Spellings, told don't bother about them by Senco, Why I ask? Any views?

[supermum98]

My ds. in yr 7 with visual perceptual difficulties did an hour a days literacy intervention at primary on Fischer family trust. Included spelling, reading and reading comprehension. Now at secondary, TA does 5 mins a day of reading (some days only one para) 4 days a week and he has an intervention once a week with Senco on a scheme, but I suspect it may be for less than 30 mins. He has a reading age of 9 and when I pushed hard to get everything right re. input at primary he went from a reading age of 6.5 to 9 in a year. Now at secondary the view is 'we have lots of kids with a reading age of 9 and less' in other words hey ho, there is not really a problem. He is 13 and is not happy with a reading age of 9 as he wants to read the adult Dr. Who books. 5 minutes of reading in school on four of the 5 days is a joke in my opinion and they have got time to do more. Research talks about dispersed practice, ie. read several times a day, and he can concentrate for more than 5 mins.
On the spelling front, they are doing nothing and when I queried it in view of how much spelling work they do at primary, the answer is 'don't bother about it'. Have I missed something here? His spelling is poor, so have they decided that they should just give up? I know I can do stuff at home, but I am already going to have to to fill in at home with stuff they should be doing at school and are not. Going into battle next term about all sorts of things, need to load the pistol, so any advice would help. Cheers.

oo. i'd not be happy tbh. dd2 has cp and there have been a number of education related types that are content to pat her on the head and smile with their head doing that tilty sympathetic thing.

i think they have missed an important point in transition from primary and are maybe not aeware of his actual potential. it matters not whether they have 1, 10, or 100 kids with a reading age of 9 or less - they are supposed to be helping him reach his potential.

have they still got him on ieps? have you seen one? do you think the targets they are setting are reasonable? once secondary hits, a lot of schools don't have the resources to make meaningful targets, or even carry out meaningful annual reviews - unless they are really forced to. so you do need to get a bit more, um, masterful. does he have a statement? how many hours 1-1 is he entitled to?

i don't know anything about visual perception difficulties per se, but wanted to say i'm familiar with the general attitude...

good luck next term.

supermum98

Visual perceptual difficulties would be part of the visual processing disorders which cause the dyslexic symptom. And there are no cures. Which is the same for my own auditory processing disorder which is the cause of my dyslexia symptoms, and all of my sons dyslexic symptoms.

These problems make reading , writing ,and spelling difficult for children and adults regardless of how much teaching support we may receive. The disability will always be there, to hinder our reading skills when we want to use them. We do develop our own work arounds on an individual basis using our own cognitive strengths. But like me i will never have the reading skills of a comparable peer who does not share my disability.

My spelling are still terrible,especially when i do not have access to a spell checker, I sometimes can not read more than a paragraph at a time when reading a black font on a white background, especially if the topic is new to me. And this can be real problem when i try to read complex research papers. For me the word processor is a wonderful thing as i can change the colour of the font as often as i like, on a background of my choice, and adding as many extra spaces as i need. But this is how I cope, your son will have to develop his own coping strategies that he is comfortable with. Unfortunately most teachers and TAs have little training in these areas of support, and sometimes have no understanding of the conditions that can cause these types of problems.

I have been stressing about Dd2's spelling all the way through secondary school and have alwasy been told "oh its ok or We were looking at the content when we marked that"!!

Forgot to say she had tracking difficulties and has a colour vision deficit, she can see colours but finds shades hard and coloured pens on white boards are particularly difficult.

She is in year 10 now and her english teacher has suddenly decided to tell me that she has a problem with spelling!!

It's infuriating and you will have to keep on and soon at them.

I hope everything works out ok for your Ds.

Of course they're going to tell you not to bother with spellings - it doesn't effect their GCSE marks, so why will the school care?

Far easier for the school to get him allowed to use a laptop with spell check turned on - then to teach them to spell.

As for TA reading with him. The real question is what program is she doing with him? A reading age of 9 - what NC level does that make him?

Most secondary schools that care about teaching redaing, use Read Write Inc Fresh Start. It goes up to NC L4. But it certainly can't be done in 5 mins a day.....

Thanks, madwoman, he is statemented for 30 hours 1:1 but IEP has no targets whatsover, infact not worth the paper etc. Talks about 'making progress in' no levels mentioned. Yes getting very worried about general attitude of low expectation. If professionals make recommendations, what protection have we got if they don't comply? Dolfrog have you any experience of the kindle? My ds needs aerial size 26 double space, black on white, would be so much easier on electronic device. Thanks ineedalife, also having to come out of lessons with glare, have you any experience of this? Also have you tried 'eyetrack', it helped my ds. tracking? IndigoBell thanks too, gosh didn't know doesn't effect GCSE marks, may explain why complacent. WOuld a 13 year old find Read Write Inc Fresh Start patronising? He is NC level 2 for English. WHat intervention for reading could I do at home? Cheers.

have they provided him with a laptop for use in school? i think we had a girl in yr 10 with similar issues - where are they sitting him in the classroom? sometimes even the position in the classroom can help a lot, especially if they are using a board (iirc she had to sit at the back, but the teachers downloaded the lessons onto a memory stick and she followed on her lap top - not sure if they were running a specific programme or if they had just tweaked the laptop settings to make it easier for her.) the others have got much more knowledge than i do though. so often this stuff is ignored until gcse time. start getting mad now. have you met up with the learning support dept at the school? so often they are left by parents to get on with it that they can get a bit bogged down. with specific direction from parents they do often up their game.

Spellings may not be tested for specifically at GCSE level, but spelling is a part of English GCSE; if the words are indecipherable as to the meaning it will lose a child marks overall www.gcse.com/english/spellings.htm

Info on teaching for progression:spellings, reading and writing. You may be able to find something useful to take to the school.
nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/153482

If your DS has problems with visual tracking have you looked at/tried Behavioural Optometry www.babo.co.uk/

Statemented - IEP but no targets. It would seem that your school are not following the guidelines for IEP's as set out in the Sen Toolkit. You need to chase them on this as the IEP is the working document for teachers, rather than the statement itself.

www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/sen/b0013128/sen-document-list-and-recent-reports--online-ordering/sen-toolkit

^Where a pupil has a statement of SEN the setting of short-term targets and
the strategies employed should be linked to the overall objectives and
provision as set out in the statement. In the majority of cases the strategies
to meet these targets should be set out in an IEP^

THankx for excellent links Minx, will give me meat for meeting that I have called for in May to discuss ds. academic needs, which arn't really being met. Have been told ds not accessing curriculum by Senco, but no detail, very worried as you can imagine.

Madwoman, feel like a madwoman possessed at moment myself, as TA not taking ds. laptop into class, even when he has asked to download stuff onto memory stick. Seems happier to take him out of class on account of glare, going insane with frustration. It appears TA doesn't want the hassle of carrying it or the 'faff' she said to my ds. of setting it up for each class. Can it really be that difficult? Some kids apparently have a webcam that records whiteboard and lesson onto laptop, sounds gr8 to me, could see that would be even more of a 'faff' for TA though. Laptop could be cheaper alternative solution to glare, to behavioural optometrist, though think this could help anyway.

Minx have just spoken to nearest behavioural optometrist and appears could help. Costs £375 for first 4 hour assessment, but would be well worth it if it worked, do you know anyone who has used one? Our VI lady didn't seem to know much about it.

Thanx so much for help.

I used a Behavioural Optometrist for DS2, for Retained Reflexes and Vision Therapy. DS was also involved in a trial for light therapy to increase the functioning of his field of vision.

Though the most obvious and immediate improvements came with the exercises for retained reflexes. We used to note smaller but still observable improvements with vision therapy.

Don't get me wrong DS still has significant learning difficulties, the therapies we put in place helped alleviate his difficulties, but they haven't 'cured' them.

Found this psychologist blog regarding interventions, it might give you some idea of questions to ask school
studentsgrow.blogspot.com/search/label/learning%20disabilities

I used a Behavioural Optometrist for DS2, for Retained Reflexes and Vision Therapy. DS was also involved in a trial for light therapy to increase the functioning of his field of vision.

Though the most obvious and immediate improvements came with the exercises for retained reflexes. We used to note smaller but still observable improvements with vision therapy.

Don't get me wrong DS still has significant learning difficulties, the therapies we put in place helped alleviate his difficulties, but they haven't 'cured' them.

Found this psychologist blog regarding interventions, it might give you some idea of questions to ask school
studentsgrow.blogspot.com/search/label/learning%20disabilities

supermum98

due to my own subtype of dyslexia I have not really delved into kindle, so I am not sure if you are able to adjust the font colours per sentence, or if you are able to add extra spacing ( a new line for each new sentence if needed).