Finally we got the report from school evaluation. Educational evaluation and psychological evaluation are combined into one report and we also receive separated one for SLP evaluation. Below is what we got: From Speech Language Evaluation, below assessments were administrated: Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language OWLS II: Listening Comprehension and Oral Expression Scales The Test of Word Finding 2 The Test of Pragmatic Language 2 The only thing that DS scored in Poor range is Pragmatic Usage Index. Others are all in normal range. ************************************ WISC-V Standard Score VCI 111 (High Average) VSI 100 (Average) FRI 100 (Average) WMI 82 (Low Average) PSI 116 (High Average) Subtest scores (Scaled Scores) VCI Similarities 12 Vocabulary 12 VSI Block Design 11 Visual Puzzles 9 FRI Matrix Reasoning 8 Figure Weights 12 WMI Digit Span 8 Picture Span 6 PSI Coding 12 Symbol Search 14 In the report, it states that FSIQ cannot be interpreted meaningfully due to significant variability across his index scores. It also indicated that his WMI score was adversely influenced by observed momentary lapses of attention as well as impulsivity in responding. *********************************************** Woodcock-Johnson IV Test of Oral Language and Achievement Form A and Extended were administrated as well. Test of Oral Language CLUSTER/TEST RPI Standard_Score(68% Band) Oral Language 85/90 94 (90-99) Broad Oral Lang 83/90 92 (88-96) Oral Expression 45/90 76 (72-81) Listening Comp 81/90 90 (85-95) Picture Vocab 86/90 96 (90-103) Oral Comp 83/90 93 (87-100) Sentence Repet 9/90 69 (65-74) Undstand Dir 79/90 89 (83-96) Math Facts 91/90 100 (96-105) Sentence Writing 94/90 106 (101-112) Reading Recall 60/90 80 (75-85) Number Matrices 95/90 107 Word Reading Flu 99/90 111 Spelling of Sound 81/90 93 (87-98) Sorry for the long post. We are meeting with school in 10 days and would like to collect as much as information from our end before discussing with Child Study team for the IEP possibility.

I use these as visual aid for my son. http://www.amazon.com/AMAZING-CHINESE-CHARACTERS-ANIMALS-CD-ROM/dp/9868050715/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452535476&sr=1-11&keywords=amazing+chinese http://www.amazon.com/AMAZING-CHINESE-CHARACTERS-PLANTS-NATURE/dp/9868050723/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=08JHJKTYP1Z1K3X41MQ6 It will make much more sense if you teach in traditional Chinese. My son learns better with traditional Chinese.

Apples and Pears is different from Dancing Bear. One for spelling and one for reading. You will need to purchase teacher's manual for Apples and Pears. I have a fairly new (only used for one child) teacher's manual A and Dancing Bear Fast Track AB and C for sale. If you are interested, please PM me.

I am in NJ, neighbor state of yours. My DS is currently going through evaluation in our district. He has been in Intervention program since 2nd grade. He got 5 days of 30-min pullout with certified reading specialist for Wilson Reading foundation program without any diagnose. Per his 2nd grade teacher, that's the most that school can give him without diagnose. If he can get diagnosed, then they can provide more. DS was progressing with intervention but still was not able to close the 1 year reading gap (reading 1 grade level behind). He is now at 4th grade but reading at mid 3rd grade level after 1.5 years of intensive Wilson reading support from school. In Sep, I originally wrote to request for 504 as we have ADHD PI diagnose from Pediatric Neurologist last year but it turned out that comprehensive evaluation was granted after meeting with principle, school psychologist and learning disability teacher consultant from the district in Oct. They almost complete the evaluation at this moment and we are expecting report in mid January. For evaluation, you will need to make written request to your district special ed department. There is sample letter online you can find. Most of districts have regulation stating that district need to respond within certain time frame. In our district, school needs to respond within 60 days and complete evaluation within 90 days if it is granted. In our case, we first met with principle, class teacher and learning disability teacher consultant to review his progress on intervention and they decided to move forward with evaluation as I requested. In second meeting, we met with child study team members including school psychologist (who is also our case manager), social worker, learning disability teacher consultant and classroom teacher. During second meeting, types of evaluation that will be conducted is finalized. They are going to do psychological, educational, speech language, social background interview and psychiatric evaluation. OT evaluation was not granted to us as they do not see issue at this moment. Our next meeting will be end of January to discuss about the evaluation result and recommendation to see if DS is eligible for IEP.

For sorting out ADHD, you can go to pediatrician, psychologist, neurologist or psychiatrist. DS got ADHD PI label from pediatric neurologist from local Children's Specialized Hospital. Nowaday, unless it's severe, most of doctors do not recommend medication.I was told that School evaluation will mainly focus on educational issue (learning disability) only and they believe ADHD is medical condition so it's better we go with pediatrician or psychologist outside of school. Check your insurance provider and find out what your policy covers. I look up doctors from network and pick up from there. Our insurance does not need referral for specialist.

Yesterday we had psychiatric evaluation. Psychiatrist suggests psychotherapy to address frustration issue. He said he does have some symptoms of ADHD but nothing serious as far as he can see now. He does not think it's to the point that medication is needed. However, he will need to wait till other evaluations (educational, psychological and speech) in place and then he can make final conclusion. Doctor thinks his frustration mainly coming from academic struggling as he is generally calm and rarely has completed outburst outside of school. At home, he still argues and has bad emotion sometimes but not as bad as what school reported. I normally can convince him and calm him down easily. Comparing with some clients I am dealing with at work, DS is much easier to handle in my opinion. We also started Zones at home. He adapts the skills right away. He is very good at telling Green and Bule Zones. He normally handles blue zone very well. Yellow zone is the one he has issue with. It's harder for him to initial action by himself without proper adult intervention when he is in this zone so quickly he will go into red zone. I think that's what happened in school. We will try to read more from the curriculum and see if we can dig further to help him. Thanks for recommendation. DS social skills group therapist just ordered the Zones curriculum and poster for herself as well.

Look at Child Find program at your district. As long as you are in the district, you still can request school to do evaluation even you are homeschooling.

Our ADHD label was given by pediatric neurologist (MD) as well. In our local children's specialized hospital, they are also called developmental pediatrician. Therefore, when I made appointment for sorting out inattention issue for DS, that's where they pointed us. They use DSM form, interview with both parents and child, neurological tests(motor skills etc), and simple achievement test to give out diagnosis. DS current teacher has ADHD child as well and he also sees pediatric neurologist for treatment including medication and OT referral. As far as I know in my local area, only MD can prescribe medication. Therefore, you will need to go to pediatrician, psychiatrist or neurologist if you consider medication as option. DS also has emotional regulation issue and he has minor ADHD PI label. He is not aggressive (no hitting or pushing type of behavior) but easily triggered for emotional outburst. School psycholoist observed him in school setting and she recommended us to do psychiatric evaluation to sort of anxiety and depression possibility. School psychologist is trying reward system with DS this week. We also started Zones at home last week. He has been holding up his emotion very well so far (no outburst) but become very disorganized and forgetful than usual.

Just got back from meeting with child study members. Below is the list of evaluation that they agreed: Educational Evaluation Psychological Evaluation Social History (parent interview with social worker) Speech/Languiage Evaluation Psychiatric Evaluation (referred to outside psychiatrist and fee will be reimburse by school) I mentioned executive functions to School psychologist and she said it will be part of her test. None of them heard about Zone of Regulation bu will look into it.

Just had parent teacher meeting last night. Since teacher and we met two weeks ago along with principal and learning disability teacher consultant to discuss his progress and did the referral. We've already gone through his academic progress. Main problem is on language art. She said both reading and writing are below grade level. Learning consultant has suggested her to step back on language art components to reduce his anxiety level. Before evaluation result coming out, she will reduce the workload and try to accommodate as much as she can in the classroom. So far DS is doing fine at classroom and emotion control has been steady. We will see how he is doing today because his moment typically happens on Friday. I also spoke to our tutor last night about assessment she did. She said his reading part will be well oo grade level if we don't consider the writing part of assessment. He can answer question that you can find directly in the story but it's hard for him to answer comprehension questions that go deeper. That will bring down him to below grade level which matches what school has. She said he does not have classic dyslexia or dysgrapgia symptoms as far as she can tell. His reading is progressing even though we need intensive support to get him going at first. At least now he feels comfortable and confident doing reading works. Two years ago, he was crying when she asked him to read one chapter from simple chapter book. Now we see the same resistance with his writing so she believes he will eventually overcome it. She also mentioned executive function and suggested to go to local college to do neuorpsychological evaluation if school evaluation does not find descrpancy.

I've never thought about motor planning as he seems not having issue with motor skills as far as I can tell. I will put this on my list and ask during meeting. Thanks

His frustration is our number one priority to address now. Honestly, I think he has too many extracurricular activities. He takes violin lesson (30 minutes) on Monday evening, tutoring (1hr) on Tuesday evening, Social Skills group (45min-1hr) on Thursday evening, Swimming (30min) on Friday evening, Chinese school (40min+40min) on Saturday afternoon and ice skating (30min group+30min individual+30min free play) on Sunday afternoon. Besides going to lesson, Chinese and Violin require daily practice as well. Even I as an adult, I already feel tired driving him to and from those activities after work for these two months (starting Sept).Ice skating and swimming will end next week and hopefully it can release a little bit of stress on us. Last year when he was 3rd grade, things were going pretty smoothly. He was more organized and productive on his reading/writing. Even he still had his emotional "moments", his teacher was easy to redirect and calm him down. She rarely need to call me to address anything. DS loves his 3rd grade teacher so much. I do feel that he is overloaded this school year which may also increase his frustration level especially on subject that he feels hard (writing) and weaker emotional control. After outburst on Tuesday, I decided to cut out his Chinese homework completely this week and get him on bed early. I also told his Chinese school teacher to waive his bi-weekly quiz which usually makes him panic. I feel Chinese homework has become burden for both of us in the evening hours but DH does not want him to drop it. I told DH that I can HS his Chinese (on his own pace and without HW/exam to make him panic) if he really cares about that. His emotional control improved after he got plenty of good sleep (9pm to 7:30am) on Tuesday night. He went swimming on Tuesday evening instead of having tutoring session. I also put him back to special formula multi-vitamin supplement which contains more B6 and B12 in it along with calcium, magnesium and fish oil he takes daily. He has a great day on Wednesday and seems happy today when he woke up by himself this morning. I will keep my finger crossed......

He is bright in some area and has relative strength on nonverbal/figural reasoning but not sure if it's to the gifted level. That's how much I know now. Hopefully we will get some more information after evaluation. Both of his girl cousins on father side are gifted. They ace school works without much efforts and both are in gifted program in PS. It's really heartbreaking to see DS struggling. DH and I first heard about idea of HS few years ago. We do like the idea of homeschool and think it has great benefit. However, we both are not native speaker and don't have our primary education done in US. I have no confidence to teach his language art subject especially if he has some kind of disability in this area.....I can do after school or supplement if he needs but I don't think I can be the main teacher to teach him LA. Great info. Thanks a lot.

Leka Please do keep me updated whatever support you can get from IEP meeting. Since my son does not have formal diagnose on dysgraphia, he does not qualify for IEP at this moment. That's the main reason I push for evaluation through school. Good luck on your IEP meeting. We are meeting with Child Study team on Nov 2.

Yes, his tutor has suggested Dragon Speaks software for the time being and she can train him to use it if school is willing to accommodate him with it. Typing may not be very feasible at this moment as it is new to him and he cannot type fast enough to keep up the thoughts.

I will do some research on Zones you mentioned. I will definitely bring it up in our next meeting with child study team next Monday. School psychologist also mentioned that they will review his schedule to see if instruction review is still necessary for him (or too overwhelming him at this point) during meeting. I brought him to COVD two years ago and the only thing found was slightly farsighted on left eye so the reading glasses was prescribed. He is bilingual which is masking his language issue. It's not like he cannot talk or communicate. In fact he is very talkative and likes to share what he knows. It's just sometimes he seems having trouble to retrieve certain words quickly enough to continue with conversation smoothly so he has to repeat the sentence few times. It does not happen to all his oral speaking language though. In addition, his expressive language has been improved with age so it's not really alarm me till now. Just to be safe, I have asked for SLP evaluation from child study team.

5 days intensive Wilson (30 minutes each) was provided in 2nd grade and second half of school year in 3rd grade. Now he only gets two 30 minutes reading support session per week. He finds it very easy and he doesn't mind to go as it's not hard for him. Sometimes he did complain it's boring as he knows everything already. I have his tutor work on REWARDS intermediate with him at home and that challenges him a lot. I do think he may have some level of dyslexia. However, when we went to neurological evaluation during summer after 2nd grade, doctor did not find him having disability on reading. She had him read through a list of words and he was able to decode it without issue. He knows phonics very well but does not apply the skills all the time because he wants to rush through it. He has good rote memory with sight words as well (his sight word spelling is also good). His reading issue is mainly on oral reading. It seems that his brain reads faster than his mouth can keep up so he skips little words and ending sounds sometimes which his tutor believes may cause downgrade on his level when school administrates the reading assessment. Also his performance is not consistent. One day he can read above grade level and next day he may be tested below grade level. Not sure if it's the characteristic of dyslexia or causing by his ADHD. He has been going to social skills group with therapist on weekly basis and we do individual counseling with same therapist who has two ADHD children herself whenever he has situation like this. His therapist is trying to address his coping skills through group or individual sessions. He is fully aware of the choices he has to calm himself down but he has not been able to initial the action by himself when he is in the situation. I also worry about the 4th grade workload at school. For writing, the learning disability teacher consultant has advice his teacher to provide more clear step by step guideline on writing requirement, break down the writing assignment into smaller pieces and scribe for him if needed. His teacher has been nice to work with him one on one during writing time. She also crossed out explanation question on his math assignment and homework. The sub he had yesterday probably was not aware of this so she did not help him on writing. He called out for a break this time as he felt frustrated. School psychologist took him in her office and calm him down. He finished his writing there yesterday.

DS is 9 attending 4th grade in public school. He was diagnosed with ADHD PI subtype last year. Neurologist said it was minor and medication should be last source so we did not consider medication at first place. I was originally requesting 504 from school but it turned out that he can be evaluated by child study team as I mentioned his struggling in expressive and written language seem causing a lot of frustration and emotion on him. He is sweet child. He is motivated, so eager to please us, hard working kid and so wanted to do good at school but something is holding him back and causes frustration. His reading and math are on grade level at this moment. Spelling and writing are one grade level behind. We did spend a lot of time catching up reading in the past three years. He worked very hard in school (Wilson reading 5days a week) and at home (OG tutor once a week and I worked with him on DB fast track 4 days a week). He seems very tired everyday and often has emotion outbursts on Friday. His teacher thinks might be due to he was trying so hard to hold it up for the whole week. His teacher has a ADHD son with IEP (her son's issue is visual processing speed is extremely low) so she really wants help my son. According to teacher and school psychologist, his emotion trigger is often a snowball effect. Once small thing triggered him on that day, every little thing went wrong. His emotion outbursts often connected to school works such as bad grading due to careless mistakes on quiz or being called to go intervention program while he wants to finish his reading. Yesterday, his outburt is related to sub he had. He got upset as they cannot watch movie as planned due to sub and he did not understand what sub was talking about in writing time which he needs a lot of help in order to complete the assignment. Now we are in the process of setting up meeting with school to discuss what evaluation is needed to sort his problem. Meanwhile, I am also wondering if medication will also help to loosen up his frustration and improve on his emotional control. At least help on his focus so he does not need to spend so much energy just to hold up through the day. He has low grade anxiety due to school achievement and his ability to write (we suspect dysgraphia). Will medication side effect worsen his anxiety? Any one who has similar situation, please share you experience with us. TIA.

IXL and xtramath are good for drills and extra practice, not teaching. I ensure my son understand the concept before he does his math homework everyday. He normally gets the concept without problem but very careless when apply it. In this case, IXL comes handy. We use tablet version and now you can use color pen function to mark on the screen and even write the calculation steps on screen. When my son gets frustrated because he cannot get to 100 due to careless mistakes, I will step in to help. Sometimes I does one or two questions for him and have him to check/correct my answer before hitting submit. Sometimes I answer the question wrong on purpose to see if he can catch it. That works well for him.

I have a 4th grader too but I live in NJ. We used Dreambox few years back and he liked it a lot. Dreambox is fun but does not cover full year math curriculum. However, we switched to IXL this year as I got good discount. I work full time so my son stays at after care till I pick him up at 6. Besides homework and light reading, it's hard for me to give him extra work to do in aftercare. Normally we do IXL when he does not have evening activity or weekend. Teacher give them math homework everyday. He does it in aftercare by himself and I check at night. If I find he makes more than 2-3 mistakes in homework on certain topic, I will reteach the topic and then have him to do practice on respective topic in IXL on the weekend. IXL goes with grade level and common core topics. it should fit your need.

I know a friend who used to teach there before they moved to other state. I have no personal experience but she is very knowledgeable in Chinese teaching as far as I can see. I think the school she chose to teach must be good. I am native Chinese speaker.

My son has started doing assigned homework from ST math. The password is 13 different pictures. I cannot memorize it but it is a piece of cake to him. Apparently he is picture learner. There is no sound and instruction. Sometimes he does not know what exactly the program wants him to do and keeps doing it wrong. Once I explain it to him, he likes it and has been using it on and off through the week. I think it's a good supplement for visual learner but cannot make it as sole math curriculum.

I beleieve few Chinese book stores(physical or online) in US carries it. You can check out their US distributor page. http://huayu.knsh.com.tw/Overseas.asp

My son speaks Chinese and understands Chinese. He is in traditional track at Chinese school (require at least one of parents can speak fluent Chinese) and learns both zhuyin and pinyin with traditional Chinese characters. School uses MZ hua yu for traditional track. What system are you going to learn? Simplify Chinese with Pinyin or Traditional Chinese? I have been eyeing at Hello Hua Yu and it looks very attractive. The load is just right (5 lessons per book with review). It has digital version of teacher's handbook which is convenient for oversea users. However, my son likes to socialize so he still wants to go to Chinese school for that purpose. I have no choice but keep working with MZ Chinese as it is the textbook school uses. Here is the link for Hello Hua Yu. I hope you can read Chinese as they do not have English web page. http://huayu.knsh.com.tw/

My son enjoys wayside school series, Stink/Judy Moody, and Who would win series (non fiction). Boxcar children may be something fun to read too.