Query to home schoolers

[ciroccoj]

... non-home schoolers, feel free to chime in as well.

OK, so, Justin's memory is beyond terrible; it's scary. He's very bright and learns quickly, but knowledge doesn't stick. If it's food-related, or something procedural, he's fine, but names, dates, vocabulary, spelling, etc? Nada. Sometimes it feels like trying to glue a post-it note to a dolphin.

So we've tried all sorts of things - teaching him in different ways, adjusting curriculum so it's more relevant to him, compensating for memory loss... to not a lot of success.

We had him psych tested, to see if there was some learning disability. Testing came back Non-Verbal Learning Disability, same as Daniel, but less pronounced, and showed that he has an abysmal memory.

The psych recommended "increased repetition" to deal with that.

You know, there's only so many years you can spend repeating the days of the week in French and seeing that the kid forgets them after a week without practicing them, before you think, "There's got to be something better than this."

So I sent an e-mail to the folks who worked with Daniel, who had given us very useful advice on how to deal with his educational difficulties. Gave them some info about us, and asked about memory issues.

Got back a reply almost immediately. "We'd need more information," it said. "Such as your child's age, grade level, educational history, [insert long list here]."

Sent all they asked for. Told them he was home schooled, but would be in grade 4 in public school.

And waited.

Waited rather a long time. Nudged them a couple of times. Finally received the following reply:

===================
Hi Mrs. B.

Sorry not to have replied sooner, I am just back from extensive travelling over the past couple of months.

Given that your son is home-schooled, it is harder for you to access appropriate services. He should really be taught by someone who has special education certification. What area do you live? And I'm not sure how old he is? Was there any diagnosis made by the psychologist who did the assessment? If he has any kind of learning disability, then simple repetition will not be effective. Have you considered enrolling him with an organization like Kumon or a tutoring organization? Is there any particular reason why you are home-schooling him? Do you have any plans to place him back in the regular system and if so at what point?

There is little doubt that it is highly frustrating trying to be a good parent and an effective teacher of academics to a child who is struggling, since there may be all kinds of other issues at work (e.g., passive resistance, unclear boundaries between school time and "kid" time, some need to keep you highly engaged with him, etc. - can't say exactly what because I don't know the situation). Academically, he really does seem to me to need some special education support. It is not as simple as making a couple of suggestions that might help you, I'm afraid.

M. M.
===================

Any thoughts?


ETA: Damn, I worded this completely wrong. I didn't intend to ask for thoughts on how to get Justin to memorize things better - though suggestions are very welcome! I meant to ask for people's thoughts/reactions to the e-mail I got from the psychologist.

Comments

[lizzie-omalley.livejournal.com]

Speaking as an american educator, I don't have much that is positive to say about special education system in the school systems. The people want to do good work but it is warehouse education and there isn't as much individualized attention as could be desired. The focus is on mainstreaming kids into a standardized class. As much as I would like to do well by my special ed kids, I don't have the training, skills, or time to do the job properly. It troubles me a lot.

It might be a good thing to see if you can find someone who does special education assessment on a consulting basis and see if you can get some answers. The local education colleges might be a place to start to find out if there are such consultants in the area.

I hope you find some answers.

[naatz.livejournal.com]

Can't help with the big problems, but I'm a big fan of the Anki flashcards program. I think you should get it for him and play around with the interval settings to make 'facts' come more often.

|Meduza|

Memory issues

[(Anonymous)]

What about making a progressive list where you learn two new words (or concepts) every day. Every day, you review the previous list and then add the two new words. My husband was taught in University that you should re-read your class notes each day for 5 minutes. Start with the first day's notes and quickly run through all the notes until you get to the present day's set. By the time you hit the exam, you hardly have to study because at least 50% of the content has been touched daily for a while....We are having the same issue with times tables though...it was great last summer when we would review every day, but unless it is consistently used, it does not stick. Once we hit a few weeks of geometry or measuring, all concepts of tables are quickly wiped off the memory!!

Re: Memory issues

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips. I really appreciate the ideas. Unfortunately I've tried something very similar to this: read a book write down the words you didn't know, then study them before reading the same book every single day for two weeks, concentrating each day on a set of five words. We did it for French and Spanish vocabulary. It works, and he's very proud of himself for really getting vocabulary, and reading a book all the way through with ease.

And then we look at the book two or three weeks later, and it's almost as if he's never seen it, or his vocabulary words, before. We get retention of maybe five to ten words, and even those are generally gone a month later :(

[navhelowife.livejournal.com]

Here's a couple tricks that might work.
Have him study things using more than one sense. For spelling words, vocab, etc...have him write them with his finger in shaving cream, licorice whips, build them out of scrabble tiles, write with sidewalk chalk, stand on one foot to learn them, turn them into a kada (SP?) - the karate routines - Punch (Say word) Kick (say meaning) Punch (Say word) kick ( say meaning) SING them...USe large motor skills (Get a HUGE piece of paper to have him write out words and illustrate them with LARGE, sweeping motions)
You don't need to be a special ed teacher, but you might benefit from just some special ed tools that are used.
Does he draw? Try painting the words, or whatever, into a painting.
Tape a card to the bathroom mirror or inside the door with his words and their meanings.

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

These are great ideas. Thank you :)

Unfortunately, other than the martial arts routine, I've pretty much tried all of these. And they work, for about a week after doing them, but they don't stick :(

[navhelowife.livejournal.com]

The reply you got from the psych? Not so helpful. Being told that you really need an expert to take over is not needed. You don't need an expert, you just need tools. They don't seem very well versed in homeschooling, either.
I don't know if this will be helpful:
http://www.ldonline.org/article/Developing_an_Educational_Plan_for_the_Student_with_NLD
http://www.ldonline.org/article/c656

If you want different suggestions, or other places to look, let me know - it's my professional field.

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links :) :) :)

The thing is, I think I do need a professional - or rather, Justin does - but I'm no longer sure she's the right one.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Jim,

Let me disagree with your other commenters, and with what I am guessing is the implicit premise of your question ... If the same specialists who were very helpful with Daniel and were comfortable with Daniel being homeschooled and worked with you to help you educate him there are now saying that Justin needs a special ed specialist in the regular school system, well, then, I'm inclined to say that you should just take that advice. They Are The Experts, and you already know they aren't institutional, anti-homeschooling dogmatists, yes?

-Michael

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Well... she does work in the same clinic, but she's not the same doctor as the one who saw Daniel. And part of what bothered me was that I feel she doesn't actually know Justin. She asked a bunch of questions in her initial e-mail, such as his age and grade, but then said, weeks later, that she didn't know his age or whether he had been diagnosed with anything.

Except I had already told her both. Extensively, in the case of the diagnosis.

The other doctor, who worked with Daniel, also had a negative attitude towards home schooling, which vanished when Chris told him I was a certified teacher. That was nice, but (IMHO) showed he didn't really understand much about home schoolers, because although a surprisingly high percentage of us are former teachers, teaching large groups of same-age children is vastly different from teaching a small group of mixed ages. And in terms of predicting success, there's no difference between the children of former professional teachers and children of amateurs.

I think what bothered me the most about this was that she seems to have completely dismissed Justin's situation without much thought - and without even reading, or re-reading, the reply I sent to her questions - because he's home schooled. Chris suggested I let her know that I am, in fact, a professional with credentials and everything. That way she might see me as a fellow professional.

The only problem is I'm not sure I'm thinking of her as much of a professional right now :(

I'll happily take her suggestions for tutoring - we were going to do so anyway - but I think at this point, it's back to the drawing board for us in terms of finding someone to work with. And if they get to know Justin and get to know our situation and still say he should go to regular school, that's doable. We love home schooling, but have no school-phobia, and if that's what right for Justin, that's what we'll do.

[dubiousprospects.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

While I think it's very important you find someone who is positive about home schooling to work with, I think it's also very important you find someone who is the appropriate sort of specialist.

The problem is pretty clearly *not* one of methodology, since you've tried various things and they work for a short period of time; the difficulty is that Justin doesn't make the short term/long term memory transition for most things, which is not obviously or inherently an educational issue.

-- Graydon

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, that's what I'm starting to think too. About the problem possibly not being the methodology, that is. I'd like help with that, and I'm not just looking for "a couple of suggestions that might help [me]".

I'm looking for someone else to get that from, though. Which is discouraging. Am looking into talking to the psych guy who did Daniel's testing, to see if maybe we can go to him instead of this lady. He was also not a fan of home schooling, but I felt a lot more rapport with him.

Then again, maybe if I'm only corresponded with him by e-mail instead of meeting him face-to-face, I might have found him off-putting too.

::sigh::