Non-consented IEP - SLD reading
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Anonymous
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You are not going to get the best in SV.
You probably won't wont get a great advocate either, so don't waste your money. I agree with pp's get a private tutor. Even once a week. Watch what skills she is teaching and work with him on your own during the rest of the week or supplement with Hooked on Phonics. It is fun and interactive. |
Anonymous
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Unfortunately, the school didn't teach our third grader to read even with an iep and small group pull-outs that did or didn't happen based on special ed teacher availability. We held him back as year (he wasn't reading at all). We found a Wilson trained tutor who worked with him 2 days a week (some kids need 3-4 days week) for almost 2 years. It cost 100 dollars for each 50 minute session. He is an amazing reader now - years ahead. We kept audio books going in the meantime and that helped a lot
My daughter was a reluctant, a grade behind reader but had more of the kind of profile the school could address. She had small group reading intervention through 5th grade and it worked for her. She is not ahead but reads at grade level and is reading independently in middle school - YA fantasy romance, but I'll take it! I don't think schools can address kids like our sons. Mine has severe dysgraphia and moderate dyslexia and adhd. |
Anonymous
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I am certainly not an expert in reading disorders and you haven’t said what it is. But given all that you are doing, it sounds like you think more of the same is better and will make your child a reader. But if that were the answer, he’d be reading given all that you’re putting in to it.
So, it sounds to me like you’re Missing something. What haven’t you done. What additional can be added. Because more of the same isn’t working. Also, this is all the more reason you need a specialist - maybe not just a tutor or a retired educator. Good luck. |
Anonymous
| 6:50, I wanted to say bravo! My foster child at end of second grade was at early kindergarten level, and had five hours a week of pull-out...They never would even put SLD on the IEP, but after a private eval that found moderate dyslexia two+ years later, a new school did. Hours didn't change. Agree outside tutoring and LOTS of practice was key. For OP, look at Flyleaf Publishing decodable picture books. Were great for developing my kid's skills the first year. |
Anonymous
OP here - They don't give specific diagnoses during sped evaluations and so won't specifically name "Dyslexia" or "dysgraphia" ect. but they will share where there are strengths, weaknesses, needs, ect. and perhaps that can be used to provide a formal medical diagnosis but we've not been able to do that yet. We haven't had a private full psychological or neuropsych eval. I did plug it into chatgpt  which I know you have to take with a grain of salt, but it said,
"Yes — this profile clearly supports dyslexia. It does not clearly support dysgraphia at this time, though there are secondary written-expression vulnerabilities driven by spelling and transcription, not by motor or composition deficits. Now I’ll explain why, using the data you shared and how schools interpret it. Does this support dyslexia? Yes — strongly and appropriately. Under both Virginia regulations and accepted clinical practice, dyslexia is identified through a pattern, not a single score. Your child’s pattern is very consistent with dyslexia: Core dyslexia markers present Basic Reading: 80 (Below Average) Reading Decoding: 78 (Below Average) Reading Fluency: 71 (Very Low) Phonological Processing: 83 (Low) Orthographic Processing (Extended): 83 (Low) Reading composite: 77 (Below Average) This shows: Weak phonics/decoding Weak automaticity Weak word-level efficiency Difficulty forming stable, retrievable representations of words Importantly, Your child’s oral language and listening comprehension are relatively stronger: Oral Language: 91 (Average) Teacher reports show he understands stories when read aloud That gap between listening comprehension and reading performance is one of the classic hallmarks of dyslexia. Cognitive-achievement relationship Overall cognition: 96 (Average) Long-term storage & retrieval: 82 (Weakness) This explains why progress is slow despite instruction: He can learn phonics in the moment He struggles to retain and automatize it over time That aligns perfectly with: “He isn’t moving that reading learning into storage for later use.” This is not lack of effort, instruction, or motivation — and the eligibility team explicitly ruled those out (which matters legally in Virginia). Bottom line: The school’s SLD determination in reading is well-supported and is functionally equivalent to a dyslexia identification in an educational context." Soo my child is essentially dyslexic. I definitely hear what you are saying about something being missing. I WANT his school to take a different approach than what they've been doing, not just continue to repeat the same UFLI lessons and provide the same darn UFLI print-outs, but refuse to send home any ACTUAL books or have him read any actual books at school. I agree, I need a specialist.....finding the specialist to provide the service is the hard part. |
Anonymous
OP here - I've explored that before with his doctor, but he is responding incredibly well to his medication during the day and we are hesitant to increase the dose, when he sometimes struggles with eating and is extremely small. He does have a small "mini dose" that we can give him around 3pm on days that he NEEDS to be extra attentive for high-demand activities, but we were encouraged to allow him to rest and play since he leaves the home around 7:30 am and isn't home until between 4:30-5:30 and then is just tired because he is working SO hard. He's an extremely persistent child, but gets exhausted and when he's done....he's really done. He'll throw tantrums, kicking, screaming, and shutting down if we push it further. He DOES respond really well when he receives little awards at school from his teacher for working hard and he proudly tell us all about it and has compiled a pile of these little awards in his room. Someone else mentioned reward systems. The rewards are there to encourage him with his effort, not how advanced he is becoming. He likes visuals a lot and has been excited in the past to fill up stickers to see how hard he has been working on something and he likes getting "money" (even if it's a voucher) so I figured it's worth a shot and may help reduce his frustration (plus encouraging him to read things he likes. |
Anonymous
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Could you get an academic language therapist to see your son three times a week, maybe before school? Our kids are exhausted after school - I hear you and understand it is hard and not ideal. So if you can’t make that work, maybe you can make twice a week before school (when fresh) and one on the weekend work.
ASDEC can get you connected with a provider. If there are none in your area you can do virtual - it actually works quite well. The school SHOULD teach your kid to read. But they won’t, and you don’t have a lot of time to waste. So you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. To be honest I wouldn’t worry about decodable books and what materials are sent home. What your kid needs is pretty specific, and more practice in skills they haven’t been effectively taught yet wont help. |
Anonymous
OP here - thank you!! I will look into ASDEC. I HAVE had some very positive conversations with several of my colleagues AND I think I have a better idea of how to proceed and my next steps. It's awkward because of my professional role/boundaries, ect. but my job is to advocate for MY child and ensure his needs are being met, so I am tapping into my relationships with CO staff. I had a good convo yesterday with the person who ovesees all of student support/sped/student services, ect (I am trying to be fairly vague with the label), who I know very well and have a very positive relationship with. We had a good conversation and they were very validating, encouraging, and had some good ideas for next steps and how to approach the conversation. They seemed pretty surprised with what was proposed and the response from the team, but of course can only comment on it so much. I am preparing written follow-up to the sped team with concrete, clear information with data and evidenced-based language and requests backing it up. I'm not caving in at all, period, but while navigating all of this, I will look into outside resources too. I AM extremely privileged to work closely with some sped teachers and various staff, so that I can process with my work-friends....who were amazing to talk to. I wish one of THEM could be his case manager lol but that's not possible or appropriate of course. Thanks!! |
Anonymous
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I have been in a similar situation.
After years - I landed on the phrase ... Needs drive Goals, Goals Drive Services I found this resource good: https://www.dyslexiatraininginstitute.org/pdfs/Website_HowtoWriteGoals.pdf I will see if I can find an old video about it as well. How does needs drive goals work - if there is a gap in decoding - there should be a decoding goal Your child is not going to magically get there - what services are required to accomplish that goal? If not meeting goals - need to change the services. |
Anonymous
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This is long video - but worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frehRL58UTs |
Anonymous
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OP, I also have an ADHD kid who struggled to read in k and beyond. I regret listening to the school - which resulted in us pulling him for private in 4th. Had I invested in tutoring much earlier, it would have been better.
On the point you made that you are doing reading practice with him afterschool and he is tired and hard to motivate….I would consider pulling him early or arriving late to school and just signing him out for “therapy” appointment. Make sure it is not at a time when he would receive school-provided reading or math instruction. I wish I had done this. In retrospect nothing is more important than being able to read. Reading instruction provided by the school is typically very ineffective for dyslexics & my school system knew nothing about teaching ADHD kids to read - IME they have difficulties that are different from dyslexia. I would also invest as much as you can in having someone else qualified teach him. IME it is not effective to have the parent teach the kid so intensively - there is too much interference in the parent-child relationship. |
Anonymous
NP. While I agree (as a parent of an ASD student) that the process can be time-consuming and expensive, in the end it ensured my child received the support they were legally entitled to. In our experience, simply "playing along" with that idea that we were all on the same team for a year did not lead to any results and my child suffered. We also covered all the OT, SLP, social skills etc. service provider charges in the meantime. The suggestion to consider and pay for private services comes up often on this board, usually out of a desire to help. But, it overlooks the fact that the school is legally responsible for providing the necessary support. Just as schools provide free lunch, counseling, library access, and ELL programs so students can fully participate in learning, children with special needs have a right to school-provided support that allows them to access the curriculum. Families shouldn’t have to fill that gap on their own. |
Anonymous
| Anyone have lists of decodeable books that I can get for free or pay a small fee online and print out on my own? My first grader loves to read those books and she has adhd. We are in Montgomery county, but we cannot afford too much to hire tutors,maybe max $300/month. Anyone have good recommendations for in person in montgomery county who is willing to work with 1st grader? I will take grad student if they are og trained. Thank you. |
Anonymous
| As a parent with a dyslexic and ADHD kid, if you can only medicate once a day, prioritize the time when your child is with the certified tutor. I did tutoring for over a year without medicating and we saw very little gains. We changed up our medication protocol and are starting to see progress. Something to explore with your Dr is two short acting doses. We do one in the morning that covers school till lunch time and then one after dinner (before tutoring). This has ensured DC stayed on the weight chart (albeit barely) |
Anonymous
OP here - yes, to all of this! He is legally entitled to these services, and I have my district contract with PRIVATE specialists (virtually), though rare and primarily when it is the parents advocating hard for their kids, and THOSE are the kids who have had the most success. I am going to continue with private tutoring for now, which I've increased to two times a week but while she has done a huge amount of work and research around literacy, she's not a dyslexia expert. I've already reached out to https://www.asdec.org/ which someone recommended, and am hoping to have a phone conversation in the next day or two. I will explore these supports as back-up while pushing hard for better school supports. We will spend the summer living at my parents' home in Arlington and trucking him over to MD if we have to; I'm fortunate to have supportive parents who are willing to help however they can, which is often limited since we are 2 hours away. Thanks to the pp from 13:54 - I like keeping the phrase "Needs drive Goals, Goals Drive Services" in mind! I am going to save that. I've already determined that the one proposed goal does not meet HIS needs and is not measuring his growth in the identified weakness. I am going to propose essentially an entirely different IEP. I learned more about the current reading intervention and essentially the kids are in the room with an instructional assistant (not a certified teacher), who had 1 hour of UFLI training and it is the blind leading the blind. There are multiple reading groups for all the kids who triggered for a reading plan and my child is actually in the middle. There is no gen ed certified teacher in the group and the reading specialist is certainly not there. The more I am hearing, the more upset I get. |