2nd grade son refusing help from special ed staff (dyslexia)

[Anonymous]

DS was identified as dyslexic in November, got his IEP in January, and started having extra support in the classroom soon after. However, at this point, he is refusing help from the spec ed teacher placed in his classroom because he does not want to be seen as different or needing help. He also works with the reading specialist (with whom he has always been very engaged) but has recently started having a poor attitude with her because he doesn't like to get pulled out of class. He already sees the school counselor for poor self-esteem due to his reading struggles. He shines in so many other ways (he's athletic, funny, popular, empathetic, etc.). I'm really at a loss with what my role is/what to do. I've talked with the support teacher about how to engage him (suggested taking him to the gym to shoot hoops as an incentive after successful effort, etc). Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Get him private tutoring over the summer. I can understand how he'd be uncomfortable with the pull outs.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry to hear your kid is struggling, OP! I hope he gets through this patch quickly. I also have a dyslexic second grade boy, and when he started he was very defensive and threw up all sorts of walls. He couldn't start learning until he was ready to let people see he needed help. We are at a private school, so I don't know if what we did would be helpful. First, we gave the tutor we hired free reign to build a relationship before starting the tutoring. They played games and talked for the first half dozen sessions, I think. We also arranged for my son to be pulled from the lesson he liked least to go to tutoring.

One thing we did that I was hesitant about was teach him about dyslexia, and essentially make him a proud dyslexic. We read him the Percy Jackson books (the hero is dyslexic because he is half Greek god and his brain is wired to read Greek, duh) got him beautiful picture books of Leonardo Da Vinci's sketches, had him enter a poem in a writing context for dyslexic kids. We described his testing results to him, and described how his brain is off the charts good at some stuff, and really not so good at others, but they add up to a really fantastic and neat brain type that lots of fabulous people share. So we helped him buy into the whole dyslexia-as-mixed-blessing thing. It took a few months for him to come around, but it happened, and he is now doing great. Your son will, too, OP. Hang in there.

[Anonymous]

PP here - and yes, continue tutoring over the summer! All the other kids will regress over the summer, and your kid will make progress, closing the gap. And it is a wonderful confidence boost for a kid to go into the school year feeling ahead of the game, especially when they have been feeling so rotten about themselves.

[Anonymous]

Maybe ask if your DS can meet with the reading specialist early in the morning before school or after school?

We had a similar problem with 2nd grade DS with ASD/ADHD when we tried push in services for social skills with SLP and the school counselor. Kids get embarrassed at this age about anything that sets them apart although DS does not mind the OT coming into the classroom to help with typing (probably bc everyone thinks that's cool).

We are back to pull outs for social skills. Yes, I realized getting embarrassed is a good sign for someone who suffers from social deficits.

[Anonymous]

Don't try to hid it at the edges of the school day. He has to come to terms with asking for and getting help in the classroom. I would suggest going to a therapist to help with that. Are there any other children getting help in the classroom? Maybe, foster those friendships, so he can see it isn't something to worry about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't try to hid it at the edges of the school day. He has to come to terms with asking for and getting help in the classroom. I would suggest going to a therapist to help with that. Are there any other children getting help in the classroom? Maybe, foster those friendships, so he can see it isn't something to worry about.

+1. Ideally the teachers who come into the classroom are also working with other kids -- formally or informally. At my son's elementary school the specialists were in and out so frequently and, while focused on the kids who had IEPs, knew everyone and would, as time allowed, help everyone. No one could really tell who was getting help and who wasn't. That's what true inclusion means - but it can be tough to execute and schools that do this well are rare.

[Anonymous]

On the issue of inclusion - dyslexia remediation can't be inclusive, really. It should be intensive, one-on-one teaching of specific decoding and other skills three times a week for an hour. You've got to pull kids out for that. If the school isn't offering that kind of teaching, with an evidence based Orton Gillingham program...you need to look at outside support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the issue of inclusion - dyslexia remediation can't be inclusive, really. It should be intensive, one-on-one teaching of specific decoding and other skills three times a week for an hour. You've got to pull kids out for that. If the school isn't offering that kind of teaching, with an evidence based Orton Gillingham program...you need to look at outside support.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't try to hid it at the edges of the school day. He has to come to terms with asking for and getting help in the classroom. I would suggest going to a therapist to help with that. Are there any other children getting help in the classroom? Maybe, foster those friendships, so he can see it isn't something to worry about.

If he is having an attitude about getting pulled out and refusing to work with the therapist and he is getting pull-outs with the reading specialist anyway not sure why having these sessions at the beginning or end of the day should be a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't try to hid it at the edges of the school day. He has to come to terms with asking for and getting help in the classroom. I would suggest going to a therapist to help with that. Are there any other children getting help in the classroom? Maybe, foster those friendships, so he can see it isn't something to worry about.

If he is having an attitude about getting pulled out and refusing to work with the therapist and he is getting pull-outs with the reading specialist anyway not sure why having these sessions at the beginning or end of the day should be a problem.

Many schools won't do them at beginning or end of the day. Depending on jurisdiction there are regulations prohibiting them from doing so. Same reason that schools can't schedule pullouts during specials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS was identified as dyslexic in November, got his IEP in January, and started having extra support in the classroom soon after. However, at this point, he is refusing help from the spec ed teacher placed in his classroom because he does not want to be seen as different or needing help. He also works with the reading specialist (with whom he has always been very engaged) but has recently started having a poor attitude with her because he doesn't like to get pulled out of class. He already sees the school counselor for poor self-esteem due to his reading struggles. He shines in so many other ways (he's athletic, funny, popular, empathetic, etc.). I'm really at a loss with what my role is/what to do. I've talked with the support teacher about how to engage him (suggested taking him to the gym to shoot hoops as an incentive after successful effort, etc). Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated!

what county?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here - and yes, continue tutoring over the summer! All the other kids will regress over the summer, and your kid will make progress, closing the gap. And it is a wonderful confidence boost for a kid to go into the school year feeling ahead of the game, especially when they have been feeling so rotten about themselves.

Also, summer is a great time for intensive tutoring. I really think it's hard for dyslexic kids to make progress with 1x a week pull-outs or 20 minutes a day with someone who is trained in Phonographix, Orton-Gillingham or Wilson. I'd try for 1 hr a day at least 3x a week with homework in between and appropriate reading practice during the summer.

If you have an IEP, has your school qualified you for Bookshare? It's free and you have access to zillions of books. The ability to re-size type and change font type and background/font colors can be very helpful, as well as being able to use audio.

Learning Ally is also great, but not free.

Try to explain to your child that his brain works differently (not better not worse) and therefore he needs a different kind of reading instruction. Ask him to give it a try for the summer, and try to convey that you are pretty sure if he works hard, he will see improvement.

FWIW, even after dyslexia and dysgraphia diagnosis, we found the reading and writing special education instruction virtually worthless. It was really no different than the general education instruction -- just offered more intensively and with more prompts and partial answers given. Has your son's reading improved? If not, or if only a little, maybe his reluctance is due to the fact that he can sense internally that all the "special instruction" isn't really that helpful.

If your son is rejecting sped, ask what reading program he is being given, and what training in reading instruction the sped person and the gen ed person have. My bet would be that neither have any real training or education in reading instruction and neither are trained in reading programs like Phonographix, Wilson, or OG.

Now, with appropriate daily instruction, our DC is a very strong reader, enjoys reading (because it's not so effortful) and totally understands that he is smart and can get stuff if he is taught in the right way. It's totally changed his self-view, his ability to self-regulate emotionally and his mood generally.

[Anonymous]

OP here--thanks for all the great support and suggestions! We're in DC at a great charter. We've already lined up a summer tutor (a young male, which will hopefully appeal to DS's affinity for all things "bro.") The tutor is trained in OG and Wilson, and I imagine we will likely keep him through the school year for 3rd grade, as I am already starting to have anxiety about DS getting further behind.

The special ed classroom teacher does help other students as well as DS, but DS is so sensitive to the idea of needing help that he gets that she's there for him and hates it. I've reached out to the school counselor and she agreed with the PP who suggested talking with him more about the dyslexic brain and what it does well. Ordering Percy Jackson, ASAP! DS FINALLY agreed to listen to audio books a few weeks ago, and has loved them, so I may get them in both formats so he can follow along.

It's just so fascinating and frustrating to me that he is so good at so many things, but when it comes to his self-esteem, they all get over-ruled by this reading issue. Gah. I keep telling myself that since he's pretty good-looking and athletic, hopefully struggling through and having to work for this will at least make him kinder and keep him from being an asshole later in life!

[Anonymous]

OP again--posted before I saw 12:22. YES. He is moving forward so incrementally that I think it's super-frustrating for him to exert so much effort and see so little progress. Looks like it's time for another school meeting, yay...