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A friend whose child attends a "good" (high-scoring, upper-SES, non-diverse) school had a chid who, in middle second grade, was still a total non-reader. School did not find this a problem. Child and parent did not agree.
I tested him myself: no phonological issues, extremely high verbal aptitude, outstanding vocabulary. Parent read to him, took him to library, bought him books.
Nada.
Just wait, school says. He will read when he is ready.
Ever my cheerful self, I suggested maybe this mystical readiness might materialize around the time Medicaid kicked in. Meanwhile, perhaps we should give "development" just the teeniest push? After all, we don't see many teenagers in diapers, do we? They would probably "naturally" develop continence. Doesn't stop us from toilet-training toddlers.
Following a curriculum wasn't something the mother was confident with. So I suggested the online instructional program Headsprout Early Reading. Kid started it in January. He was at a Kindergarten level. He learned quickly. I told mom, you watch, no one in school will notice. And when they finally do, they will NOT want to know what you are doing. They will take all the credit!
Sure enough, in March he had come up 20 levels on the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) and was at grade level. Mom tried to tell the school about Headsprout (developed on DI and PT principles). Of course, no one was interested -- they said, "Oh, it just finally all 'clicked'." Oh sure. But I felt a warm glow (the more so since I didn't do any of the work!!)
I did do some of the work on a kid at school. I first noticed her when I was on recess supervision duty. She was young for first grade, only five, and unprepossessing in appearance -- Coke-bottle glasses, somewhat clumsy where gross motor movement was concerned, often solitary and engrossed in her own interests. I went up to her on one occasion as she was scrutinizing the ground and putting sticks carefully in some sort of order. "What are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm testing my hypothesis," came the reply. Whoa! I thought. She was in fact putting obstacles in the way of ants and predicting what they would do. But her language got my attention. This is a largely ESL school where "He gots mines" is the normal level of oral expression at age 5. I started to pay attention to this child, who had intriguing ideas, loved to play with words and concepts, socialized well and had lots of friends but happily went her own way as needed. Teachers liked her, but no one thought she was bright. She was on an IEP in third grade -- could not read or write. I was L.A resource teacher that year and manipulated things so she got into my sub rosa Reading Mastery group. Zoom! By Christmas she was in RM V (fourth grade level). The following year, we were pressured to nominate some kids for screening for the Gifted program. Of course teachers insisted we had no gifted students. I nominated Miss Hypothesis Testing. Big flurry -- "You can't nominate her! She had an IEP! She must be LD!"
Nonsense, I said. She is not LD. She is gifted. Wanna put some money on the line? How about $500?
I had no takers. But I did get her tested. Later in the day, I saw the psychologist in the hall. She wore a peculiar expression.
"I've been testing a lot of kids, because there's a push on to find kids in these low-performing schools who qualify for the gifted program (have to be 99th percentile on the WISC). But, the kids nominated at these schools are nowhere even close. Until today -- your little M. is off the charts! Wow! How did you know??"
I had a wicked thought and just said, "It takes one to know one," and sauntered on. But I had that warm glow again -- reactivated recently, when I found out that that same child is now in the first cohort at our new high school gifted program. Later, I did pump the psychologist for information. Would M have qualified for the gifted program if she still had reading and writing skills at a K level in 4th grade?
No, the psych said. She would qualify for an LD class.
I felt like I had just pulled somebody off the Titanic. It's a great feeling, I'll bet waaay more so when it's your own child. These truly are life-changing milestones.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
off the Titanic
from Palisadesk:
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8 comments:
Palisadesk,
I used Headsprout with my kindergartener last year after his teacher said he was in the "low group". This program is wonderful and I highly recommend it to anyone. It was easy for him to use and he enjoyed the characters so much that he asked to do it every day. The one thing his very young teacher kept commenting on is how he couldn't/wouldn't follow directions. Yet, he was able to follow directions from a computer program perfectly and he learned to read.
Thank you for taking your time to help those two students.
A heartwarming story--with one tiny quibble.
"Learning disability" and "gifted" aren't mutually exclusive (and in fact may not be unusual, but data elude me at the moment).
The commonly-used phrase for gifted LD kids is "twice exceptional"
2e Newsletter
Haogies' Gifted Education Page: Twice Exceptional
Letter from Assistant Secretary of the Office for Civil Rights: Access by Students with Disabilities to Accelerated Programs
Unfortunately for the twice expectional, they are most likely the children to fall through the cracks of the system. Some find it hard to conceive that a child can have a learning disability while being cognitively gifted. Despite everything we know about them, misidentification is way too common.
It seems the child in Palisdesk's story, however, benefited more from perceptive intervention and acceleration than what she had been receiving in the LD class. Her phenomenal success is testimony to that.
//Unfortunately for the twice expectional, they are most likely the children to fall through the cracks of the system.//
That's what I was thinking. One kid saved but scores of others subjected to the same idiocy those two were and with no one to save them.
"Nonsense, I said. She is not LD. She is gifted. Wanna put some money on the line? How about $500?"
My nephew is not necessarily gifted, but he had learning issues and was labeled LD when he was young. For his school, this meant very low expectations. My sister and brother-in-law worked very hard with him to fix the problem, and it was a problem, not a condition. He now has a degree in computer science and shows no sign of being learning disabled.
I don't particularly like the idea that the LD label is so quickly (and permanently) applied. For many, it seems like a self-fulfilling diagnosis. If a child does seem to have learning difficulties, the presumption should be that it is a problem and not a condition, and it should mean that the educational expectations increase, not decrease.
My sister didn't sit back and let nature take its course.
Ha ha, I knew Liz would be all over that one. To reassure her (and others), I am well aware that kids can be both "gifted" and "LD" (or various other combinations of exceptionalities). However, that was not the case here, and in my own experience seldom is. That is, the majority of so-called "LD" kids I have encountered in my district are not true instances of "LD" (in this context, which is reading/writing delay, I'll accept the IDA/NICHD definition), but are simply kids who have been failed by the system. I call it "Curriculum Deficit Disorder." Reid Lyon called it "Ain't Been Taught."
In some urban schools you have 30-60 percent of the kids at the end of second grade basically non-readers. Do they all have organic brain impairments?? Gimme a break. And if they do, and I can "fix" it in a couple of weeks or months, what happened to that genetic, neurologically based disease? Hmmmm.
Now there are kids with real learning difficulties, and these occur for multiple reasons and causative factors -- most of which are irrelevant to addressing the problem. However, labeling the child can be an easy way out for school personnel. They don't have to take a serious and critical look at what they are doing and at their instructional practices. The locus of responsibility is perceived to be elsewhere.
Everyone here knows about the Galen Alessi study, right?
Most school psychologists are well aware of something that gets little media coverage -- the fact that IQ goes steadily down in most children who don't learn to read, so that over time they fail to meet the "discrepancy" criteria for LD and no longer qualify for services.RTI is supposed to address this -- we shall see. It hasn't caught on here in a big way, maybe because we probably have few people in the district who know what "research-based" means in any empirical sense.
There are far more "poorly taught" kids out there than there are "learning disabled" kids out there. Not to mention the possibility that poor teaching can actually cause learning disabilities (Shaywitz alludes to this rather pointedly in her lectures, but less openly in print. I do have a cite or two though). Mighton hints at this as well especially in his newer book, The End of Ignorance. My graduate training was in psychometrics and instructional planning, which included identifying and programming for kids with LD. When I did teach an LD program (1980's), I saw all kinds of "CDD" kids as well as a few who really did have learning disabilities. I decided to get out there and try to change things in the mainstream. The problems I see in my district may of course be the exception. I hope so.
I have grave reservations about the wisdom, or even the accuracy, of hypothesizing a congenital brain impairment in a child, absent any medical evidence for such. I will lean to the behaviorist side on this: let's stick to what we can observe, measure and shape. I don't need to consider whether a student has some "brain" difference from birth. I just need to know how to teach that student effectively. Then, since the brain is quite plastic, the "difference" may just disappear!
On that whole question of telling kids they have some brain disorder, I am with Thom Hartmann (if you don't know his work, start here:
ADD:A Different Perception
Above all, LD kids need good instruction -- more intensive, faster paced, engaging on multiple levels, and of higher quality than average. They rarely get it.
Last year or the year before, I was part of a symposium with LD teachers in my district. I was quite frankly shocked by their low level of professional knowledge about effective teaching (it was close to nil). These were super nice people, very committed to helping kids. They were familiar only with fads and unproven "treatments." (The autism in-service my district put on was just as bad. They even had materials presenting facilitated communication as a validated teaching strategy.)The teachers' concept of curriculum was simply to teach the regular stuff at a lower level, slower, with much more repetition and "hands on activities" (coloring, dioramas, etc.). Ogden Lindsley called this "SLOBS" -- Slower, Louder, One thing at a time, Bigger and Simpler. All day long. No wonder kids zone out (so do I).
The definition of LD supposedly precludes students experiencing school failure because of poor instruction -- but in almost every case I know of, that cannot be ruled out as the primary precipitating factor. Low expectations ensue, feeding a negative spiral that may cripple the child for life. It is tough for parents. Should they leave their child in the mainstream or accept a label and "special" services? I guess the answer depends on local conditions. Some schools and districts have excellent programs for LD kids and other children with exceptionalities of varying kinds. It's hard to separate fact from spin. Engelmann's rule of thumb (if I remember right) was to expect a year or better of measurable progress in key areas from a good Sp. Ed. program. "LD" kids can usually learn faster, especially at first, where they are making up for lost time; their rate typically slows as they approach the level of their peers.
One concern for true LD kids here is that the push is all for "accommodations" (extra time, use of adaptive technology, etc.) but none at all on appropriate instruction. This is KEY. It becomes a self-fulfiling prophecy.
Steve's sister has the right idea. Act now.
"The definition of LD supposedly precludes students experiencing school failure because of poor instruction -- but in almost every case I know of, that cannot be ruled out as the primary precipitating factor."
Palisadesk, it's nice to know that there are people like you out there.
I have talked about my two nephews in the past. My other one was diagnosed (?) with ADD or some such thing. My sister-in-law and her husband did what so many parents do. They listened to his school. Expectations were lowered and they constantly looked for some external solution. He saw specialists and over the years was put on various sorts of drugs. Obviously, it didn't take long before he came to truly believe that there was something seriously wrong with him. He didn't graduate from high school. There was something wrong with him.
Having watched him grow up, I can tell that he is a smart kid. In some ways he and his parents know that too, but something is wrong with him. That has translated over all these years into a ready excuse for not trying. He is capable of so much more. Unfortunately, the best his parents can expect is that he stays on his (expensive) medication and goes to his landscaping job enough to keep from getting fired. Maybe someday he will be able to move out of the house and get his own apartment.
Anecdotal? Yes, but add it to the list.
Wow, what an impressive story! (The Palisadesk bit, not how the poor child was failed by the rest of the school). Congratulations Palisadesk!
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