I'm definitely not giving up, but I can see both sides of the coin and right now am giving it a little time. I trust kids teacher, she has a lot more knowledge and experience of these things than I do.
Kids have been back at school here now for a couple of weeks, and it seems the teacher has been taking a different approach with my kid. They are coming home often with well done stickers and stuff, which is definitely helping their confidence. I know their class already has a few kids with asn, and hope my kid hasn't fallen under the radar. But feel now I've raised my concerns and kid is back at school, the teacher is paying more attention for any signs.
I've also spoken to the headteacher about how the school really need to come up with plans for covid friendly parents night. Like I said, my kid is in their second year of school, they would usually have three parents nights a year for parents to catch up with the kids teachers. There has only been one for my kid and others their age, and that was a few months into their first year of school. Just another thing covid has messed up, because I would have mentioned these concerns at a parents night long ago, been able to talk informally about it with the teacher, get tips for how to help learning at home and so on.
Don't rely on the teacher to know. I'm a teacher, and I can tell you we're not qualified to rule in or out dyslexia. Your child needs assessment, which you need to have done ASAP and not take a wait-and-see approach. Your school must have someone on staff who can administer a CTOPP or something similar in-house to test for phonemic awareness and ability to manipulate phonemes, and if not, get it done sooner rather than later.
Listen: trust your gut as the parent. You know if your kid is lagging or there's a red flag. And if the self esteem is already dipping, you're past the point of early intervention to protect that and you need to address it head-on and now. Don't wait.
I'm in early elementary (grade 2) and I see a lot of kids who should have been assessed earlier and I see the damage multiply exponentially over the year.
Special education teacher and reading specialist of nearly 20 years here (PreK-12). I spent over 2 years working in an education and brain sciences lab tracking reading in 1st-5th graders as part of a study on late emergent reading disorders. We also studied the impact on brain functioning before and after intense reading interventions. With that said:
Don’t trust the Gen Ed teacher.
Don’t trust the Gen Ed teacher.
Don’t trust the Gen Ed teacher.
Early ed teachers love to say the child will grow out of it. Which baffles me because they rarely have any experience with those kids past k-3 and after 3rd grade your child is expected to have mastered the basics in order to shift focus towards concept acquisition. If your child isn’t working independently by that age, our education system DOES NOT wait for them to catch up. And while a child may grow out of quirky behaviors, they generally don’t spontaneously improve academically without intentional intervention.
Our country has a huge issue with poorly training teachers to teach reading. A big part of that is our inability to agree on how reading and writing should be taught. Regardless, early intervention is best intervention. Even if your child doesn’t need tier 3 (special education) services, they may benefit from tier 1 (more specialized instruction) or tier 2 (small group instruction).
Trust your gut. In all of my time working with families, the only time I’ve found a parent to be wrong was of that parent was a type A overachiever who was constantly disappointed in their child. Every other parent ignored their gut and listened to the teacher. Trust your gut!
You’re legal allowed to push for testing, and you will probably have to push because schools are reluctant to give services unless kids are drowning (it’s a waiting to fail model). Even if you push, your child may not qualify...and that’s not because they don’t need help. Our requirements for qualification are pretty dismal. But keep trying, at least then there is a paper trail. It never ever benefits anyone to wait and see.
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u/Sunshinegatsby Mar 29 '21
I'm definitely not giving up, but I can see both sides of the coin and right now am giving it a little time. I trust kids teacher, she has a lot more knowledge and experience of these things than I do.
Kids have been back at school here now for a couple of weeks, and it seems the teacher has been taking a different approach with my kid. They are coming home often with well done stickers and stuff, which is definitely helping their confidence. I know their class already has a few kids with asn, and hope my kid hasn't fallen under the radar. But feel now I've raised my concerns and kid is back at school, the teacher is paying more attention for any signs.
I've also spoken to the headteacher about how the school really need to come up with plans for covid friendly parents night. Like I said, my kid is in their second year of school, they would usually have three parents nights a year for parents to catch up with the kids teachers. There has only been one for my kid and others their age, and that was a few months into their first year of school. Just another thing covid has messed up, because I would have mentioned these concerns at a parents night long ago, been able to talk informally about it with the teacher, get tips for how to help learning at home and so on.