Completing Maps - Socials

[lindsy]

Help
Teacher just announced a socials test next week on mapping of Canada, capitals, regions, borders, etc. They have spent 1 1/2 weeks completing worksheets. DS is in grade 4 and reading, printing, auditory, visual problems (plus language). And i am sure more. No IEP but we are going to start work on it and teacher (so far) has been willing to provide accomodations if I ask.

So...he has to fill in the blanks on a map (small blanks just 'cause its a map) and "answers" are provided at the bottom. The printing alone will fatigue him (I looked at his workbook and can "see" this). Any ideas about what to ask for? I thought maybe he could draw a line from the question to the answer (or point on the map) Might look confusing ?

Any ideas most appreciated!

[wimom]

Would an enlarged map be of help?? 11x17 size or even larger, he could even cut and paste the names on then

I'm going through this with the US states and their names and the state capitals. I feel your pain!!

[sld123]

put letters or #s and match them up

[sisdparent]

www.50states.com (they have world maps as well) might provide some ideas.

[momfromma]

Ask for a list with numbers or letters, and that your son can use the numbers or letters rather than the name to fill the blanks.

This is how my son's social teacher does that and they are in 9th grade!

[jw]

Hi! My son is in 7th grade and they have to learn every country in the world this year! They use a list of the names, and he writes in the number on the map. Writing the entire thing would take him hours!!!

There are some good on-line study tools for learning geography. Here are some links we are using this year:

www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm
www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/index.html
www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/

These really helped ds, who has trouble with rote memorization. Good luck, jw

[bros]

...Wow.

How do they expect every country in the world to be learnt?

That is just... ludicrous. Quite a lot of cramming.

[momfromma]

bros,

my son did that in 7th grade too. They did it continent by continent. The largest map had 100 countries.

My son has a good visual memory and was provided with a word bank, so he did very well, but for the only test he took without the word bank, he did poorly.

[bros]

We didn't learn anything in history. Never learned about maps or geography either (and this was regular history class). All we were told was that mexico was down and canada was up.

In like.. 9th grade, we had to do a map of south africa. That was it.

[wimom]

great websites! thanks.

[lindsy]

Thanks for your great ideas! I have to admit I am grateful that Canada has less provinces that you have states - its about the only "break" I've had this week!

Spoke with ds teacher and reiterated my concern about having to print all this information...and a light bulb went off! She said that all she wanted to do was test his knowledge, not his writing! Several of ds friends are in similar straits about this test so she will provide a word bank that can be cut up (ahead of time) and pasted on the map. I can bring her some other ideas as well - I really liked the a.b.c. lableling of the list!

You gals (and guys!!) rock.

[michellea]

My son's LD school tested the kids orally on the states and capitals. Even though they did it region by region, (not the entire country at once), writing would have made the task impossible for my son and most of his peers.

If your child has any word retrieval issues or memory issues, I agree that a word bank is very helpful.

[lindsy]

Well, we've tried cutting out the names, and sorting, by ocean, province, contintent, capitals etc. and then placing them on the make. It works...it's abit tricky 'cause with fine motor schools on a small desk...just tricky stuff doesn't get lost. Tried to this of alphabetizing names, but that seems abit cumbersome.

checked with most of ds friends - they are struggling - seems as the work was "filling" in workshoots...not really working with learning the knowledge...apparently that happens during my weekend!

thanks for your ideas. I'm trying to build context behind places to be labelled (ie Australia is where your friend went; there are kangaroos) and it seems to help with his poor memory.

I'm thinking he could color code his wordbank according to category and before his cuts them out...too many itmes to handle.

ramblin...i'm tired...

[invisibleink]

Good morning!

I’m resurrecting this thread because my son is learning world geography this year in 6th grade. He is diagnosed with ADHD, developmental vision problems, and documented weaknesses in fine motor integration, design memory / copy / recall, and some visual perceptual issues with spatial relations and figure ground. Most glaringly, his WRAML score for story memory was 95%, design memory was 9%.

He struggled immensely in grade 4 in learning states / capitals. He quickly learned matching the names of states with the capitals, but could not retrieve the same information when given the shape of the state. Teacher thought that lots of repitition would help, but it didn’t. We ended up having to play games at home that incorporated lots of language, and the shapes were eventually “learned” with context. At first his grade that quarter was an F, but improved to a D-.

I am not sure if this will work this year. It required hours and hours of time outside of school and his homework load is currently 2 hours a night and over weekends—which is really stressing him out already!

His 504 meeting is this week—any Ideas on accommodations or how to get more help with this? Already denied Special Ed because of “effective progress”.

Thanks!

[bros]

Nov 12, 2017 9:05:51 GMT -5 invisibleink said:

Good morning!

I’m resurrecting this thread because my son is learning world geography this year in 6th grade. He is diagnosed with ADHD, developmental vision problems, and documented weaknesses in fine motor integration, design memory / copy / recall, and some visual perceptual issues with spatial relations and figure ground. Most glaringly, his WRAML score for story memory was 95%, design memory was 9%.

He struggled immensely in grade 4 in learning states / capitals. He quickly learned matching the names of states with the capitals, but could not retrieve the same information when given the shape of the state. Teacher thought that lots of repitition would help, but it didn’t. We ended up having to play games at home that incorporated lots of language, and the shapes were eventually “learned” with context. At first his grade that quarter was an F, but improved to a D-.

I am not sure if this will work this year. It required hours and hours of time outside of school and his homework load is currently 2 hours a night and over weekends—which is really stressing him out already!

His 504 meeting is this week—any Ideas on accommodations or how to get more help with this? Already denied Special Ed because of “effective progress”.

Thanks!

He can't be denied IDEA due to grades

[invisibleink]

Hi Bros,

Thanks for weighing in—you’ve had such helpful advice in the past!

Apparently grades played a big part in their decision. While they “considered” my input and outside evaluation data, their refusal was on the basis of grades, achievement scores, and teacher reports. No data from outside the district (independent OT evaluation, neuropsych eval, developmental optometry report, my observations) was cited as the basis for refusal.

In fact, their documentation specifically directs teachers to look at the school OT report for more details—almost directing them away from the independent OT evaluation. The independent evaluation showed significant issues with fine motor integration, visual perception, tracking, convergence, visual motor speed, core stability, sensory processing, and with the organization of his handwriting. The school report called all of this “adequate” except for “slight” weakness in visual perception and fine motor integration.

Latest 504 plan removed all references to his superior verbal iq and non-verbal weaknesses, and calls him uniformly “average” (he’s not—he’s a strengths & weaknesses kid) They did not check off “seeing” as major life function affected by disabilities—even though the team agreed this should be added, and it qualifies as a visual impairment. In their eyes, my son is simply “another ADHD kid” (along with the unspoken “who needs to be medicated”) I refused to sign their latest 504 plan, and disagreed with the Special Ed determination last year.

At least this year one teacher acknowledged his organizational weaknesses on his report card. Last year’s teacher simply “hoped he would figure out how to pack his bag with what he needs during 6th grade”—even though I asked her for assistance multiple times and was providing support on my end at home, and he was still struggling. That teacher KNEW of the organizational difficulties and did not even mention it in her comments to the child study team. When I “reminded” her she said “many” kids have that difficulty. I thought that meeting was about MY kid—HA!

Sorry for the rant.

[healthy11]

invisibleink, I don't have ADHD or LDs myself, and I still have difficulty with world geography, especially when it comes to Africa and Asia. When my son's class was learning about world geography, his teacher combined the geography lesson plan with writing and language arts, such that each student was assigned a country, and had to do a "research report" and presentation to the rest of the class about the place. I'm not sure how much my son retained about other countries, but he still knows quite a bit about Madagascar, which was his in-depth assignment!

Do you know what your son's teacher's expectation is on the topic? (ie, again identifying capitals and naming countries based on their shape on a map, or something else?) Will they be covering one continent at a time? Depending on what they'll be graded on, you might request that he be provided with "word banks" rather than having to pull each name (countries, capitals) from memory, so he can instead use his limited recall to concentrate on their shapes/locations within each continent, etc. I'm also wondering if he might be able to practice and possibly take tests on a computer, using resources like www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm

[invisibleink]

Hi Healthy,

Thanks for weighing in! They appear to be working by continent / region. Right now they are being asked to identify and countries, capitals, major cities, and oceans / seas on a map. The first quiz will be numbered matching with a word bank. My son says that they don’t work on the maps in class—they watch travel videos (which are helpful in providing some verbal context). I am waiting to hear back on whether the word banks will be phased out later—I don’t think he will be able to do it without one.

I’d ask if word banks can be added to the 504, but it probably wouldn’t matter if it was there. The accommodations are regarded as merely loose guidelines. My son had to hand write a 7 paragraph essay draft even though he has a typing accommodation.

I do like the writing assignment or project idea—maybe they need to study the other regions before doing that.

[bros]

Nov 12, 2017 13:45:39 GMT -5 invisibleink said:

Hi Bros,

Thanks for weighing in—you’ve had such helpful advice in the past!

Apparently grades played a big part in their decision. While they “considered” my input and outside evaluation data, their refusal was on the basis of grades, achievement scores, and teacher reports. No data from outside the district (independent OT evaluation, neuropsych eval, developmental optometry report, my observations) was cited as the basis for refusal.

In fact, their documentation specifically directs teachers to look at the school OT report for more details—almost directing them away from the independent OT evaluation. The independent evaluation showed significant issues with fine motor integration, visual perception, tracking, convergence, visual motor speed, core stability, sensory processing, and with the organization of his handwriting. The school report called all of this “adequate” except for “slight” weakness in visual perception and fine motor integration.

Latest 504 plan removed all references to his superior verbal iq and non-verbal weaknesses, and calls him uniformly “average” (he’s not—he’s a strengths & weaknesses kid) They did not check off “seeing” as major life function affected by disabilities—even though the team agreed this should be added, and it qualifies as a visual impairment. In their eyes, my son is simply “another ADHD kid” (along with the unspoken “who needs to be medicated”) I refused to sign their latest 504 plan, and disagreed with the Special Ed determination last year.

At least this year one teacher acknowledged his organizational weaknesses on his report card. Last year’s teacher simply “hoped he would figure out how to pack his bag with what he needs during 6th grade”—even though I asked her for assistance multiple times and was providing support on my end at home, and he was still struggling. That teacher KNEW of the organizational difficulties and did not even mention it in her comments to the child study team. When I “reminded” her she said “many” kids have that difficulty. I thought that meeting was about MY kid—HA!

Sorry for the rant.

With the outside evaluation, did they pay for it (an IEE), or did you pay for it (or your insurance)? Since with the latter, that is all they have to do, they do not have to factor in a single thing they get. Them changing the 504 so drastically sounds like they think he would qualify for an IEP if it weren't for their gatekeeping

[invisibleink]

Hi bros,

The outside OT evaluation was paid for by the district. They quickly snubbed the independent eval—it didn’t matter what the report said, or who paid for it, as long as the grades and achievement tests were average. They then commented how how OT is hard to schedule in middle school and that he’d miss gym class for it.

I don’t think anybody believes he qualifies for an IEP. They think whatever services my son may need should be addressed outside of school.

I think they removed the significant discrepancy language for another reason. He has a superior verbal IQ, and a 22 pt discrepancy between that IQ and his reading comprehension / written expression. If they defer to a FSIQ (which was average) that gap closes drastically, and he has to drop that much farther before they consider it a problem.

[bros]

Discrepancy model was used for a while as the sole determining factor as to whether or not a kid can get an IEP, it isn't allowed to be used as the only thing anymore, but it does indicate issues.

Also, oh no, not missing GYM CLASS! That's the perfect time to have OT.

[kewpie]

>The outside OT evaluation was paid for by the district. They quickly snubbed the independent eval—it didn’t matter what the report said, or who paid for it, as long as the grades and achievement tests were average.<

This is EXACTLY the reason I started recording IEPs. Taking those types of remarks and putting their comments in writing show that the process was not legally conducted. If you can write them some sort of email or letter and ask for them to outline their reasons, (state you still don't have a clear understanding of the decision making process) they may replicate them in writing if you are lucky.


> They then commented how how OT is hard to schedule in middle school and that he’d miss gym class for it.<
Point out that he needs OT for academic success and that they can offer him an extended school day so he can get all his needs met. They HATE hearing that and will usually give you the OT even if he does miss gym class. You can always point out that he can get his exercise after school under your supervision.

[invisibleink]

Hi kewpie,

The child study team (minus myself) met for 10 minutes before I was allowed to come into the meeting last spring. I am fairly confident they formed their united front and made their decision before I entered the room.

The quote I heard repeatedly was "we have no DATA to support that he is not making effective progress." I have in writing their list of the "data" they used to find him ineligible (it was all from the district). I even provided emails from teachers documenting issues that weren't reported to the child study team. They didn't take that into account--I guess that wasn't "DATA" either. I showed them a list of all evaluation data points to date, which highlighted all data points below the 25% (virtually all in visual related areas). Since I was the one that compiled the list, they snubbed that too.

At his latest 504 meeting, his teachers reported that he was having difficulty being prepared for class. So, I asked if they could begin taking data on how often he comes to class prepared so we can see how often it's happening and in which classes.

I received a reply along the lines of "we'll be in touch after implementing his new accommodations" Snub--with a smile!

I also asked for a copy of the teacher's feedback notes for the meeting. I'd be really surprised if I ever receive them--but they gladly took a copy of my notes for themselves. I will be notifying them that I will be voice recording the meetings going forward.

Don't get me wrong--I in no way believe that my son is a profoundly disabled person that is obviously being denied services. I do believe he qualifies for services, though, if you actually look at all of the information.

Of course, now that he's in middle school I'm slowly being "edged out" because he should advocate for himself, etc etc etc. Which I agree with, but not if it's just another way for them to dodge having real accountability.

[bros]

I'm pretty sure the team meeting without the parent is illegal.