Query to home schoolers
May. 6th, 2010 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 04:15 pm (UTC)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
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 05:19 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 09:33 am (UTC)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
no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 02:20 am (UTC)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::