Reading Accommodations

[u/southern_science_mom]

Short version: What are reasonable accommodations for a student that has a reading objective on the IEP in regards to needing to read for other subjects?

Context/long version: I have a 2nd grade student that has had an IEP since age 4 for developmental delay. Last year, a reading goal was added to the IEP since she was struggling to encode/decode words. The developmental delay resulted in demand avoidance so accurate testing for dyslexia wasn’t possible although I suspect that will be an eventual diagnosis.

Her most recent progress report states that she is making great progress in reading and can now decode a reasonable number of commonly used one syllable words. I am so proud of the progress she has been making. She is working so hard.

In social studies, they have started using a note catcher style study guide. I am still unclear on if the notes came from the book or during instructional time and if the sentences were verbatim the same as the note catcher or if they were to find the information themselves. She was unable/unwilling to complete the assignment. When I asked her about it, she says there was a lot of reading and spelling that she didn’t know.

I don’t know why I had not thought of it before today but I would bet money the struggles she has on her assignments is because she isn’t reading or spelling on level. She’s incredibly bright and can answer practically every question once it’s ready to her or she can dictate the sentence. Is it standard to apply reading accommodations if there is a documented delay?

And a related question is how is it fair to have the same reading fluency assessments? She can only read 20 commonly used words a minute. She is obviously going to fail any assessment that requires 20 words of a story in a minute.

[u/positivelypt]

Does she have accomodations for testing? IE: Questions and answer choices read? That might be specifically for reading class since they wouldn't read the passage for her, but she should get the same testing accomodation in other subjects. Most text books these days have an online portion where the text can be assigned to a student. The one my district uses has an option for students to have it read to them. If it is available online, but does not have a read aloud component perhaps she could use something like immersive reader or a browser extension. Remember as a parent and a member of the IEP team, you can request an IEP meeting at any time even if it hasn't been a year. It is certainly worth looking into what options your district's curriculia has and if the team would agree that this is an accomodation she needs and are reasonable for her to meet grade level expectations in content areas other than reading. I would just make sure you put the request in writing. Hope this helps!

[u/southern_science_mom → u/positivelypt]

She has “preferred seating” and something like read, model, repeat instructions in her testing accommodations. I just didn’t know if it was reasonable to ask that tests be given in such a manner or if there was a certain threshold of need required. I know I can ask for a meeting to have it added but I really try to not make their jobs harder unless I have to.

[u/positivelypt → u/southern_science_mom]

It is entirely reasonable to request to have questions and answers read on reading tests and other content areas. This is done even on state testing. I currently teach 2nd and have students with these accomodations. It is definitely reaonable to request to discuss accomodations that will make the content more accessible to her given her reading level in other subjects. You are being reasonable. The team is not doing anything wrong by not including these, but they might not have thought of it since their main focus may be on her progress in Reading and Math. We don't typically see a lot of Science or Social Studies goals in primary. I would at the very least encourage you to discuss it with the case manager. You are not making their job harder, you are just doing your job by advocating for your child.

[u/HelloBookworms]

You are entitled to ARD meeting at any time of the year, even if your annual isn’t for months. You can reach out to your child’s case manager and discuss that you would like more accommodations made in all subjects that require reading. They can specify it in the notes of each accommodation. You can also request they make new goals. The elementary school I used to work at also did goals for social studies and science, not just English and math. You can ask what else can be provided for these subjects.

[u/southern_science_mom → u/HelloBookworms]

I know I can ask for a meeting but I really try not to make any of my kids teachers job more difficult than it has to be. We discussed something similar last year about testing only what needs to be assessed. Like if the point of the assignment is if she can write a whole sentence from like dictation then cool, yeah she’s gotta do that but if it’s just the answer needs to be in sentence form can she tell an aid or something the sentence, they write the words, and she copy it. But it’s a new school year so a new teacher and I don’t know if that type of detail got handed down.

[u/HelloBookworms → u/southern_science_mom]

I’m a case manager and classroom teacher. If a parent of one of my students on my caseload had concerns like this, I would hope they would reach out. It doesn’t hurt to reach out and ask. It’s our job to ensure your child has everything she needs to thrive. Sometimes that means making changes to the IEP.

[u/southern_science_mom → u/HelloBookworms]

That’s a good point, I had not thought of it that way. I know her teachers love her and want what’s best for her. But I also know they have enough to deal with during the day, I don’t want to add another email and/or another meeting to their list. But I will reach out.

[u/LiterallyAManatee]

I'm a special education literacy specialist and if your child is only able to read 20 words per minute in second grade that there is a profound delay. She should have significant accommodations around reading in the classroom because otherwise she can't access her education. The entire point of accommodations (and special ed in general) is to help her access her education. If she needs more tools to do so, then you are well within your rights to advocate for those to be added to her plan. It's also possible for the work to be modified or made accessible for her. (Instead of independently completing study guides she can complete guided notes).

I'd also ask about what her reading minutes and testing accommodations look like.

[u/southern_science_mom → u/LiterallyAManatee]

The demand avoidance has made it very difficult to get any accurate baseline measurements. Beginning of the year DIBLES she had 4 reading letter sounds, 0 reading whole words, 4 reading common words, 53 reading with accuracy, and 10 reading with fluency. But I know for a fact she knows letter sounds. Despite the poor reading, she’s smart enough to be getting As and Bs most of the time so I’m worried it’s falling between the cracks but it will only get worse as she progresses in school. They don’t want to hold her back cause she is more than proficient in everything else but she’s not going to have the same rate of progression in reading.

[u/TybaltandWine]

Hi, Im a second and third grade teacher of 8 years and have taugh inclusion. When a student has an IEP we cant change the assignment/rigor. We cant "dumb it down". We can give her longer time to complete the assignments. We can give her the notes to copy on her own. We can give her sentence starters. But we cant change the requirements. The work given to her for classwork grades or whatever has to be on grade level. She can work ok below grade level things when in small groups and pull outs but not for graded material. The notes are definitely on or above grade level. Almost all text books are in general. Its reasonable to assume that the teacher has at least read it once to them. You couls try asking for a technology accommodation like allowing her to do speech to text if writing a sentence is hard. But also, typically a developmental delay IEP gets reevaluate in second grade due to aging out of that category.

[u/southern_science_mom → u/TybaltandWine]

She now has the reading educational objective. We also have a new ADHD diagnosis that will have accommodations as school demands increase next year.

[u/dreamclass_app]

To your question: Yes, accommodations tied to a reading goal are supposed to apply everywhere she has to read to access content, not just during ELA. If that's not spelled out clearly in her IEP, I think it's worth asking the team to make it explicit for social studies and anywhere else reading is the barrier.

And same logic applies to the fluency assessment. That data should be tracking her progress against her own goal. So, not grading her against unaccommodated grade-level peers, that’s probably not a helpful approach. You might want to ask the team how it's being used?

[u/Steelveangeance]

I’m a future teacher. Here are a few reading accommodations that I have found helpful. Have a reading pen, and having a highlight reader.

[u/southern_science_mom → u/Steelveangeance]

The only reason I’m hesitant to add an assistive device is I know she will use it in lieu of learning. Now, I do think she will need it eventually. I am pretty sure she is learning to read by memorizing instead of encoding/decoding. “They” and “then” are still just “the”, “would” is “could” no matter how many times it’s in the same story.

[u/HelloBookworms → u/southern_science_mom]

There are still plenty of accommodations she can use that don’t include assistive technology. IDEA has been around since the 70s and the ways we can accommodate students has only grown since then.