My son is 9 years old and in an intergrated 4th grade class. He is classified as special education with specific learning disability in reading.
He has a homeroom teacher and is pulled out for resource room with a math specialist and reading specialist and then another teacher for science and social studies. He changes between 4 teachers plus a homeroom teacher. The regular classes are just switching between 2 teachers.
My son is doing very well in language arts. He has the Wilson reading program. only 1 teacher in the school is qualified to teach this specialized reading program. He is learning to tap on his fingers to put together the sounds of words, learning nonsense words and using scrabble like letters to form words. He is reading at about mid 2nd grade level. His writing has improved alot and he is spelling words like "because and thanksgiving" without any cues from the teacher.
He is doing well in math. He is using the SRA connecting math. He just tested into level D which is a combination of 4th, 5th and 6th grade math in this book. The resource teacher is great. She has a corrections bin for work that needs to be corrected or used as a warmup for the class.
She said the only thing holding my son back from a regular classroom is time managment skills and organizational skills. He also shuts down in large group and does better in small group. He had previous Selective Mutism in preschool and previous anxiety issues that are now resolved.
He was recommended for a social skills group conducted by a speech therapist and school psychologist. The speech therapist saw him along time ago when she diagnosed him with Selective Mutism when he was 4 years old. It should be a nice meeting again to see him progress so well. He will learn listening skills, nonverbal communication skills, conversational/verbal skills, identifying feelings and perspectives, joining groups and respecting personal space and play and friendship skills. It will be conducted for 30 minutes, one time a cycle for 8 sessions. It is conducted during the preparation period for the NJ ASK test, so he won't miss any classwork.
My daughter is in second grade. She is picking up on her reading abilities. She still has difficulty with spelling for unknown reasons why. She is getting help in lanugage arts under the NJ state testing funds, even though she tested in the proficient range in last years test. So, at least the problem is not overlooked and can be targeted at the specific area of weakness. Her conference is next month, so I'll know more then.
Just wanted to update everyone. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and a tremendous payoff for hard work that you will see later. Hang in there.
