Ability to learn vs Ability to be taught using current methods - discuss?

[lougle]

DD2's teacher said to me yesterday that DD2 'can't count money'. I acknowledged this, mentioned 'abstract concept', etc.

Today, I had this conversation:
'By the way, DD2 really isn't secure in her number bonds to ten, or counting in tens to 100. She might appear to be, because she can chant them fluently in and out of order, but she can't use them to answer questions. When asked what 20+10 was, she said '35', etc.'
Teacher: I know.
Me: 'Great. I thought you would know, but felt I should let you know that I know, and that it concerns me.'
Teacher: 'I asked her to explain how she got to her answer the other day and it was....pheww....couldn't understand her at all.'
Me: 'Yes, she isn't even grasping the concepts. I'm very worried. Year 3 is going to be a disaster for her....'
Teacher: 'I know, me too.'

Teacher: 'Oh well there will be a group of children with her who have a similar ability. [my emphasis]

Now, the issue I have is that I don't believe that DD2 is of low ability. At all. I believe that standard teaching methods are unsuitable for her and she needs explicit, direct teaching of each concept and explicit, direct teaching of how each concept links to the next.

So it's no good teaching her number bonds. She needs to be taught that this helps us add two numbers which total 10.

Then, she needs to be taught that we can use the number bonds to make sums easier.

Then, she needs to be taught explicitly that 2p is the same as 2 x 1p. Then, that 5p is the same as 5 x 1p, etc.

They don't seem to understand that DD2 is not going to learn by osmosis.

I've been warning her year 1 teacher of this since this time last year, and her current teacher since September.

I don't know how to start to fix this, because so far she's not even on an IEP and they shuffle if I mention SEN/SN.

I know that a girl in Y6 has really struggled and the SENCO hasn't even been involved, so I'm streets ahead just by having SENCO on the radar

Hahah!! No I don't although that looks like an advert for my services doesn't it? I sometimes don't post because I imagine nothing could be more annoying than random folk in other parts if the country telling you lots can be done. But on the other hand j get so mad at the prevailing mass shoulder shrug endemic in teaching kids with sen that sometimes I can't help from pointing out it doesn't have to be this way.
I can think of scores if wonderful teachers and TAs who I work with who would see this as an interesting challenge to work out.
'If the child hasn't learnt, the teacher hasn't taught'

Oh I recognize all of this so well with both my girls. It's all just hopeless. I pay for an hours tuition for dd1 (dyslexia) but she decided in Y3 she's thick and hopeless. It's all just swimming against a tide of mediocrity in SEN education. Haven't a clue how to help dd2 with maths. It is rubbish.

I would certainly consider employing a Numicon tutor if only for a few sessions. It's the best system I have come across and the website list accredited tutors who charge surprisingly modest amounts. I hired one to set me on my way and give me the feedback I needed, then I was away. It was £60 very well spent.

I asked earlier this week for an indication of dd2's NC levels (that she is working towards) as a precursor to a proper talk at parent's evening next week.

I asked again today, and was told they are on the way, they are just being 'collated'. Which, imo, means they are trying to work out how to fudge them, so that they don't have to answer the serious questions that the real levels would prompt, as they don't have an answer to those questions (other than to tell me that I am wrong when I say I think dd2 has issues...)

god, it is supposed to be so straightforward with dd2. and, tbh, I am no maths teacher, but she has been doing an online programme to help identify where she is having issues, and has not got under an A grade (meaning 18/20 correct) on a single lesson out of the 134 lessons she has completed so far . and these include 2 step calculations, number bonds to 20 (when she apparently only knows them to 10 at school, and even then shakily ), and all manner of times tables that she no longer does at school being in the bottom set now. HOW that bottom set place can be justified, given she is not having any major problems at home is beyond me...

as you saidm earlier about your dd2, lougle, the teaching just isn't going in at school for some reason. but I can't keep doing catch up at home, not once it gets more all-encompassing anyway. like you, I can't keep dd1 or ds safe if I am glued to dd2 teaching her the stuff she isn't grasping at school. and it's not as though ds isn't in need of some intensive intervention either.

anyone cracked cloning yet

It didn't look like it, actually, but in the absence of cloning you, I can travel

Seriously, I'm not being deliberately obtuse. If I could supplement DD2's education I would, but the simple fact is she isn't being taught right now. At least not in a way that she can grasp, so it's not a case of 'ok, you've learned x, let's practice it by doing y'.

Then there's the fact that they use resources at school which would be easy to replicate, if only I knew what they were/where they get them. Even something as simple as a number line sees DD2 into meltdown if I don't make it exactly the same as school. Which is impossible when I don't see what they do at school and DD2 can't really describe it.

I get to briefly see the teacher at drop off/pick up (along with 29 other parents), then I get 10 minutes parent evening twice per year and a mid year report. That's it.

It doesn't help that in Year 2 they decide that the children need to learn responsibility so most messages about tasks are made orally instead of a note home - DD2 gets the basic message but mixes up the details then sits up all night with anxiety.

Moondog - her school have numicon. I've seen it in the classrooms. DD2 says she's never used it!

They are doing things like 'tapping the coin' to remember how much it's worth. Fine. Tap once - 1p. But then you've got to remember how many times you've tapped so far if you're adding on the third coin, and what happens when you get to 20p+10p -will she be tapping 30 times??

Newblue

DD is in after school club 3 times a week. Baby ds has his nap delayed until 3:45pm. DS1 arrives home at 4:10pm and we work until 5:30pm and pick up dd at 5:45pm.

Her after school club is £10 a session. That's the DLA. It is the cheapest way of getting additional tutoring for ds.

I then do an hour or so at the weekend, or DH does.

I panic about how much DS has to learn. I can't teach him fast enough (well he's fast, but has so much to learn), but I figure it doesn't matter as he will make faster progress than if I don't and that is really all I can do.

I figured that the LA consider 5 hours a week enough 1:1 tutoring for a child out of school to cover the full-time curriculum (don't believe it for a sec though), so I try and get as close to that as I can. It is usually only 4 hours a week but a bit more in holidays.

It's hard. Very hard. DS can be very resistant and at that time of day I am not at my most patient and he is tired. But I don't feel as if I have a choice.

When I pick up dd, DS gets to use his ipad minutes he has earned and I get to do some reading with dd. Again, she isn't at her best then either.

I can't take a nap during the day when ds does, because I am saving him up to cover the DS tuition time.

DH gives me a long lie in on a Sunday.

Star the trouble I have is that the Paed won't even see us again until he gets some indication that there are concerns from school/professionals. The SALT says she's fine. She flipping isn't. The teacher admitted today that when DD2 tried to explain her reasoning to her, she didn't understand a word of it.

I can't do anything about my timings, Star.

dd2 is in afterschool clubs every day already, because I have to pick up dd1. I can't do anything about ds' nap, as if I don't put him down for a lunchtime sleep, he will sleep in the 90 minutes he is in the car in the afternoon anyway! either way, he won't sleep after we return (just as well, as he'd never go to bed if he did).

we get in between 5 and 5.30, depending on club. between then and bedtime (go up at 7pm, ds into bed first, girls hopefully settled by 8pm), I need to do homework x2, readingx2, cook tea, extra maths. all while trying to give some attention to ds who has just spent the last 90 minutes strapped in the car not getting any decent interaction (x2 on his day, so quite a lot ot make up for).

I simply cannot fit in anything more (and don't really manage as it is, tbh)

nap when ds does? don't make me laugh. it's the only hour in the day when I get to do anything about the shitheap we live in. and the only hour between 6am and 8pm that I don't have a child needing me - I'm not going to waste it sleeping (although sadly do waste ti on housework , maybe sleep would be the better option! )

I agree with Star, you described my ds perfectly in your post of 16:12.

I was very hesitant to bring up the ABA term instructional control, but am glad that moondog and keepon did . It is key - she is responding so well to rewards, but you have to keep on with the same reward for the same task till it's mastered. Then move on to the next task. And in the very first place, the reward system is used simply to reinforce her following your agenda in the first place, then move to individual skill deficits. I think a token system as keepon suggests is a really good idea - I use this with ds (and actually with dd too as she's a very trying 4yo atm). It's short-term enough to keep her attention and motivation, but long-term enough to sustain and produce permanent results.

How hard are you fighting school to pursue an assessment? Time to get arsey more assertive, do you think? Video evidence, diaries, etc? I've seen you on this board so many times giving such sound advice to others - are you taking your own advice?

Tapping the coin is bollocks.
Total bollocks
What she needs to learn is what is called stimulus equivalence.
A = B
B = C
Kid then able to relate B to C without it being explicitly taught.
That's a very quick overview.

Time and money are complicated concepts.
A kid hasn't a hope of hell in learning them properly without a firm grasp of basic numbers.
I get people coming to me with a furrowed brow all the time, saying 'He can't understand a quarter past ten and I don't know why'
Of course he bloody can't!
It involves fractions, multiples, issues of minutes and hours, on and on and on and on.

It's trying to put the roof on a building with no foundations.
I'd rather a well built hut than a shaky three story building.
The latter is what teachers in the world of SEN try to do.

Numicon should be paired with oral and written numbers, then when that sound, paired with coins.
Coins are so hard-a 5p is 5 but in reality, it's a 1 as you have taught the kid one object =1.
There is ALWAYS a logic to what they do.
All behaviour is rule governed. ALL of it.

Thanks moondog - DS's brain works in binary methinks and mine is spiders web.

I think you may have cracked generalisation issues across the curriculum, with one very simple explanation for me.

One issue with home education is that you may find yourself surrounded by autonomous educators who are at the opposite end of the pedagogy spectrum to the explicit instruction so many ASD kids need to grasp the basics of the 3R's. There are some people following ABA programmes in my locale but they tend to only get funding for DS's age group if they are still on the p levels. I'm desperate for some literature on KS2 and beyond using ABA principles.

I'm not adverse to ABA, at all.

bialy I'm fighting as hard as I can right now. I've managed to get, in the space of one half term:

-Repeated SALT assessment because first one was unsatisfactory
-OT to come into school instead of a clinic visit
-One hour consultation with SENCO and 2 Ed Psychs in March
-Access to ELSA via referral to CAMHS (video evidence got that referral)
-Access to 'dragonflies' via CAMHS advice to SENCO.

Trouble is, the SALT showed DD2 some pictures and talked about her dog and pronounced DD2 fine because she'd taken her to her favourite room in the school (the base, where dragonflies is) and let her talk about dragonflies (her current obsession). She's pronounced DD2 fine.

The SENCO said she thought DD2 had ASD off the record, then completely stitched me up with the SALT.

The teacher gives no indication that she's in consultation with the SENCO. The SENCO claims not to know DD2's levels or anything of the like.

I was accused (very thinly veiled) of FII by the last school. I'm very aware they are in the same cluster of schools. I have no doubt there will have been discussions.

I'm having to tread a narrow path to maintain a relationship with the school and push for help as I can. But I have no evidence - I only know that she was a 1A for literacy at Y1 end and 1B for maths. I know that she's grasped nothing of maths so far this year, and I would say she's worse in literacy but she has shown improvement in some class work. How independent that may be is another question.

See, she's got time. Because she doesn't worry what the actual concepts are. She has a time teacher watch, so she's learning to read the numbers off in order. It means she hasn't really learned what it means, but she can 'tell the time'.

Then she's not 'got' time but it is a good start.

DD had to sit on the thinking step for 5 minutes and got upset saying 'I don't know how long 5 minutes is', and ds replied 'It's when the second hand has been round the clock 5 times dd'.

He also set his egg timer (he got for Christmas) to an hour, and reset it every time it went off to check there really were 24 hours in a day . (I put and end to that after 4 hours by bribing him with the ipad).

He never learned quarter to, quarter past etc until he understood 'minutes past' and practiced watching time pass.. The quarters etc. were explained after he had understood how many minutes they related to.

Generalising number bonds is quite good

and less relevant but interesting numicon study and ASD and numeracy

What about the direct approach to class teacher. In the link book.

She has a problem. we both agreed when talking. you probably don't have time. I will do it. let me come in for 20min to learn your way, and then send me some numicon home with written instructions, as her homework

Impossible to argue it's FII when you're just asking for extra homework

You raise a very interesting point here Bochead, that has been one I have thought over a lot.
'One issue with home education is that you may find yourself surrounded by autonomous educators who are at the opposite end of the pedagogy spectrum to the explicit instruction so many ASD kids need to grasp the basics of the 3R's'

One of the top people in this field is Michael Maloney, who I have the enormous pleasure and privilege of knowing.
Most of his products are sold to home educators in the States. Crucially however they are not the lentil weaving tree hugging types of HEs your see in the UK (no offence folks, I am nor averse to lentil weaver myself).

They are more of the off grid living on a compound in Utah with twelve guns and six dogs types.
Say what you like about those folks, but generally touchy feely flannel of the sort you are all seriously pissed off with, does not float their boat.
They want straight talking and for people to do what they say they are going to do.

Michael Maloney is a hero

If I had 12 guns and 6 dogs do you think I might get one or two of my straightforward questions answered?

Like: Why is me working on ds' targets at home a good reason for you not to share them?

Tis madness.
I don't even think those in the thick of it have an inkling of how the SEN industry is rapidly disappearing up its own fundament.
I am exhausted being a part of it all.
The Utah compound idea becomes more and more attractive to me.

Michael Maloney has some hilarious tales of meeting these folk at all of the big HE conventions he attends up and down the country.
When I met him, I swear I heard angels singing.

OOOh

Star, try 12 dogs and 6 guns

You could live in rural Oxfordshire and go to parties with Jeremy Clarkson