imagine.more
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Posts posted by imagine.more
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We finally got the evaluation results from the school. They don't tell us a ton but at least it's something. We'll have the written report tomorrow but for now I have what we were told verbally.
They did a Non-verbal IQ test (WISC I think) and her score was 87. So below average. Anyone else have a DC with an IQ in the 80-90 range that can give me some ideas of what this says about her capabilities?
In math she did well with rote problems but does not understand mathematical concepts at all. The instructor said she doubts she even understands that subtraction is the opposite of addition.
We already know she's reading at a 1st grade level. She has a lot of sight words so can fake a 2nd grade level sometimes but has little phonemic awareness.
Her writing she scored a 67, significantly below average....I think she said this is on a score range similar to the IQ test?
The school plans to pull her out for individualized instruction in math concepts in addition to her usual math class. They are also starting Visual Phonics, which we insisted on back in October, this February. We insisted they find a different reading program to replace Read180/System44 for her as she's not making progress in those.
Help? Any idea where we should go with this new information?
I'm still considering homeschooling her because the school schedule is absolutely awful for us (DH works weekends and evenings a lot since he's a pastor) and we're homeschooling the younger ones. She seems to dislike public school, private school, and homeschool equally :) Maybe homeschool slightly less since she could sleep in, lol! Since her opinion isn't strongly for any particular schooling option, we're just going to make the decision between DH, her social worker, and I. I've never ever worked with special needs before and my 5 year old got some bizarre genius gene from my sister-in-law and is very gifted. So we've got one on each side of the spectrum. Am I crazy for considering homeschooling her? If I do how do I go about setting goals for her?
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Nope, DH and I were abstinent individually and now monogamous so there is zero chance of me developing the STD that causes the cancerous cells that the Pap smear is looking for. I went for 4 years faithfully because I was told it was necessary for all adult women and was furious when I found out I was doing it for no good reason since it's an STD. Ugh, so frustrating! But anyway, even though my doctors never believe me the fact is that with me and DH having no history I don't need pap smears. When I get to that age I will of course get mammograms as recommended.
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I'm curious about this too. We're setting aside money in January's budget specifically to buy LiPS for Daisy and I'm wondering what I need, what is good to have, and what is fluff?
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I am a cradle Catholic. I was born and raised in the faith and went through every sacrament. We were married in the faith as well. I have been non-practicing for several years. The faith is difficult for me in many aspects. My aunt is a former Catholic nun and she is very stringent in how she lives. She has pulled in aspects of her religious life years into her marriage and with her kids. She is intolerant and cannot even possibly see other viewpoints about things, things that yes I understand the church takes a stand against, but at the same time I really feel that it's not my place to put a judgment call on things like sins. The fact is not everyone believes the way any religion believes, whether it's Catholic, Lutheran, or fundamental Baptist, and it's not right to impose those beliefs on others. And I think that is where my sticking point is.
I have been to my local (read: right around the corner) parish and it doesn't feel comfortable to me. I think the difficult aspect of all of this for me is that every single parish is slightly different. Every single one has slightly different cadence to the music, and a slightly different rhythm and it's jarring when trying to find a new parish.
I understand how hard it is to find a good parish. Our area is pretty stark, lots of cultural catholics and such. But I've settled at our local Cathedral and it's alright there, I just ignore the football references in the homilies, lol!
Anyway, I agree with others that if you have a Latin Mass and are comfortable with that style it might be a good place to start. Unfortunately our nearest one is 1 hour away but the one time we did go it was so nice to see lots of kids and young families there as opposed to our local churches that are full of contemporary music and middle aged people.
As for books I think Scott Hahn is a good revitalizer of the faith. And yes watching EWTN and The Journey Home might be decent, there are some reverts on there occasionally too. Also, now is probably a good time to just dive into scripture study. Maybe start keeping a simple scripture journal/prayer journal.
Good luck!
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Welcome back :) When I spent some time dabbling in Lutheranism and came running screaming back to the Catholic church I started by emailing a priest at a nearby church where we had just moved. He happily replied immediately and positively and he helped me get things sorted out in practical aspects. First I started attending Mass, just didn't take Communion. Then my DH and I met with my priest and we just had a good chat getting to know him and he got to know us. We let him know we wanted to get our marriage convalidated (we were married in DH's Lutheran church) and he had us fill out the paperwork and get that done. In conjunction with the convalidation I went to confession for the first time in years and then started taking communion again. It was great to be fully Catholic.
If you don't mind answering, where are you personally in your journey back to the faith? Do you still have some questions or issues you'd like to explore or are you 100% certain the Catholic Church is the one true Church where you need to be? Were you raised in the faith and are familiar with practicing the faith or do you need some encouragement getting going in the day-to-day living out of Catholic faith? Just because there might be some books or blogs I could recommend that might be useful depending on where you're at in your head.
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I always organize this time of year, it's my favorite thing to do after Christmas Day :) So far we repainted our front entryway closet and installed hooks and a low shelf for shoes so the littler kids can hang up their coats and put away their shoes more independently. The plus side is that it looks fantastic :)
I also finished creating and putting together a 2014 Catholic Planner for myself and got it on my blog for others. I really wanted something in a good, clean, modern style with all the liturgical dates, seasons, and sunday's readings. Couldn't find anything like that, so I made one!
Now I'm making another planner (for the blog, not myself) and a daily homemaking schedule for myself because I have been slacking lately in that department! And I'm organizing my daughter's Reading Reflex materials into lap books/file folders so they're easier to use because the materials being all over the place was driving me bonkers. That will be a big project though unfortunately, and it's tedious.
I've got the urge to paint our bathroom but we'll see if that happens anytime soon.
So, yes, I am definitely organizing, lol!
Scout, thanks for mentioning budget, I need to sit down with DH to plan our finances for the year. That's much less fun than painting, but it's a necessary evil I suppose :P
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that is fascinating!
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I also keep a LOT of art supplies of various types in a cabinet we bought damaged and then repaired. We needed the storage space but regular cabinets are expensive and usually not deep enough for paint canvases storage. The damaged one was much cheaper, deeper than a normal cabinet, and it is metal so it was easy to bang out the dings and use metal spray paint to repaint it. The cabinet is lockable, so if there are supplies that might be dangerous for youngers, or I want to ration more expensive materials so guests don't get into it, I can lock it and she has a key. This includes clay, paints, canvases of any size, water colors, oil pastels, construction paper, thin metals, art tools, etc. I let her organize it her way, but we put everything in it together and it was a fun mother-daughter project. I go to art supply stores and look for clearance items, and buy a bunch when they are on deep discount. Several months ago I was able to get 30 canvases and a lot of different types of paint at 80-85% off.
Besides the colored pencils and pens that Heathermomster suggested (which we use a lot of), my dd loves the newer, very thin colored sharpie pens. The colors are vibrant and the tip is very tiny so she can make accurate drawings. She annotates with pictures during some of our lessons, and it helps her remember things, although until Heathermomster put it that way, I had not really grasped that this is essentially what she was doing. (The ladies on here really keep me thinking and revising my perception of the world and my kids on a regular basis. Love it. :) )
I love the art cabinet you set up for your daughter, what a great thing for her! We're currently finishing our basement partly as a homeschool area so maybe I can find a space that could serve a similar purpose. Especially with lots of littles around she could use an area out of their reach to keep the nicer art supplies anyway. I just told my friend that she would like art supplies for Christmas (my friend is very artsy herself) so hopefully she'll have more mature art supplies soon, not just our big collection of broken crayons :)
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When DS was younger and being tutored for reading, he used to draw picture notes in the margins of the stories that he read. Basically, he was annotating with pictures.
There's Mapping the World with Art for geography/history. You may want to explore mindmapping and Inspiration software on the iPad. Give her stickers and colored pens/pencils to use as she completes her school work. Some students do that when outlining.
I like the idea of annotating with pictures. I learned something similar in English Ed classes. One tool for teaching kids in reading was to have them draw pictures, like a code, to make notes on the text. They'd draw a heart next to something they loved, a question mark next to anything confusing, etc. It's better than highlighting, more specific and yet not too specific or overwhelming. I could see expanding that for Daisy to aid her in her reading comprehension.
I love that Mapping the World with Art book, it looks excellent.
I'm going to check out the mindmapping on the iPad, my DH has a iPad the kids love to borrow. And I've been considering expanding our art supplies anyway so this might be a good time to get her some art supplies specific to her.
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I've just discovered a strength of Daisy's (yay!) Yesterday she drew me pictures of each house she's lived in and was able to really communicate her story much better this way. Whenever we've asked about her past before or she's told us stories it's all jumbled and confused and she struggles to get her thoughts in order to tell us what she wants.
It's like "one time my brother John got hit in the head with a rock. There was a lot of blood" "oh no! did someone hit him on purpose or on accident?" "well, um, uh, see there were these boys at my aunts house that were not nice. My sister was supposed to be watching him, but she went inside. And uh, those boys were playing....or, no, they were not playing. They were just, uh, I don't remember, doing something? And they hit John with a rock. And we didn't know because we were inside. Well, then we were outside with him sort of."
So as you can see it's confusing for her and us, lol! But with these pictures she was truly able to collect her thoughts and convey a clear picture of where she lived and when, why they moved each time, etc.
This discovery got me to thinking I should use more art and visual things (not text) with her when we homeschool. As a hearing impaired non-reader I think maybe we could use hands on activities and pictures to study content areas like history and science. And maybe I could have her draw along with writing assignments and slowly work her from expressing her thoughts in pictures to expressing them in words.
Any ideas or resources for using art more in learning? And any recommendations of simple drawing courses we could do, because she thinks she can't draw well so she sometimes gets self-conscious about drawing?
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I am late in chiming in here but wanted to just put a few things into the back of your mind - not so much to do with curriculum but with hearing impairment because I didn't see much response in that regard. I am a mom to a 20 year old ds who was diagnosed with a severe hearing impairment (also dyslexic - another inherited genetic snafu) when he was 14 years old (long story, late diagnosis). He actually started having reading problems in 4th grade which is what prompted us to begin homeschooling but I had no idea what I was really dealing with at that time other than a kid that needed my undivided one-on-one attention.
Here is a big important thing I learned - hearing aids are not like glasses. You don't just put them on and they hear everything sound, word, noise, etc. Nope - doesn't make a 20/20 hearing correction (so to speak). This is so much a brain thing - the sound goes in the aids, reaches the brain, has to be interpreted by the brain and then processed and then the child can respond. It is a tiring process - even for a young adult. It takes a gazillion amount of patience, grace and understanding. Hearing aids are awesome but it is still so much a brain-involved process.
There are things that the school can do to help your dd - placement in the classroom, special device the teacher wears that feeds sound directly through the hearing aids (helps with processing) are just two things off the top of my head. These are covered under ADA. They help and they do make a difference.
You need to know what sounds does your child NOT hear - and whether she will ever hear them with the hearing aids - this is key because no matter what phonics you use (or spelling) if they will never hear the sounds they can't make that connection that they are missing anything.
Also, it is important to keep in mind that her development (maturity, educational) was pretty much on hold until she started wearing those hearing aids. These kids go into a protective mode and only take in what they can and when it all becomes too much they just shut down. Benchmarks that you see in development stop until the correction is made. There is a period that the body and mind grieves this loss and it is hard on kids. We are wiser and know that things will most likely be okay but they don't have the benefit of that knowledge - especially when your little girl has already undergone so much already. Now, once that takes place (hearing aides) then it becomes a very slow process forward (think toddler - three steps forward, two back). It is slow but trust me, it happens all in due time - just not necessarily on what our society deems that time to be.
What really helped my ds over the years were small amounts of lesson time - it is very hard on their brains. He did so much better when there were no noise distractions (hard in a classroom) but as he got older his brain has gotten stronger and he doesn't get so tired anymore. He is finishing up the first half of his sophomore year at college and boy, what a difference. His freshman year was an upward battle but I was with him every step of the way and now he's flying on his own.
I can't tell you what the best thing (home school or public/private) as that is a family decision. What is right for one isn't always the best option for the other. But if you need anything please feel free to PM me and I'll do my best to help you anyway I can. I didn't have a support system and no one around me understood what we were going through - they just figured it was like wearing glasses - once you get a pair you see great and all is well. Hope this helps just a bit.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond! Like you I started out with the "well, she just needs more one on one instruction" mindset and have been slowly realizing just what we're dealing with in reality. I've been looking at her records with a fine toothed comb and I've pieced together that she got hearing aids for the first time in 2nd grade and an IEP for the first time in 3rd grade. She had an FM system last year and just finally got it for this year (another big fight with the school to make them get it for her). You're so right about the hearing aids not being like glasses. Only in knowing her have I come to understand that. And she's a very intuitive girl and lipreads well so she 'fakes it' very well in social settings and few people realize how little she actually hears or understands sometimes. It's interesting but I've come to realize her hearing impairment has been a massive blessing. She didn't understand or hear half of what went on in her family environment, the stuff that caused her to end up in foster care, so she's still quite innocent and trusting when compared to her hearing-able siblings.
It's so encouraging to know that your son was able to work towards college and everything even with the hearing impairment and dyslexia. I don't think Daisy is heading towards a 4 year degree, there are other signs that just IQ-wise she's not at that level, but she wants to be a preschool teacher-aide and I really think with steady work and progress she could achieve that goal. She's sweet, helpful, and very good with kids and babies.
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Definitely call them on Monday and just politely inquire about the test and remind them the deadline is Tuesday. I did that for my daughter with regards to her being tested at school this Wednesday because the 60-day deadline fell over the Christmas break (Jan 3) and they tested her on Friday...not a coincidence I think ;) So be politely persistent to get things done.
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It has been several years since I was personally involved with foster care, though I still have many friends from those circles who have done foster-to-adopt.
You need a good adoption lawyer who is familiar with DCFS adoptions. Don't let your caseworker tell you you don't need one. The state should pay for the lawyer too. A lawyer who has done foster-to-adopt will be familiar with this.
Prior to the adoption, you should build an exhaustive body of information about your foster child's physical, mental, and emotional state. That information is then used to determine what level of permanent subsidy she qualifies to receive. An adoption contract for wards of the state almost always includes a medical card up through age 21, for example. If your child has ongoing needs, the subsidy is provided specifically so that the child will have ongoing access to services that address those needs.
For example, a friend of mine has a child who has Asperger's as well as auditory processing issues. Their adoption contract entitles them to continued checks from the state as well as the medical card. They have used the state subsidy for occupational therapy, counseling, and anti-depressants (though they later found that the effects of the meds were worse, so they address his issues with different therapeutic applications).
A different friend of mine did not want money from the state once her child was adopted. She seemed to feel that that would make him less a part of their family. She felt that once he was adopted, he was hers absolutely, and so she should be financially responsible for him. The sad reality is that he has significant learning disabilities and possible NVLD or auditory processing issues, and they cannot afford the therapies he needs. Now that he is in the middle years it is very, very hard.
Bottom line--be aggressive in getting the very best specialists you can find to assess your foster child. Insist the state fund this--she is entitled to it. Get copies of all documentation and make sure your caseworker receives that as well. Talk to a lawyer and find out exactly what your child is entitled to so that when the caseworker attempts to deny the evaluations, you can insist.
The schools' evaluations are notoriously inadequate. They are not nearly thorough enough. You need medical and psych specialists.
It's important so that your child can get the help she needs both now and over the long term.
Thank you for the info! Our social workers had already told us that we will be receiving a subsidy for Daisy, slightly less than the foster care rate, after adoption and that she will be eligible to stay on Medicaid until 21. We love our social workers, they're from a private Christian agency and had already mentioned that our next step now that her case was officially moving to the adoption unit would be to hire an adoption lawyer and that the state worker would help us with that.
So it seems like the key is to get disabilities identified/diagnosed and any support/therapy started before adoption is finalized to make sure those needs make it into the adoption contract. Good to know! I honestly hadn't even considered that aspect.
I am definitely not too proud to accept the subsidy :) We're a pastor family so, um, not rich, and I look at it as an 'education fund' for Daisy, since it will really help us to a) meet her current educational needs and b) prepare for her long-term education needs for post-high school so she can get any job training she wants.
BTW, we just talked to the school psychologist today and she tested Daisy today actually. She did the Weschler test for kids and the Johnson test of achievement and curriculum based assessments. The Weschler I think is the one we need to establish her basic IQ and her overall ability. And I suspect that will be what I'll use to make our case that she is 'able' to learn to read based on her IQ but that clearly she's not receiving adequate instruction if she's not making significant progress in reading. I'm not sure about the Johnson test, I'll have to research that one to figure out what it covers.
And yeah, moral of the story "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"! I called on Wednesday and had a lengthy conversation with the special education director asking about a reading specialist for Daisy. While I didn't get any headway on the reading specialist I did allude to the 60-day deadline for doing the evaluation being over Christmas break and asked if the school psychologist could call us with those results as soon as she had them. Sure enough, 2 days later she miraculously does the test with Daisy? hmm, not a coincidence I think.
Oh, and we got them to implement Visual Phonics with her! It's a phonics program that gives hand cues to match up with the letter sounds as you speak and is good for hearing impaired students. That took a lot of convincing at the IEP meeting and I wasn't sure they were going to do it since they never agreed to it formally. But they have someone lined up to begin it in January, assuming we bother to send her back in January.
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I can get private speech therapy for her through her Medicaid (all foster kids in PA are on Medicaid until 21 I think even once adopted). I haven't found any speech therapists who use Lips so far but I'll definitely keep trying! That would definitely be good.
So a friend of mine is sending me her OG manual on cd-rom as well as scanned pages from the Lips program that have the basic mouth movement pictures.
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Let me start by saying I am not catholic...or religious in any way.
Having said that, I find religion fascinating and have been very interested in what Pope Francis has to say. His interview in September touched on contraception and it sounds to me like, while it hasn't yet, the official church doctrine might be up for review.
Is there a more liberal priest or bishop you could speak to that might be understanding of your predicament and able to help you find a solution that would work for your family and still honor your catholic beliefs?
Most non-catholics don't really get this, and I totally understand why not because the Catholic church is unique in how it functions. But doctrine cannot change, it just can't be overturned. Even if Pope Francis personally wanted to change the doctrine he could not. Also, a lot of new articles have misquoted the pope and really jumped the gun in their conclusions about him. His point is not that abortion and gay marriage are totally cool and we should allow them, his point is that in misguided religious fervor some people have made those the bigger issues when he believes (and I agree) that the Church should spend more time focusing on addressing the needs of the poor, the oppressed, the widows, the orphans, the unemployed, the sick, etc. Social justice issues vs sexual morality issues. One doesn't negate the other, he's just saying we may have forgotten about social justice issues in fervor for pushing sexual morality issues.
Moxie, I am so sorry! That is a tough place to be :( Life sucks sometimes, doesn't it? But I know your new little one will be a blessing, if perhaps extremely overwhelming too. I'll pray for a break from fertility for you and increased grace to accept your family size because that is a hard thing to do and I totally understand. Sometimes things are too hard for us and that's where grace can step in and fill in the gaps.
I think you're already an amazing woman for sticking to your beliefs (on the church being God's One True Church) in spite of doubts and hardships. Most people do not have to truly endure big hardships for their faith and those who do often succumb to the pressure and give up their beliefs or go against them knowingly.
Are there any specific reasons another baby is a hardship for you guys? Emotional, relational, financial, physical, etc? I'm just wondering if maybe anyone here could help support and advise you through the practical aspects of preparing for an unplanned baby. I know for us whenever we're using NFP it's because there's some reason a baby would just not be a good idea so I assume you probably have specific reasons you guys were trying to use NFP. For example, we're using NFP right now to avoid pregnancy because I'm terrified of another super fast labor with my midwife so far away. I also have four children and am running low on energy/patience with a poorly treated thyroid problem and depression. If I learned of a midwife within 30 minutes who could care for me, got my thyroid under control, and could hire a babysitter a few hours a week to take a mental break we'd probably stop periodic abstinence and have another baby sometime. Perhaps there's something similar that could help you out? Babies are great and all but they are also whole people who require stuff like food, clothes, care, and just take a lot of mental and physical energy.
You and your family are in my prayers. It's a tough place to be in ((hugs))
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Onestep, you're right about the cost of Lips vs tutoring, that's definitely something to keep in mind. And we do get a foster care stipend for her which could help cover the cost, though preteens are expensive! lol!
We have talked about homeschooling with her and while at first she was kind of confused by the idea she seems open to it, especially lately. She dislikes school but loves her friends. She's super sociable, cheerful, and makes friends easily so the social aspect appeals to her :) But thankfully her BFF lives next door and is one grade above her anyway and her other friends she has their phone numbers already so we can have them over for sleepovers and such. I think as long as I make an effort to a) retain her current friendships and b) cultivate new homeschooling ones so she sees that other kids her age are homeschooled then she should stay positive about homeschooling. She's super easygoing, we really lucked out in getting such a great kid! :)
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LaughingCat, that's good to know that I could maybe get by with just the manual for the Lips Program.
Now, Daisy did pass (barely) the Barton pre-test thing that it says is the requirement for starting Barton or another Orton-Gillingham program. So she may not need a ton of work with Lips though my gut says that because of the hearing impairment she does need some at least.
I started Reading Reflex: Phono-Graphix with her 2 weeks ago and am doing it 4 times a week for 20-30 minutes after school. It's a stretch to make her do that much work on top of school (9:00am-3:30am) and homework (1 hour typically) but luckily it's fairly fun and she's a good natured kid.
So I'm trying to think through what my steps would be IF I end up homeschooling her. Bear with me, just thinking out loud here and trying to process it all.....
So I would of course finish up with Reading Reflex, which I have scheduled to go for about 15 weeks total. That would last us until March. Then would I begin Lips at that point or would it be best to begin Lips in January along with or instead of Reading Reflex? And how long would Lips last until we could begin an Orton-Gillingham reading curriculum? I'm also torn on which OG curriculum to even consider.
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If she is in foster care, push-push-push for the state to fund a full assessment with a specialist outside of the school. Once you have detailed medical information on her condition, you can use that information to insist on a more appropriate IEP as well as other, state-provided services.
You will have to push and be the squeaky wheel on this. It's well worth doing so, though, especially if you hope to adopt as you will need to write those funds and services into the adoption contract.
Thanks! I just left a message with a psychologist to do a full assessment on her today actually so I'm glad to know that's a good step :)
What is an adoption contract?
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How long will this child be with you? Is she going to be pulled any time soon? In my view, your options rely heavily on where she will be living one to three years from now, and I don't understand this foster-adopt business.
Foster-adopt means we will be adopting her. She is a pre-adoptive placement, we're just waiting for the 6-9 month waiting period to be able to officially adopt her. So we're making plans with permanency in mind just like any other adoptive child.
Lecka, I have considered going in to work with her but I have three small children at home too so I'd have to find a babysitter just to do that. And again I'm not sure what I would do with her, kwim? Like, which program, would I have to purchase it myself, etc. And if that's the case then I'd rather just straight homeschool and not worry about the silly school schedule and requirements there.
I have seen the Lips program and it does look great, in fact a special education teacher-friend of mine recommended it too. But it seems to require training to do it? And it looks super expensive if I'm looking in the right places. I can't remember where I found it but it looked like it was several hundred dollars just for the program to do it myself at home with her.
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I'm in quite the pickle. I'm homeschooling my younger kiddos but we just got our foster-adopt placement of our lovely 11 year old daughter this September. She's hearing impaired, wears hearing aids, and between the aids and reading lips she does very well at communicating and understanding in everyday life. She turns 12 next week and was held back one grade because of poor attendance so she ought to be in 6th grade.
However, her academics are a mess! The schools are giving her A's and B's but she's reading at a 1st grade level :-/ She studies spelling words and vocab words diligently every week and maybe masters 1 by the end of the week, then forgets it within another week. She has made zero progress in the last 2 years since being in foster care. In all that time she was in a healthy, stable, loving foster home with a 'grandma' type and then since September with us. Before that her life was obviously unstable and we suspect her hearing impairment was not properly diagnosed or treated for most of her younger years. There are some definite language gaps though they're not apparent at first.
We insisted on a full educational/psychological evaluation done at her last IEP and they've been dragging their feet on it but the deadline is Jan 3rd so they have to do it before the Christmas break. We're hoping to see a basic IQ level and look for any other underlying issues such as dyslexia, which we STRONGLY suspect now. She still reverses letters in reading and writing, can't tell time, reverses numbers, mixes up terms like 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow', etc. She also makes decent progress in math, she's working on 5th grade work with lots of support and doing alright. So based on that and her 'normalcy' when talking with her and interacting in daily life we're sure her IQ can't be that far below normal, certainly not enough to account for zero reading progress in the last 6 years.
I'm constantly fighting with her school trying to get them to give her the help she needs. They seem unconcerned that she's reading at a 1st grade level with little-to-no-progress and keep doing the same interventions her last school tried. It's all Read180 and System44 in their school. At best they said they could try SRA Phonics in a small group like 30 minutes a day. They do not have reading specialists in our district, which baffles and infuriates me.
We're working on getting permission to homeschool Daisy and it's looking promising but no guarantees yet.
Here's my dilemma. Do I keep fighting the school system to get her a fair and appropriate public education? Do I look into the local Catholic schools again which though smaller do have reading specialists and are generally more friendly to parents? Or do I simply pull her out and homeschool her, praying I can meet her needs through programs like Phono-graphix and All About Reading (which I see claims to be an Orton-Gillingham approach)?
We made a big mistake in choosing the public school route for her. We had permission to put her in a private school, but it seemed as if the public school had more special ed resources for her and it was free and our neighbor liked it so we figured it'd be the best choice for this year. Now we are regretting it, which I don't often do, and hating that we have to move her school situation yet again. I want to make the right choice this time so we can give her the consistency she needs in education. I don't want to get in over my head with homeschooling her only to change yet again and put her in the Catholic school. But I don't want to put her in the Catholic school only to change yet again and homeschool her later.
Ugh :( I'm a mess, I've been calling every expert in the area to seek help on this. I keep hitting brick walls and the few promising interventions look expensive. And I'm mad. Furious in fact, that the school is refusing to provide her an appropriate education that includes BEING TAUGHT TO READ! How dare they deny my child the right to literacy by refusing to drop the ineffective instruction and bring in a method that has been shown to work for deaf and/or dyslexic children. They say they have no special programs if she is dyslexic that all she needs is more intensive phonics.
Help :( I'm new to all this and totally overwhelmed and just sad over the whole thing.
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Thanks so much for posting this! I'm about to be in this exact situation. We are adopting our 11 year old FD who is hearing impaired and has some sort of learning disability/low IQ (we're pursuing testing through the PS this year to help narrow it down) and while she's a sweet, compliant kid she definitely struggles to learn and is reading at a 1st grade level in 5th grade (should be in 6th grade). Then I have a gifted Kindergarten son who I'm homeschooling who taught himself to read at 2.5 and is the typical absentminded professor type. Thank goodness they get along well but the learning disparity really does create some issues. We're hoping to have both of them at home next year since Daisy has made zero reading progress in the past year of public school even with an IEP and support.
Anyway, I'll be reading along and I'm curious to know how it goes for you!
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Our calendar notebook has these pages printed out: http://www.mamaslearningcorner.com/kindergarten-first-grade-calendar-notebook/
The first two pages are laminated. The first page is the clock printable. T-rex writes the current time and draws the hands on the clock with wet erase marker. The second page is the one that says "What is today?" "What is the season" and has the ordinal number practice at the bottom. He fills this out daily too. I like these being laminated, it saves paper since I can just wipe it off each evening and it's all set for the next day to use again. I've seen a huge improvement in T-rex's recognition of dates/seasons/months by using this. I've also seen a fantastic more complicated one for older elementary here: http://www.learnings-a-hoot.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-is-original-and-freebie.html
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I'm kinda freaking out at the thought of homeschooling our new adoptive daughter next year because she is "special needs" and so I have even more requirements that I'll have to meet with her. It's daunting to say the least! And honestly it makes me mad because her public school is unconcerned that she is not reading, because she's deaf and special needs they think it's okay. But if I can't get more progress and document like crazy what we're doing at home I could get in trouble.
All in all I'm just happy I don't have to do anything for my son until he enters 3rd grade :)
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My son T-rex is 5 and would be in Kindergarten this year. He's reading at a 4th grade level.
We start our day around 9am with calendar work. He moves around the stuff on our felt calendar board and then does his Calendar notebook. He fills out 2 laminated pages with the time and date and day of the week. He uses a wet erase marker so I can erase it at the end of the day and we can do it again :) Then he fills out graphs with the weather and day of the month with a pencil. The pages are ones I found from a blog and they're made for 1st graders I think.
20 minutes Catholic Heritage Curricula's 1st grade faith program.
20 minutes Singapore 1A math 1-2 exercises at a time because he loves it and is flying through it.
10-15 minutes First Language Lessons 1
15 minutes Spelling and Handwriting
20 minutes History (SOTW: Ancients)/Science (Nature Study)
10 minutes OPGTR (we're nearing the end)
Then we incorporate read-alouds, independent reading, review, and fun learning stuff into the rest of the day just like I did with preschool.
Honestly this has been a good start but I think DS needs me to ramp it up a bit so I'll probably start doubling up in math and english soon and then we'll also be diving into more in depth science exploration.
Hearing Impaired and Possibly Dyslexic (UPDATE IN COMMENTS)
in The Learning Challenges Board
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Paige, well she had her hearing aids in and was one-on-one in a quiet room and from her hearing therapy and our experiences I'd say she knows 95% of what we say in those kind of conditions. They also allowed her to respond with pictures and gestures (like pointing to indicate the answer) so I think they modified as best they could.
I really just have no idea what kind of goals to set for a kid who's slightly below average. Our families are all way on the high end of the spectrum so I don't even 'get' how her brain works, kwim? Like I keep trying to put myself in her shoes and it's hard. I don't even know if she can get a driver's license? I mean, if she can't read the test then she can't but what reading level is the test created at? And signs, I'm not sure if she could learn all the road signs. So do I need to plan for her to be a non-driving adult? Or could she realistically (not pie-in-the-sky) get to the point where she could pass the driver's test in maybe 6 years when she turns 18? I don't even know.
All I know is she spends 7 hours a day at school and doesn't seem to retain anything.