New friends

I made a new friend last week. Her daughter is in fourth grade at the same school as my daughter and she started talking to me last week as we waited for the girls to get out of school for the day. 

She is from Israel and explained that her family had just moved here three weeks before school started. Her daughter spoke very little English but was doing well adjusting to her new school. We invited them over one day after school so she and my daughter could get to know each other better. 

She told me about her son who is a year older than my son and also has ADHD. He's in the public school that my son would go to if he weren't in private school. She told me that in Israel, her son was able to go to a different school that allowed him to choose the classes he wanted to take. As a result, he focused better and learned more.

I have to admit, I'm jealous. Not that I don't think my son's school is wonderful, but to see him interested in what he was learning, to see him able to make choices about his future, would be wonderful. My son is still on the sidelines when it comes to his education. He's in class but he's still just going through the motions.

We had a long discussion about our school districts efforts to treat every child the same, even when they are clearly different. Some places have charter schools which sound similar to what she described in Israel but we're not so lucky here. There are no charter schools nearby and private school is becoming cost prohibitive.

I'm interested to hear what other parents of kids with learning disabilities are doing, especially as the kids get closer to high school. Our local high school boasts a 97% rate for seniors going to college and is said to administer more AP tests than any school west of the Mississippi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_Senior_High_School). 

I'm not sure what this means for my son. I would love to have a choice — a public education choice — that gives him an education where he is engaged and interested in his learning and can be with kids with similar interests. 

What's worked and what hasn't

When I meet other parents of kids who learn differently or have other special needs, the topic of what interventions we’ve tried and found successful always comes up. This is a sticky subject because kids are different and every variable imaginable – from the quality of the teacher or therapist to the willingness of the child -- could affect whether a particular intervention is successful or not. 

That said, I’ll share my list of what’s worked or at least been worth the investment and what hasn’t. This is just my opinion of what’s worked for my son and shouldn’t be taken as any kind of recommendation for your child. I’ll tackle one subject at a time over the next few posts. There’s not much I haven’t tried to help my son be successful so the list pretty long! 

Educational setting

What’s worked – small class size with kids that are grouped by skill level. 

What hasn’t – large classroom with pullouts for small group teaching in core subject areas. This didn’t work for my son because he quickly figured out that if he just waited long enough, he’d get pulled out of class. He learned to avoid virtually all of his classroom work. 

What’s worked – organized teachers who check to make sure that homework assignments are recorded correctly by the student. Organizational skills are lacking in many LD students, my son has done well with daily and weekly assignment sheets. 

What hasn’t – public humiliation by a teacher when assignments are missing or incomplete. My son’s name ended up on the board 11 times in third grade because of missed assignments. Not 11 different times, but repeated on the board 11 times. Once he lost count and had no way of ever catching up, he stopped doing homework all together. 

Future topics – what's worked and what hasn't for speech and language issues, individualized tutoring, auditory processing, occupational therapy, handwriting

A reader among us

I come from family of readers. We’re not you’re your average two or three books a year readers but hard core, Book-of-the-Month Club, multiple-books-a-month readers.

When my son was in second and third grade, he was well behind his grade level in reading. In fourth grade, he began attending a private school for kids who learn differently and his reading world slowly began to change.

Maybe it’s because he’s had an additional language arts class dedicated to reading for the past three years or because the librarian at his school can perfectly match a book with a child but my son is now a reader, the kind of reader that devours a new novel a week and follows an author through multiple titles.

Did I mention that he’s 12, in sixth grade and reading on grade level or above for the first time in his life?

I asked my son last night who his favorite authors were and his face lit up. First he said Paul Zindel, a Pulitzer Prize winner whose books started coming into our house last fall. Lately he’s been hooked on Gordon Korman and is going through his books at a pretty good clip. (Check out the authors’ websites: www.paulzindel.com, www.gordonkorman.com/toposite.htm)

I picked up “Schooled” by Korman last week after my son finished his book report. I only read a few pages but I’m hooked. I’ll be adding it to my reading pile!