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Post by majorv on Jul 28, 2010 12:37:03 GMT -5
Funny, but I was just reading my ARD guide the other day about timelines. From the time you consent to test - our district had to have my signature on their consent form in order to start the process - they have 60 calendar days to get the testing done. They have another 30 calendar days to set up an ARD meeting to review eligibility. Summer break doesn't count. Here's a link to the ARD Guide and Procedural Safeguards - framework.esc18.net/Here is a graphic of the timelines - ritter.tea.state.tx.us/special.ed/rules/pdf/timeline.pdf
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Post by dhfl143 on Jul 28, 2010 22:26:55 GMT -5
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Post by majorv on Jul 31, 2010 21:43:15 GMT -5
Done!
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Post by jmt91277 on Oct 26, 2010 19:13:40 GMT -5
Oh success at last! He has been diagnosed now a a child with Dyslexia and Learning Disabled in Reading Fluency. Here are the scores for all tests that they agreed to:
OT Eval:
Beery VMI Raw Score: 28 Standard Score: 126 Scaled Score: 15 Percentile: 96% Age Equiv: 14.10 Performance: High
Visual Perception Raw Score: 27 Standard Score: 112 Scaled Score: 12 Percentile: 79% Age Equiv: 12.10 Performance: Aboce Average
Motor Coordination Raw Score: 24 Standard Score: 96 Scaled Score: 9 Percentile: 39% Age Equiv: 9.2 Performance: Average
Bascially he didn't qualify for OT Therapy but she did state that he needs significant help in spelling and his spacing could really use some help as well. The final outcome was that he needs to be provided a netbook or word processor to type verse write.
GORT-4
Rate: Standard Score: 5, Percentile: 5, Age Equiv: 7.6 Accuracy: Standard Score: 5, Percentile: 5, Age Equiv: 7.3 Fluency: Standard Score: 4, Percentile: 2, Age Equiv: 7.3 Comprehension: Standard Score: 8, Percentile: 25, Age Equiv: 8.6 Oral Reading Quotient: Standard Score: 76, Percentile: 5
CTOPP - Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing
Ellision: Standard Score: 13, Percentile: 84, Age Equiv: 14.9 Blending Words: Standard Score: 10, Percentile: 50, Age Equiv: 12.6 Memory for Digits: Standard Score: 13, Percentile: 84, Age Equiv: 14.9 Rapid Digit Naming: Standard Score: 5, Percentile: 5, Age Equiv: 6.9 Non-Word Repetition: Standard Score: 12, Percentile: 75, Age Equiv: 14.9 Rapid Letter Naming: Standard Score: 5, Percentile: 5, Age Equiv: 6.9
Compostite Scores (Not sure what this is)
Phonological Awareness: Standard Score: 109, Percentile: 73 Phonological Memory: Standard Score: 115, Percentile: 84 Rapid Naming: Standard Score: 70, Percentile: 2
WIAT-III
Composite Results:
Total Reading: Standard Score: 89, Percentile Rank: 23 Basic Reading: Standard Score: 94, Percentile Rank: 34 Reading Fluency & Comprehension: Standard Score: 88, Percentile Rank: 21 Written Expression: Standard Score: 91, Percentile Rank: 27
WIAT-III Subtest Results:
Reading Comprehension: Standard Score: 106, Percentile: 66, Age Equiv: 12.0 Sentence Composition: Standard Score: 103, Percentile: 58, Age Equiv: 13.10 Word Reading: Standard Score: 88, Percentile: 21, Age Equiv: 8.4 Essay Composition: Standard Score: 93, Percentile: 33, Age Equiv: 8.8 Pseudoword Decoding: Standard Score: 102, Percentile: 55, Age Equiv: 10.0 Oral Expression: Standard Score: 110, Percentile: 75, Age Equiv: 12.7 Oral Reading Fluency: Standard Score: 76, Percentile: 5, Age Equiv: 7.4 Spelling: Standard Score: 86, Percentile: 18, Age Equiv: 8.4
I am so sorry that was so much information but I really could use help translating what this means. They went over most of it but I am having a hard time understanding their plan of action.
Basically, they are having him leave the general ed classroom for 20 minutes a day to do the following:
Review Dolch words until knows all words up to his grade level Read a passage and highlight words that he got wrong, discuss it and then try again the next day.
They did mention that the LA teacher will work on Choral Reading, Repeated Reading and a few other things. I really don't think that this is enough to get him up to the level he needs to be. I told them that I want his Reading Fluency to get up to at least 3rd grade level and his spelling to get up to 3rd or 4th. Their plan of action sounds pretty weak to me though and I am growing very tired of this merry go round. Anyone have any advice as to what I could request them to do to get my son up to the levels he needs to be at?
Thanks to all for any help you have offered! It has been very helpful and our first hurdle is completed:)
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Post by jmt91277 on Oct 26, 2010 19:15:12 GMT -5
I should mention that he is now a 5th grader and is 10.4 yo
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Post by momfromma on Oct 26, 2010 20:16:20 GMT -5
I am going to let somebody more versed than I am with these types of problems give solutions, but, with these scores, it is clear your son has great difficulty reading that are not going to be solved by 20 mn a day. All scores in the Gort are low (reading comprehension is somewhat higher, probably because he is able to answer some questions without really being able to read the text), but he reads less well than 95 % of children his grade. This should be a huge RED flag. Also, and some may be able to answer better than I can, he seems fine with phonological processing with the exception of Rapid Naming. Here is a link about rapid naminga nd reading: www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/wolf.htm
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Post by michellea on Oct 26, 2010 20:19:25 GMT -5
It appears that his phonological awareness is a strength and even his basic decoding is fairly solid (pseudo word decoding 102). His reading difficulties seem to step from his very low rapid naming abilities which slow down his automaticity. Hence, very low fluency (gort 4, WiAT oral reading fluency 76).
Becoming automatic with Dolch words and phrases is one strategy to increase fluency, but the most widely used methodology is repeated oral readings of text at or below the student's independent reading level. Read Naturally and Great Leaps are two widely used programs. I'm afraid that given your child's low rapid naming abilities, a haphazard program of Choral reading most likely would not be enough.
What are they doing to increase spelling? What were the patterns of weakness in his spelling? If he is not using word patterns, an OG based reading/spelling program would help with this more than sight words. Close to 85% of English follows predictable patterns. It is generally more fruitful to learn the rules, rather than to learn each and every word! It would be more productive to give him a program such as Wilson at least 3 times a week to work on spelling, reinforce reading. And then to add 3-4 days (at least) of a fluency program such as Read Naturally and focus on Dolch words. He He can get more practice with Choral reading of trade books in the general ed classroom on a daily basis.
The rapid naming deficit is a tough one to crack. I think he would do much better with a more intensive and structured program than what they are offering. His fluency is very low - they have a lot of ground to make up!
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Post by healthy11 on Oct 26, 2010 21:10:49 GMT -5
For what it's worth, my own son's GORT scores for rate, accuracy, and fluency are extremely low, however his comprehension is actually above average. My son's spelling is lousy, despite years of Orton Gillingham tutoring, but when allowed to keyboard instead of writing by hand, where the program identifies misspelled words, he can usually pick out the correct spelling when shown a "word bank." (In other words, if he enters a sentence and spells "believe" as "beleev" and then is offered choices like beleaguer or bleed or believe, he can figure out the proper one to use.) I should point out my son is now in college.
I realize my son is older than yours, but my point is that I would put a lot less emphasis on improving your son's spelling, than on improving his reading. Many more assistive technology programs exist to help with his getting thoughts out, but being able to read independently and expanding his vocabulary/comprehension is much more important, if you ask me. I'm not familiar with the individual programs that your son's school proposes to use, but I agree with above posters who feel that 20 minutes/day is probably just going to "scratch the surface" of what he needs. He's bright, but it will probably still take considerable time and effort for him to get to grade level. (On the other hand, you may still need to give the school an opportunity to try their methodologies before they're willing to try other approaches, but I'd be sure to ask for frequent measurements of his progress, and don't hesitate to request revisions to his IEP if he's not making gains.)
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Post by empeg1 on Oct 27, 2010 0:17:28 GMT -5
Healthy, When my oldest dd was in school her GORT scores always showed very poor fluency (@ 2%), low to to low average accuracy and good comprehension. Huh? The scores on other tests told the story. She was extremely bright with excellent ability oral language. She used both of the above and context to understand what she could not read.
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Post by michellea on Oct 27, 2010 9:10:48 GMT -5
empeg - my son's scores are the same. And, his rapid naming scores are very low too. I don't see fluency improving tremendously, but I know that we at least gave it a real effort and continue instruction so that he maintains the skill level he has achieved - we can't let it decline!
Healthy - since JMT's son is still in 5th grade, I believe that some time and effort should be spent improving his spelling skills. My son spells at least 80% of his words incorrectly the first time through. Although spell check can help, it is time consuming and is not fool proof. If the word is not close enough - he does not get good choices. If he can't read and recognize the correct choice, spell check is ineffective. While OG does not insure proper spelling of all or even most words, if the student becomes accustomed to using proper word patterns (from OG), they have a better chance of spelling more words correctly the first time through and the incorrect words are close enough to make spell check worthwhile. Most importantly, encoding and decoding are linked and should be taught together. If the child cannot decode unknown, multisyllabic words, they will not be able to access higher level text. At some point, background knowledge, good vocabulary and verbal reasoning skills cannot compensate for poor decoding.
Given the relatively young age of the student, I would put a heavy push on building the foundational reading skills needed for MS and beyond. And like you said, 20 minutes per day scratches the surface. Especially since the issue seems to be rapid naming which is very difficult to remediate.
And - Healthy is right - at some point the focus needs to expand to technology and learning how to use word-processing as a tool for writing and spelling. IMO - this should start no later than 6th grade.
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Post by healthy11 on Oct 27, 2010 10:50:09 GMT -5
For what it's worth, my son saw his Orton-Gillingham tutor from 3rd through 6th grade, and while I wish his spelling improvements had been more dramatic, I'm sure there were still some benefits. I don't mean to say that no effort should be made, but jmt91277 said that she "told them that I want his Reading Fluency to get up to at least 3rd grade level and his spelling to get up to 3rd or 4th." Given the two, I would rather emphasize greater reading improvement.
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Post by michellea on Oct 27, 2010 11:09:48 GMT -5
Healthy - were on the same page!
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Post by jmt91277 on Apr 18, 2011 16:18:12 GMT -5
Ok, well it is getting closer to the end of the year and we have made some progress. His WPM have gone from 49 to 79. They are going to be doing some testing so that I can see some objective measurement of his progress. He remained at 20 minutes per day and progressed as much as that time limit would allow. They mentioned that a program that was more around 45-60 minutes long would be more effective but that there is just no time in the day. He will be in middle school next year and they say he would have to give up his elective classes in order to receive the 45-60 minutes of reading fluency focus. This seem a bit harsh and I am wondering if it is ok for them to request he give up his elective classes. I have made the suggestion that they provide assistance after school. We had to stop the ARD meeting and are set to meet again on Wednesday. Is this too much for me to ask? You would think I asked them to stop time or something. I feel that it is their responsibility to get his reading fluency up to at least a 4th grade level by next year. Right now he is barely at 3rd grade level.
His principal decided to give me a call today to let me know that he received his TEKS test scores today. TEKS is a standardized test given to children in Texas that is used to promote children to the next grade level (in some grades not all). He wanted to inform me that he feels my son is right on par with his progress and that Joseph received “Commended” scores on both his reading and math TEKS. He is given a “Dyslexia/Modified” TEKS. It has bigger letters, more time to test and fewer questions. I am very proud of his accomplishment and will celebrate it with him but I am not understanding the correlation between reading testing and reading fluency. He is given more time to read and these tests are looking for comprehension. Not to mention the material that he needs to read is far less than what he may be required to read for a research project. His cognitive abilities scores clearly show that his abilities are higher than most. Am I wrong in thinking that the modified testing environment helped him achieve these high scores?
My main goal for next year is to raise the IEP goals to get him closer to his grade level in reading fluency and spelling, obtain after school instruction and monitor his success in middle school very closely since this will be a completely different environment. Everything is good except the after school instruction. They say that this might not be possible and I am wanting to find out if this something anyone on this board has requested and received and if so how. Any advice as always would be great!
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 18, 2011 20:58:40 GMT -5
"Am I wrong in thinking that the modified testing environment helped him achieve these high scores?" Unfortunately, no, I don't think your assumption is wrong.
I wish we had more Millermom members who were from Texas, who could speak from experience about the Modified TEKS testing... Do you feel as if your son's case manager is "an ally?" If so, I'm wondering is whether you can casually "sound him out" about what happens as the kids move into the upper grades? In other words, do kids on IEPs always take the simpler modified state tests? (Conversely, I recall some parents in the past being mortified at the thought that their kids might not be allowed to move to the next grade, because they didn't do well enough on the TAKS/TEKS testing. Those parents wished their children had been allowed to take modified tests...)
As far as your question about giving up middle school electives in order to receive additional instruction, I know that dilemma has been brought up before, too. Practically speaking, most schools don't seem to have provisions in their teacher contracts that make it easy to provide routine after-hour instruction. Will your son have a study hall period in his middle school schedule? Often that's a good time for additional assistance...some kids even give up part of their lunch period... I guess I'm wondering what types of electives your son would be missing? In some middle schools, they teach foreign language, but for a student with dyslexia who is still struggling with English, it would seem to be better not to take those courses, anyway.
Hopefully, some of our TX members will see your post and be able to offer more insights.
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Post by jmt91277 on Apr 21, 2011 12:45:31 GMT -5
Well it looks like they are out for blood this time around! I had my first anger outburst at an ARD meeting yesterday. It wasn¡¦t anything seriously overboard but I let my emotions show and they pounced like any animal would. They caught me off guard by setting up an ARD meeting via phone to tie up some loose ends. They called me 20 minutes late. Well actually they didn¡¦t call me I had to call them. They pretty much led me right into their trap and when I noticed it I was irritated to say the least. They rejected the after school instructional help and then took the knife a twisted it and said they are removing services that they don¡¦t feel are appropriate. And when the comment was made that by next year my son may not qualify for special education assistance I snapped. I didn¡¦t yell but I interrupted and told her firmly that this was absurd and that I completely disagreed. The findings they used were the TAKS tests, the IEP goal evaluation and his A/B honor roll this year. The IEP goals that really upset me were the writing samples that they rated at 100%. Quick overview of his normal samples: No spacing, out of margins, no capitalization and punctuation¡K.. At the first ARD meeting I showed them his homework from the night before and said ¡§How would you rate this sample¡¨ and she responded by telling me that it would not be rated at 100%....um yeah ya think! The way they rated their progress on IEP goals is completely subjective! And as far as his scores and grades go¡K..they are better because we provide all these extra accommodations! AARRRGGGGG I stopped myself before I started yelling and said ¡§You know what we obviously don¡¦t see eye to eye and I need to get into work now since you called me so late. We will need to postpone this to another day¡¨. Well last night they sent home the ¡§completed¡¨ ARD paperwork. I am just aside myself today. I was up half the night so angry, frustrated and crying. I just feel like giving up because I feel like I am fighting a losing battle at this point. They obviously get to do whatever they want and I never get a say in it either way. Of course I am just venting and will not give up but I am lost right now. I would much rather stomp around at work and home than do anymore research lol ƒº
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Post by hsmom on Apr 21, 2011 14:09:47 GMT -5
(((HUGS))) I know that you said that you don't want to do any research right now and I understand. However, when you have the time, you may want to read the following: framework.esc18.net/Docs/ARD_Guide_MAR_2010_English.pdfIt is the ARD Guide for Texas; you may be especially interested in page 10, the section on statewide assessment. Also, when my son was going from elementary school to middle school, we had what was called a "transition meeting" where the team from the elementary school and the team from the middle school met with us to discuss my son's continued eligibility and develop an IEP for middle school. Will such a meeting be occurring in your son's case?
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Post by healthy11 on Apr 21, 2011 21:01:56 GMT -5
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Post by hsmom on Apr 23, 2011 23:28:09 GMT -5
Healthy, Empeg, and Michellea,
Very interesting. My son, too, scored very low on GORT. So low that the neuropsych who was conducting the evaluation gave him the Reading Fluency Subtest of WJ-III Achievement. He scored much higher on this test and her conclusion was that my son's fluency varied depending on the Font Size of the text. She showed me the two texts, the printing on the GORT is much smaller than the one on WJ-III, making it much harder to read.
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