Last year my daughters first grade teacher brought to my attention that she was struggling. I immediately enrolled her in Sylvan Learning Center for extra help. They evaluated her and put her through the system. I spent about $8,000. in Sylvan. They taught her how to “read”. At the end of first grade, they wanted to hold her back. I told them no, and explained that I was sure she had the same learning disability my son does. Except my son also has slight autism that my daughter doesn’t have. I continued Sylvan through the summer, and hired a tutor who was a previous teacher of hers. The tutor would get so excited that she “got the concept of blending letters” and then the next time she came she didn’t have it! It has been feeling like she’s been running on a treadmill not getting anywhere.
This year she entered 2nd grade, I couldn’t afford sylvan anymore, but they claimed to have taught her how to read. Immediately her new teacher came to me with the fact that she can’t keep up with the class, and seems to be in another world. She said she believes she is just lost, and that once she loses her, she will day dream. She said she’s on a first grade reading level, but early first grade. So she immediately had her tested and we went for the initial review.
Her testing grades came back average, to high average. Her IQ was high as well. The teacher actually held her ground. She explained everything that I just wrote, and said that she was such a lovely girl, she loves to learn but she is struggling, getting frustrated, and finding it very tough. After the testing was “announced” by the psychologist who continually said that they don’t expect much at this age.. etc. The teacher said well I’m telling you this little girl has something going on, that those tests don’t show. The psychologist at one point said she knows her site words. Her teacher spoke up and said. What site words does she know? I’ve recently checked her site words and she doesn’t know more then 3.
My kids seem to have ok working memory, mediocre short term, but it’s tough to get the information into the long term memory. They ALWAYS do very well in their testing for the CSE meetings.
They refused to give her ANY services, told me with those scores she doesn’t qualify. They wanted me to sign something at the end of the meeting, but by that time I was in tears. I got up and said, I refuse to sign anything, and walked out. I did run to the principals office in tears, and told her what had happened. She told me they will pull my daughter into the speech and language self contained class for reading. My son was most successful in a speech and language self contained class. That’s what I think my daughter needs. How do I get it now? What do I do next?
Thank you so much in advance
Jenny
IQ Test High, Testing Average to High Average now what?!
It’s actually very very common for LD ppl to be exceptionally intelligent the problem is that there seems to be an obstruction in the way of their intelligence going from point A to point B. Which can be frusterating for anyone and annoying especially when they can’t figure out exactly twhat the obstruction is and how it got there and how to move it out of the way… It can be a royal pain.
The other point to make here is, the LD mind is somewhat different and every LD mind is different but there seem to be some similarities within the labels such as no 2 ppl are exactly alike but 2 ppl labeled as dyslexic will likely share to some degree a perception and way of viewing things and thinking about things…. (loosely) The problem though isn’t one even related to intelligence or lack there of. It is more in the values and the systems and the closed mind of society that can’t make room for alternative paths to the same thing. Or alternative correct ways of living or perspectives on the world and on life. Most simply don’t get our internal filing system. For example 1 little girl who came through my home a few years ago went through all my music, screwed up my whole system of filing sheet music on the shelves (alphabetically by composer within each genre.) Instead, She changed it all around and messed it all up… (atleast at first i thought it was a bleeding mess…) Only to discover, as i played the pieces in the order of filing, that there was a method to her madness and she had filed them based alphabetically on chord progressions…. of the first piece in each book or on each loose piece…. It wasn’t wrong but it was sure outside my realm of functioning…. Took time for me to get used to it. Today my music remains filed that way. And i couldn’t imagine it any other wayIn some ways it is even more efficient than my method. But oh god, initially i freaked and hit the roof!!! Till i learned the value of her system and the strange efficiencies that i never would have come up with. Just because conventional society doesn’t catch things or recognize that information is being retained doesn’t mean that it actually isn’t. It means only that expressing in a societally acceptable format that it IS retained to sufficient degree to please this teacher and you, is nogt easy for her brain to wrap around. It really isn’t a big deal except for the sad fact that because of the closed minded and closed functioning and narrow society we do all happen to live in…. It becomes a necesary evil….
As for sylvan, i think that place was created by satanists or something. I dunno why… I have had no dealings with them… But every time i hear about them a strange shiver goes up the back of my spine for absolutely no reason what so ever that i can come up with….
Once a route around the obstructions is created for your daughter, I suspect that you will see her thrive and suddenly her unconventional thinking and thinking processes will be scoring points rather than getting her screwed. Many of the greatest geniuses in history had LD. It is actually way too common for it to be coincidence. The thing is, that for most of us, society’s values are too closed to recognize our area of genius or our ingenius works of whatever kind they happen to be…. Soooo most of us never get declared brilliant and instead get shafted and live our quiet little lives never creating the air plane or writing Der Roche Holle Orrrr creating American Idol, or having a husband or boyfriend or whatever he was named Sonny Bono, oooor getting AIDs and being a famous basket ball player first name Magic, or writing Alice In Wonderland, Or mystery novels as in the brilliant Agatha Christie ooor creating the airplane The Right Brothers, Many of the US’s most great presidents have had LD Eleanor Roosevelt had ADHD. Mmmm Einstein had likely several LDs…. Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade… The dude who created the telephone was LD as was apparent (or so it is believed) even Socrates. So just some food for thought.
Re: IQ Test High, Testing Average to High Average now what?!
Your child was found ineligle not because her IQ was too high, but because there was not a severe discrepancy between her IQ and her academic achievment (Reading Math, Writing, etc.) This is part of what defines a learning disability. Were symptoms of an attention problem or other disabilities considered? Keep in mind, with young children, it is difficult to obtain that severe discrepancy between scores until 3rd grade or so. She may need to be retested later when the tests are better able to detect the presence of a learning disability.
You can either request IEE testing ( Independent Educational Evaluation) or have private testing done yourself. Testing by a Neuropsychologist is often more thorough than the testing done by the school system. This may be able to uncover where the breakdown is happening with her.
Its not unheard of to have an high IQ but also have LD. My dd has an IQ over 120 but 6 LDs that get in her way. We didn’t find that out until we got independent testing because school testing always shows her at an “average” level and they never found out about her specific LDs.