If you are reading this, congratulations! You are now officially hip. Feel free to tell all your friends – especially the ones under 30 – that not only do you know what a blog is, but you’ve been on one. If you write a comment or share your experience about something I write here, you will be “blogging.”
It’s actually not very complicated at all. A blog is a web site that viewers can contribute to. If you post a comment (which is as easy as writing an email), you can tell people with confidence that you are a published author.
For those of you who subscribe to my Making School Work newsletter (www.makingschoolwork.com/newsletterarchive.html), I will write about similar subjects here, but on a blog readers can comment on what they read. I like this blogging format better than a newsletter (though I’ll still publish my newsletter) because it’s more informal and anyone reading it can share information.
So, here I go (this blogging thing is new to me too if you haven’t noticed), I’ll write my first real “post.” To make a comment, go to the top of my post and click on the light blue link “Comments.”
I am reading your site for the first time. My Kindergartener (5 turning 6 in April) is struggling in school. Her Sunday School teacher thinks she may be dislexic, but I’m not sure. I mentioned this to my daughter’s teacher who doesn’t agree, and yet, she has become so frustrated with trying to teach my daughter that she has become insulting at times. Until recently, my daughter constantly confused numbers (5 & 2), confused letters (u & n, m & n and b, d, & p). She’s gotten a little better with the letters, but she sometimes writes the 5, 7 & 18 backwards (81 instead of 18), and she confuses 12 and 21. She sometimes sees them as the same thing. She also struggles with consonant blends. I believe there is a problem, but sense she is so young, how can I have her tested? Or can I? Also, after I spoke to her teacher about a very hurtful comment she made to my daughter, she says it was because she has to speak to my daughter daily about her behavior. However, until I complained to the teacher about her comment, I had never heard this, even though I know my little one can get bored and get into other things or get frustrated because she feels no one (her classmates), as she says, “wants to be my friend.” Help!
You have every right as a parent to request your child be tested. If the school gives you any problem, you tell them they are violating your child’s right to a free and appropriate public education. Also, with the recent proposed budget to cut 41 School Psychologists from Miami-Dade, don’t be surprised if you have to wait a very long time to have your child evaluated. However, you need to be informed of your rights as a parent and the Procedural Safeguards have them outlined for you. The most important one now, the timeline. They have 60 days from the time you concent to an evaluation to have your child tested and staffed. If not, you are entitled to a private evaluation at the districts expense. These are the federal laws and don’t allow the school to bully you into not advocating for your child.
Good Luck.
Hello,
I came across your website and blog today as I was researching and trying to find avenues for my daughter who is 9yrs old and has now been diagnosed with LD/ADD and put on Focalin Rx(which is so scary fo me) by her neuroligist to see if helping with her ADD can help her bettering her grades, although it was told very clearly to me that the LD problem will have to be something that only extra help by parents, tutors and school will help her succeed in life. My problem is that I almost feel like the school has it set up to where she can only fail if left the way it is. My daughter has struggled since Kindergarten, repeated it, and has been failing out ever since. Now she is in 3rd grade, FCAT, and will be left behind if she does not get help. She is reading at maybe a 1st grade level, and school is just getting more frustrating for her. She has been put on IEP plans since kindergarten and was finally able to get her evaluated last year(and I believe only because she was entering the 3rd grade and the A+ school they are, they want the least kids to fail the FCAT), unfortunally the test stated that although she seemed to have a problem she scored what they call at a average but low range. So in other words, she scored about 2pts over to where she could recieve any help or qualify for the MKAY scholarship. The neuroligist believes she is under that average level, but unfortunely she can not be tested again until February, but even when that occurs I am not sure on what it I need to do to know that there evaluation is fair. It is very noticable that my daughter needs the help and I just dont know what it is I can do to get it for her. If you could or anyone can help, please advise, I am desperate at this point to be able to her my daughter succeed in life!!
Dear Zoraida:
Please contact me on my direct office line – 786-423-1930. It sounds like the school is really giving you misleading and inaccurate information. Your daughter is entitled to some extra help/services in school. Look forward to hearing from you.
Allison Hertog