Conferences

English Language Arts. Is it an art? Where does that come from? According to the American National Council of Teachers of English, the five strands of the Language arts are reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing (visual literacy). Put into perspective with a person with autism and the definition might was well read "NIGHTMARE".


I have heard the reports for years that Daniel's reading comprehension is at a 2nd grade level. His word recognition is always at least at grade level, sometimes higher. He has always been able to read the words, it's the understanding of the words that hasn't been so great. We have been focusing on Daniel's math for quite a while, he does better with one "push" at a time. The math has really clicked. He is working in a class that has a slower pace, but same content which is perfect for him. He is thriving. It is amazing. He is working independent much of the time and it is beautiful. He has A's. In PRE ALGEBRA. It is mind boggling. Now what? I say great, what about English? Will I ever be happy? There is always something to tackle. This 2nd grade comprehension really kills me. I mean how are you supposed to keep up with science when you can't understand the content of the language being thrown at you?


I have felt that he comprehends more than we know. Standard tests are, of course, not always the way to go with our kids. Daniel is in a resource English class this year. This is a new direction for him and for us. We really wanted to get him working on his comprehension to see what would happen. A lot of his academic goals are around ELA. I have been asking questions of the teachers and have been told, "he is fully participating, he is answering questions, he is "getting it"". How can that be when they are reading 7th and 8th grade books? I know he can read the words, but actually answering questions? That seems, well, unlikely. Don't get me wrong, I have confidence in his abilities, but it's going to take a while, right?

Last night I met with his case worker (who Daniel hugged upon their first meeting he loved her so much) and his English teacher along with yet another Michigan State Univ. intern. I love when the interns are at our meetings but wish I could crawl in their heads to see what they think of this crazy mom before them!? It seems that Daniel's most recent comprehension test put him at a 50% level for SEVENTH GRADE comprehension. Which I believe cute case worker said is average proficiency. 7th grade? That's the grade he's actually in! Is that possible? He has been tested other times this year and the last time it was at 6th grade. Now it's at 7th grade? She started at a 2nd grade level, he was at 90%, 3rd grade 80% + etc. It all made perfect sense, with each grade level up he went down slightly. BUT he is at a SEVENTH grade level. I have to keep repeating it to wrap my brain around it. They are using a different method of testing than they have in the past. It is more suited to him, and they think more accurate. We think that Daniel's verbal language difficulties have prevented him from showing us what he knows. This is not earth shattering, we knew that on some level. But I didn't expect that. Not at all. How incredible.


I was so happy. I am so happy. But as I think back and realize I didn't show it at all. They must think I'm an ice queen! But part of me wasn't um, well, comprehending the whole thing. His ELA teacher said, "I know you are concerned but he's doing incredibly well". She must be thinking I'm crazy since she has seen all of this growth. They ask him a question, he answers, (correctly and appropriately) I think she must be wondering what I'm concerned about. So I then explained that Daniel has been (on paper anyway) at the same reading level for freakin' ever. When he started ppi (pre primary impaired) (preschool for those with special needs) after the first day the teacher said, "can he read?" and I was all,"yeah". Completely oblivious to the fact that not every 4 year old can pick up a book and just read it. He'd been doing that for over a year at that point. I didn't know at the time that this was called Hyperlexia. The linked site defines it as a "precocious ability to read words far beyond what would be expected at an early age and/or a fascination with letters and numbers. These children have barriers with language acquisition and communication."....later it goes on to say, "Hyperlexic children follow a similar pattern of development. First words developed about 12 - 18 months, but approximately half of the children lose gained words and do not begin to regain them until after age two." It goes on to talk about how language is primarily echoalic and "chunks" and even whole conversations may be used in conversations. This is exactly what Daniel does. In fact the above all sounds exactly like they are speaking of him.


Speaking with my friend (thanks Amy!) I realize that my lack of enthusiasm regarding Daniel's excellent news, and my constant "what should we focus on next" is pretty much a self defense. I am protecting myself from celebrating because I know very easily today I could get a call that Daniel has banged his head so hard on a wall that he cut himself, or that he because so frustrated because someone did something like walk out of a room. I take my successes as I do with the frustrations, with a grain of salt and hopefully with a little tequila ;)

I am thrilled with his progress and I don't take it for granted for one second because I know there are many families who will not get this fabulous news. Because Daniel is who he is, we can continue to push him forward. He can slowly emerge from his shell. We are seeing a crack in that shell. I didn't know if I ever would. I am so proud of him. He is an amazing child.

IEP or IWA? (I Want it ALL)

Our IEP is complete. Well, not totally because I haven't signed it. And as usual it is sitting on my desk, face down, and hasn't been looked at since I walked out of there yesterday afternoon. I never ever sign at the meeting. I'm usually feeling very overwhelmed and need to process. I have, of course, been thinking about it and discussing it with those close to me. But I haven't picked it up physically and looked at it. Avoidance? Maybe. Last year it sat for over 10 days, for those of you who don't know, after 10 days it just goes into effect whether you sign it or not. I received an email asking if I had questions or issues I needed to discuss, when in fact, I just wasn't looking at the damn thing. Such is the way it goes. Probably this time too. I'll "do it next week".

We had lengthy discussions about class scheduling for Daniel yesterday. None of that is even written in the IEP but was the focus of our meeting trying to figure out where he fits and what would benefit him the most. I don't know of anyone else who is quite like Daniel. He is a bit of an anomaly. The options are vast at the middle school, which I appreciate. They have basic classrooms, co - taught classrooms (with gen ed teachers and special ed teachers) as well as resource rooms that don't really look like what I'm used to in a resource room. Daniel is doing accommodated math, so same curriculum as his peers and is hovering around the C to C- range right now. I can't believe it. 6th grade math is really the old 7th grade math and prealgebra. He's hanging in there. For a child with his level of impairment, I find that amazing and if you'd have told me that he'd be doing that 2 years ago I'd have said you were smoking something really good. But here he is. That is why I can't compartmentalize him. There is no compartment that he fits in. On the flip side his science and social studies is modified. It is not even close to the same curriculum but core ideas are pulled out and simplified and he gets that.

The main portion of the discussion was that we had had a premeeting to discuss academics. We decided to try to throw caution to the wind and we proposed that he not even take 7th grade social studies. This seemed to be sort of a wild notion to the middle school staff, but I have blazed our own path before and I'm SURE I'll do it again. Our reasoning is this. Right now his language is so impaired that the higher level concepts in social studies are incomprehensible to him. But math is something he CAN achieve and make progress in. So why not drop social studies and give him 2 count them 2 math classes. What will help him more in the long run? Social studies or math? My answer is math. It may be something we pick up again next year. We aren't shutting the door forever. With social studies you can miss a year, with math you cannot.

One of the math classes will be the co-taught slower paced class. (there are 3 levels all the same curriculum just paced differently, this would be the slowest of the 3). The other is resource room math. We aren't sure, logistically, if it can quite happen this way , but the plan is to have him do resource math as sort of preteach to the math in the co teaching regular ed. class. He won't necessarily feel like he is repeating because they are in different rooms and would be presented a bit different, so it wouldn't be like sitting in the same room twice in a row. We'll see how it goes.

English Language arts (ELA). Boy did I struggle with this. It ties into social studies in that, Daniel's reading level is way below his peers. His word recognition is at at 6th grade level but comprehension is now at 3rd. Last year it was at 2nd. So he has made a year of progress without any real intervention. I have always pushed for him to stay with his peers which is sort of the rub here. More on that in a minute. So we are putting him in a resource room ELA to see how he responds to more intense learning in this area. If he can respond by increasing a year without any push, what will he do if he gets the push? Time will tell.

He will have a para again. It was made clear from the get go that he needs one, desperately. When the middle school asked how much of the day he needs one the answer was the "whole day". Apparently they (the current staff) need to fill out a para pro "need" form and they are confident he would fly through the needs on this. I would think so? If they said he didn't need one, I could walk through schools and go around tapping kids on the head duck duck goose style and every single one would need a para less than Daniel. That's not the mom in me talking either. BUT he may not have one single para. There are paras that may be in the co taught math room that sort of specialize in that subject and would be with him then. It will all be so so so very different. Sometimes different is good. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you have to hold your breath and hope the decisions are the right ones. Sometimes you have to have faith. Sometimes you need to stand back and see what happens.

Daniel asked me for 2 things. 1. he wants to ride the bus. The last two years he has walked (with me) or I drive. We are a stones throw from our school but you have to cross the busiest road in our city (there is a pedestrian overpass, but I would never have him do it alone. He probably could but I don't feel it's safe for him) and 2. he said he "wants to be with 'his kids'" meaning his peers who he has come to love. That is where my heart is breaking a bit because the resource classes that won't be the case. And now that I think about it, they probably won't be in the slow moving math class either. So where will they be? Some will be in band. I am so torn. At one point yesterday we were discussing having two ELA classes too. One in resource and one in co taught. We then decided that they are totally different cirriculums and that didn't really make sense. So it came to a choice, which would we go with? Everyone was looking at me and said, "What do you want to do?" I had the last word. It wasn't even directed at my husband because usually he defaults to me. I am the one more involved with school and he trusts me. It was quiet and all eyes were on me. Not to be dramatic but it was one of those moments, where you are chosing a direction. I welled up with tears a bit (as I am right now) and said, "I want it all." I want him to be with his friends and I want specialized attention. I want him to be in two places at once. Unfortunately most of his friends are probably in the advanced classes, or at least the middle of the road classes. So far I've at least made myself feel like we had it all. We are successful in that one of his two requests was "to be with his kids". Isn't that a success itself? I think it is. But I want it all. I want more.

I am trying to figure out if we can have it all. If we take this year and focus, can he rejoin some of the others next year? Maybe. The resource room is like a classroom, it's not like it's one on one or even five kids. The one I looked in on probably had 15 kids in it. Could this be his chance to bond with new kids? Maybe. I don't know, and unfortunately, I won't know until we are in it. I've been assured things can change if needed. I truly feel we are a team working for his best interest. Why then am I feeling like it's not enough? Something is missing for me right now. I have to sort through it and figure out what it is. I have nine more days. . . .

A Taste of Success

Math. This word can bring smiles to parents of kids on the spectrum, or it can make you cringe. Math doesn't seem to come easy to Daniel, but it is one of two subjects in school that he does not do modified versions of the curriculum. For those of you who aren't familiar, there is accommodated and modified curriculum's. Accommodated means that they are learning the same concepts, and basically doing the same work. There are just some adjustments to help due to their disability. It could be things like getting more time during a test or a few extra days before taking the test. It may be doing half of the number of problems. Things like that. Modified means that they are not doing the same work. Something about the curriculum's requirements are not being met.

For Daniel, writing, social studies, reading, and science are all modified now. Social studies was the first to go. It is too heavily language based for him. Then came, the rest one after another. This started in about 4th grade. He still does spelling, technology (shocking!) and math as accommodated. He is very strong in spelling. Always has been. He constantly asks me how to spell things and it drives me crazy because he KNOWS how to spell it, he just wants ME to spell it. Why, I do not know. He loves the way that letters sound and as I've mentioned he loves letters. I just think he enjoys hearing words spelled out. He'll look at you with anticipation waiting for the letters to spill off of your tongue. If I'm being a good sport, I'll spell it. If I'm not I'll say, "you spell it". Either way. It will get spelled!

But, math. Math has been a lot of work. He learned touch math in elementary school. I would say it wasn't until about 3rd grade that he really started even doing this sort of work. Before then it was all behavior issues. Let's just say he had some catching up to do. We work our tails off for math. It really depends on the unit on how much he learns.

This year is 6th grade. The math that they do was not long ago, 7th grade work. It all gets pushed down further and further. Most of his tests this year have scored in the high 50% range. While that seems low, his wonderful wonderful teachers continue to say, "He's learning more than 50% of the work!!". How's THAT for a positive attitude? They are gems, for certain. My feeling is that he is probably learning even more than that because test taking is not something I would rank very high on his list of achievements. His two report card marking periods thus far have him passing once you put in all of his homework etc. Last year this was really difficult for me. That was the year that "real grades" started in our district. For a perfectionist like myself seeing a D on a report card is a bit jarring. I have, like usual, gotten over it. You just HAVE to. (If you want to keep your sanity that is) I am actually starting to believe the, "look how much he's learning" mantra. I don't know if this sounds like a "bad mom" but I am surprised at how much he HAS learned. I wouldn't have thought it possible.

Now if you've been reading me long enough you have to know that something "happened" right?? Well it did. Last week he had his latest math test. The unit was adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions. It even included algebra of solving equations, with fractions. Guess what he got on the test. Go ahead. A friggin' 91%!!!!!! Can you believe that? I knew he knew this stuff, but 91%? I've felt equally as confident before only to see a 60%. It's amazing. I'm so happy for him! OK, I'm happy for me too. I'm the "math" person in our house. Which in and of itself is funny, because my husband is an engineer. I'm no slouch with math, but he's an engineer. I am just a bit better at breaking it down for Daniel's understanding. I have to admit to you, my dear internet, that the first thing I thought when I saw that score was, "YES! This will help pull up his grade for the whole marking period!" So, maybe, I haven't moved on TOTALLY from dealing with the low grades. I'm entirely proud of all he does achieve and learn. No matter what. I mean that 100%. But oh, it was a sweet sweet moment to see what he had achieved.