Reply to Is it possible to get MCPS Curriculum 2.0 instruction in written format?

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[quote=mabodie]I'm fairly certain it is a valid accommodation request to get instructional materials in written (i.e. not verbal) format for kids with learning challenges in areas such as receptive language processing and auditory processing.  My question is whether anyone actually has this now in a MCPS elementary school and what it looks like.  I'm most interested in 2nd grade math but would welcome any input.

Some background:  Last year (when DD was in 1st grade) I looked at getting a copy of the curriculum to help better understand what child would be needing to know in the near future.  (Pre-teaching and introducing "new" language - e.g. "personal narrative" - at home before she sees it at school helps her anxiety and reduces the impact of her processing problems.)  What I learned was that basically no parent was getting it, even if they had attorneys involved, because it didn't exist in any format that could be shared.  The curriculum material that did exist was hard for the teachers to use and they were figuring it out as they went.

We are now having a problem in 2nd grade math. The home work comes home with instructions along the line of "solve these problems using the techniques shown in class" which is not sufficient when the child (due to various processing challenges) can't reliably explain to the parents what the teacher did in class and the parents are supposed to help make sure homework is done correctly.  I would *love* to have a text book where I could read ahead and see where they were going with a lesson but that isn't going to happen.  I've tried googling around and I see the MCPS  ([url]http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/travilahes/newsletter/parentnewsletter.aspx] "parent newsletters" [/url]) describing the curriculum but I need more detail than that.

For example, if they were still doing stacked addition, as a parent I would know to emphasis that it is important to keep your numbers neatly aligned vertically because as you start using bigger numbers it makes a difference in being able to regroup effectively.  In the case of the base 10 models they use now, if I'd known they would still be using them months later and for even bigger numbers, I would have been fussier about needing to group the little dots used to represent 1s so you can easily see which ones are crossed out and how many remain.  We try to review with her the thinking process used but when what we say doesn't match what the teacher actually demonstrated then that makes for even more confusion (i.e. less learning) for DD.  If we had the material for what was done in class in written format, then my child could read that on her own and possibly wouldn't even need parent help.  (She understands and remembers things she has read way better than things she hears verbally.  She also understands and remembers things she has seen in a peaceful setting way better than those things she only sees in the classroom setting.)

At this point, I don't want to go to the effort to get an accommodation if the result is going to be that I stir things up in our relationship with the school and still end up without anything useful.  On the other hand, if someone said they had requested something similar and was then able to get some really helpful material, I would make the request.

Thanks in advance.[/quote]

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