pass (financial math instead of calc sort of thing). We worked on getting into vocational classes - which involved things like good behavior and attendance.

So I guess what I'm saying is that knowing your kid, looking at things realistically and not as you want it to be, then figuring out the plan. But, I still think reading is so important.

And, I did find MCPS offered really great reading services that aligned with what the tutor was working on so it was a great team approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son with very low processing speed, dyscalculia and dysgraphia (but not dyslesxia) had an IEP with a scribe in elementary. I also retaught everything at home - he didn't have a choice, because we could not afford a tutor at that time. Then he had pull-outs where he managed to write without distractions, with an aide. All throughout this time I was still working intensively at home with him on his handwriting, reading comprehension, math, etc.

Then in middle school he had a typing and a calculator accommodation included in his IEP and managed to type quite well, after completing a typing training program at home. He had a writing tutor in middle school, because his ADHD and ASD level 1 were impeding his reading comprehension and he had a major writing block. In high school we went all out with expensive tutors, because by then we could afford it and he was in advanced and AP classes, and needed test prep as well. Despite his numerous diagnoses, he was able, by dint of extremely hard work, to overcome all these obstacles and do very well academically (socially is another kettle of fish...)

You do what you need to do, OP.

Wow. That is a lot. Congrats to you and your son. You’re a great mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what have helped if your kid struggles with academic due to learning disabilities. Kid has IEP, but the academic gap is still really wide. Does mcps provide anything that is really helpful? Or do you just pay fot private tutoring? Parents can teach, but kids do not want to learn from parents.

Pay for outside support. MCPS does not meet needs.