School Report Cards Time is Here!

In just a few weeks, teachers will be conducting Parent/Teacher conferences, right before Thanksgiving Break.

My local district utilizes a scoring platform called MAPS which provides some general information on what percentile the student fall at compared to others in their grade. It is not a particularily detailed report, and when the student takes the test, it is on a computer, at their own pace. Which means they can move pretty fast through it, checking random boxes as they go.

I don't mean to be a Debbie downer. But I always have a bit of a sinking feeling at report card time. I will start to get calls from confused and disgruntled parents of children that are not learning to read and spell.

There are lots of 3's and 4's.....simultaneously co-existing with 1's and 2's in the section where phonological abilities are recorded.

An unexpected difficulty.

Public school are not ones to proclaim any sort of result that may use the word dyslexia. They are often instructed NOT to use this word, despite the fact that there are 5 or 6 children in a 30-student classroom that quietly struggle. In a school with 10 or 12 classrooms of 25-30 kids...that could be approximately 60 kids that aren't understanding how to read.

It is absolutely NOT the teacher's faults. Believe me, I was at one time married to a 6th grade teacher, and I witnessed just how amazingly hard they work. Their patience and dedication to teaching our youth are most often stellar, dedicated. Their job is not easy and they wear many-a-hat, often for a somewhat skinny paycheck.

Yes...they get summers off...but they need it! Some don't even take sick days. Some have no additional classroom support.

If a child qualifies for getting reading assistance, they are pulled out of the classroom to work with 4 or 5 other children who are in the same boat with often one reading interventionist. I have been in a position such as this, and have witnessed not much progress made. It is what inspired me to investigate the topic of dyslexia. Things just weren't working!

This intervention is often NOT what the dyslexic child needs. The curriculum can have the word "phonics" in the title, yet rely on memorizing (which dyslexic folks are NOT good at). Multiplication tables? Yes, struggles are showing up there, too. They don't get the repetition needed (4 - 200 times) to orthographically map words in their head.

No stories connecting spelling rules to words and letters using visual memory.

And, furthermore...despite an IEP stating that a child shall get 25 hours per week of intense remediation services... they really only get 20 minutes twice per week. Not because of negligence...but providing that kind of time is impossible due to there only being a few reading specialist staff to provide services to ALL the kids that need it.

Parents attempt to acheive an IEP for their child and get turned down. Sometimes dyslexic kids will have created their own workaround to problems (accommodations if you will). So the struggles are downplayed and continue in a stealth fashion..and more time is lost.

Or it is deemed that present conditions are already low...low IQ, low working memory and thus not much hope for progress. No IEP granted.

And if they are in third grade, this is the last year of learning to read, and from here on out they are expected to read to learn. Audio books and spell checker along with other tech will replace their ability to read, to spell, to write. You see where this is going.

We would like to think that our children are getting what they need. We trust the system to be "doing their best" to efficiently educate our kids. Instead, our reading scores here in our country are proving to be generally very low, especially for our challenged learners. The public format of schooling can work beautifully for our kids that are "typical learners."

It takes parents getting educated, asking question, being the advocate. Know your rights enough to know where the perimeters are. And be pre-emptive if you need to. Read the book "Overcoming Dyslexia" by Sally and Bennett Shaywitz. Ask all of the questions.

Know when to find help for your child outside the system. Their success in life might depend on it!