The Beginning of the School Year Concerns
If you’re like me, the beginning of a brand-new school year brings a mix of emotions. It’s a time of excitement and anticipation, a time of awe, realizing that our little one is another year older, and perhaps even some relief to be getting back into a routine… But for the parent of a child with dyslexia, or another learning difference for that matter, it can bring anxiety, hesitation, and a feeling of, “here we go again.”
As a mom of a child with dyslexia, one of my biggest concerns walking into a new classroom with a new teacher, is wondering if my child will be embraced for the incredible human being that she is. I know that she has struggles, but I am also fully aware of her awesomeness. To alleviate some of my worry and anxiety, here a few things I do to start the year off right.
1. Get in contact with the new teacher as soon as possible. Set up a time to have a brief in-person meeting or phone conference. Assure the teacher that you are not looking for an hour-long meeting, but just 10-15 minutes of their time to catch them up to speed. (Please keep in mind that Meet the Teacher Nights, Open-Houses, Curriculum Nights, or other school events are NOT the time to be having a conference and discussing your concerns).
2. Let the teacher know if your child has an IEP, 504, if they have previously been in RTI (Response to Intervention), or any other documentation that may be important for your child’s teacher to know about. Let them know that your child has dyslexia, and share some areas that your child struggles in. It is also very important to highlight your child’s strengths so that these can be developed throughout the year.
3. Ask the teacher if they are open to receiving information about dyslexia that they may find useful in working with your child. It is also important that if your child is working with a tutor outside of school, to ask the teacher if they would like to be in communication with the tutor. Your child’s tutor can be a valuable resource, and another person to be on your child’s support team.
4. Share the Top 5 Accommodations you’d like to see implemented for your child. More than 5 accommodations will be too overwhelming, and perhaps unrealistic. These accommodations should align with your child’s IEP, 504, or other documentation. Every child is different, but here are the most important accommodations I know greatly help my own daughter…
a. Allow the use of assistive technology, specifically an electronic spell checker. There are a ton of assistive technologies available, but since my daughter is still fairly young, we haven’t implemented a lot yet. I will be looking into audio books, text to speech, and speech to text very soon. Note-taking technologies will be after that. (Watch for future blogs providing reviews of different technologies that we try out).
b. Grade on content, instead of spelling and grammar. I really want my child’s teacher to consider what the goal or objective is with an assignment. If the purpose of the assignment is to determine if my child comprehended something she read, and her answers prove that she did, give her the credit. It is not necessary to knock off points for incorrect spelling of answers, or forgetting to capitalize or punctuate. (Save those deductions for spelling and grammar, when there’s not much leeway for error).
c. Allow for shortened assignments, or more time to complete assignments. A good example of this could be with editing and revising… Last year, part of my daughter’s morning work was to correct mistakes in a paragraph. It is very difficult for her to see the errors in punctuation and capitalization, and unless she looks up almost every word, she’s not going to know if a word is misspelled. One way we worked through this, was to only have her go through the first 3 sentences. She was supposed to use a checklist that I created and provided for her. It included things in question form, such as… “Does the sentence start with a capital? Does the sentence end with correct punctuation? Are there any names or places in the sentence that should be capitalized? Any words you think may be misspelled?” (This could be simplified into picture form if needed to alleviate reading). Obviously, this is going to take her much longer than the average student, making it important to have less to go through.
d. Allow for less homework or no homework on tutoring nights. Our kids with dyslexia work so hard throughout the day, that they are often exhausted by the time they get home from school. Many of these kids have tutoring for 2 or more hours a week. Adding an hour of tutoring, plus who knows how long for homework, is just too much. For other at-home work, allow the child to dictate answers to assignments, and allow the parent to write down the answers. This will not only free up a lot of time, but will alleviate a lot of headaches.
e. Only have the child read aloud or write on the board on a voluntary basis. Some children are completely confident in their abilities and have no issues reading aloud or writing on the board. Other children, however, are incredibly fearful of these two scenarios. Another option is to give a child a passage that they can practice so that when they do read aloud, they have already worked through any difficulties.
5. Finally, the last thing I do is thank the teacher. This part is so vital and will go a long way. Remember that we’re in partnership with our child’s teacher, and it will be better for everyone if we can make the year a positive experience for everyone involved.
For more information on starting the school year off right, check out these two Facebook Live videos from Susan Barton, developer of the Barton Reading and Spelling System.
“Meet your child’s teacher before school starts.”
http://www.asksusanbarton.com/2016/08/06/meet-with-your-childs-teacher-before-school-starts/
“The 5 most important things a teacher should do.”
http://www.asksusanbarton.com/2016/08/16/the-5-most-important-things-a-teacher-should-do/