Hello,
I have been pouring over this site for the past couple of weeks and have learned a great deal. I would like to thank all of you who are so dedicated to helping others. The responses you have posted have not only helped those who asked the original questions, but others who are reading posts in a quest to try to figure out how to help their child(ren).
I have a 9-year-old son who is in third grade. For those of you outside of Florida, 3rd grade is an important year because any child who does not pass the statewide assessment (FCAT) in retained. My son receives speech therapy at school, and about a month before the FCAT, his language arts teacher asked that extra time for testing be written into his IEP. She was afraid that without extra time, he would not pass the FCAT. She said that he was very “careful” and worked very slowly to ensure that he was doing the best work possible. My husband and I agreed to this addition to his IEP, but requested that the teacher keep track of any addiitional time that my son needed on each section of the test because he is probably going to be exited from speech next fall and not have access to accommodations. It ended up that my son used quite a bit of extra time on the reading sections of the FCAT, and he also used an additional 20 minutes on one math section (we’re surmising that there were a lot of word problems). This came as something of a shock to my husband and me as we did not expect him to take that much time.
My husband and I then scheduled an IEP meeting with both of his teachers, the speech therapist, school guidance counselor, and principal. Our concern was that there is some sort of processing problem because he reads so slowly (and his writing is awful). Everyone dismissed our worries because my son is a straight A student. The language arts teacher pulled out his STAR computer adapted reading score from the fall, and said he was reading at a 5th grade, sixth month level at that time. I asked, and that test is not timed.
I have had concerns about my son since preschool. He was not a phonemically aware kid, and to this day still has problems identifying words that rhyme and separating out phonemes in a word. My husband and I spent a lot of time working on teaching him to read at the end of kindergarten and throughout first grade. We used “How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.” The lessons were in NO WAY easy, and we had to move very slowly, but he was reading on grade level by the end of first grade.
In kindergarten our pediatrician sent my son to occupational therapy because his fine motor skills were so bad. He spent over a year there until we used up all of our insurance benefits. The OT indicated that my son had mild sensory integration disorder symptoms.
As for writing, my son’s spelling is horrible. He will spell a word three of four different ways within one paragraph. He doesn’t seem to hear parts of words. For example, the other day he wrote the word “pulling” as “pully.” I asked him to read the word to me, and he said “pulling.” I then asked him to look at the spelling and he said, “Oh, it should be p-u-e-l-y.” I then asked him to look at me as I said the word, and I emphasized the -ing. He then recognized that the -y should have been an -ing. He gets 100’s on his spelling tests each week because it’s easy for him to memorize the list, but he immediately forgets how to spell the words once the test is behind him. He also does not understand how to organize writing, and his ideas are often conveyed in an unclear way. He uses expressions incorrectly.
Since the IEP meeting, I have done various timed readings with him, and his fluency rate bounces between 73 and 85 correct words per minute. According to DIBELS and other resources, that is very slow and inidicates he is in need of “substantial intervention.”
In Florida, apparently six weeks of interventions must be done before a child can be referred for LD testing. Last week I contacted my son’s language arts teacher and told her what I had discovered about my son’s reading rate. She voluteered to do specific interventions with him and fill out the paperwork so that he can be referred for testing by the end of the school year if his reading rate does not improve.
I’ve gotten the book “Overcoming Dyslexia” and have found that many (but not all) of the traits described apply to my son. But I also have read on this website that Florida does not recognize dyslexia as a learning disability. That is very worrisome to me.
Now for my questions:
1. I don’t think that my son’s fluency rate will improve by the end of the school year as he has always been a slow reader, and he finds reading to be quite laborious. When he is tested for a learning disability, does anyone know which specific tests they use here in Florida? Also, do they test for auditory proccessing difficulties?
2. Should I take my son to a private psychologist for additional testing? How much do psychologists generally charge for such testing? (Finances are an issue.)
3. I’ve seen a lot of info on these forums about REWARDS and other programs improving reading, but do they improve spelling?
Thank you so much for reading through what has turned into a book! And thank you in advance for any advice you have to offer!!!
Kim
Copies of your outlines
Hello, Victoria—
I would love to have copies of your outlines (both short and long). My email address is
Thank you so much for your help!
Kim
Re: Questions about navigating system in Florida
I am in Florida but no longer in the public schools. What I remember though is that once a child is identified as needing an IEP for whatever reason, they are obligated to serve any other needs. In other words, the child does not have to qualify again. So my son received math intervention and writing intervention, even though he qualified on reading.
IN other words, do not allow them to declassify your child. It will be much more difficult.
I would request in writing that he be evaluated for a possible learning disability in reading.
I recall they did the Woodcock Johnson with him and several other tests.
If you want to go private, I think the best test around is the CTOPP. It is administered mostly by speech and language therapists.
Beth
Re: Questions about navigating system in Florida
The word dyslexia is not used in most school systems due to the terminology in the federal law. It would be called a specific learning disability in reading. I will tell you up front, you are very perceptive about your son’s issues, and I agree about his profile appearing to be an LD. However, I can pretty much tell you that he is unlikely to qualify LD in reading if his sight word knowledge is that high. Plus, as Beth I’m sure can tell you, caseloads in FL for LD are much too high, and you likely won’t get much help, if any, at school. So I do agree with her, try to keep the speech IEP so you can get the accommodations on tests. You can request that the speech therapist give him tests like the CTOPP to justify keeping him. You might want to ask for testing to see if he’d qualify for placement as LD in Written Expression since the spelling and poor writing skills might qualify him in that. The problem is that very bright kids with LD’s are often not identified because they compensate well enough not to fail in the elementary grades. But the problems usually catch up with them eventually.
If it was me, I’d take him through either ABeCeDarian Level Short B (www.abcdrp.com) which is for kids who are sight reading at 3rd grade or above but who need a review of advanced code instruction for reading and spelling, or you could try REWARDS Intemediate. Both of these incorporate spelling. Then, after that, I’d probably do Mastering Alphabetic Spelling which is a very structured program to get kids spelling high frequency words (similar to Spelling Mastery). It has a placement test. Following that, I’d try SRA Spelling Through Morphographs. It is expensive, but it resells easily on ebay as it is highly desirable. The last thing I’d try after those, if he still needs more, would be AVKO Sequential Spelling, but I would do the others first as they include content that AVKO doesn’t.
http://www.oci-sems.com/bookstore/prod_teacher_resource.htm
(scroll down to Spelling to see placement test.)
Re: Questions about navigating system in Florida
Yes, Janis is right. You are unlikely to get much useful help from Florida schools, unless you are very lucky. I have heard good things about Gainesville schools. (My son’s school hired a teacher who had taught there and she was shocked at our case loads in S. Florida.) Basically, I took total responsibility for my son learning to read. This was forced upon me when the school was totally incompetent but even when a much better teacher was hired (the Gainesville one), the case loads were too high to be very helpful. Basically, I took advantage of accomodations and any thing I thought would be useful (cafeteria approach) without expecting too much in return.
We did have a wonderful fourth grade teacher who actually was able to teach my son to write. By then, it was recognized that was his greatest weakness and in an IEP meeting placement for fourth grade was discussed on that basis.
So my goal, if I were in your shoes, is to keep him classified. Fourth grade is another big testing year and if he needs extended time, you want him to have it. I wouldn’t expect much help in terms of remediation. Janis knows the reading programs and her suggestion is good. We used a different program, but I understand that the one she now suggests is an improvement over it.
Beth
Thank you!
Thank you ALL so much! Yes, from what I’ve read on these forums, I don’t expect a lot of help from the school. I have put in writing that I want my son tested for a reading disability, and that I’m also very concerned about his writing.
I just got off the phone with the reading specialist at my son’s school, and she was very helpful. She said the same thing that you all did—not to let him be exited from speech. She also recommended that the speech therapist do some more testing. I will call her next.
I will get the materials that Janis recommended and get started. Yes, Beth, we also had to teach our son to read as it just wasn’t happening at school.
Again, MANY thanks for all of your input. Everything I’ve read said that his difficulties will only get worse as he enters middle school so I need to act now. Your input will help me do just that. Thanks again!!!
Kim
Re: Questions about navigating system in Florida
Kim,
We actually have a yahoo group for the ABeCeDarian reading program to give support to parents and teachers using it. (Go to yahoo, click on Groups, then type in ABeCeDarian and it should come up. You have to register on yahoo to join groups.) Several of us who are trained in the program are on there, and the author is extremely generous in giving help when he is in town. He posts under the name abecedariancompany, so read through his old posts if you can, because he is very knowledgable. I am thinking I’d do that with your child first, and then you could do Rewards Intermediate after, if needed. That would do the most good for his spelling to have a better understanding of how the code works. Then REWARDS would carry him into reading and spelling more multi-syllable words, and then you could pretest him for the Mastering Alphabetic Spelling.
ABeCeDarian Group
Thanks, Janis! I just submitted my request to join the group. I appreciate the information!
Kim
I don’t know Florida, but I do know things you can do for reading and spelling. It is very late and I have to go now, but if you are interested in practical low-cost approaches to take, please either post a request here or email me (click below) and I’ll give you either the short outline or the long copies or both, as you wish.