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So I had asked the teacher to assess where my my DD8's reading is at as she is really resistant to reading, which makes me nervous as my brother had dyslexia and the teacher says she makes a lot of careless mistakes. So the school calls me and say that they want to schedule an SST and they will tell me what the results were.

The Special Ed person (not sure what the title is), who I have spoken to before briefly about my DS, said, well she's reading at grade level, is this the only reason you called this meeting? And I said, well yes, I spoke to the teacher and she agreed to test her as she was making a lot of careless mistakes, so many that she was in tutoring for math, and in addition to being resistant to reading my DD is in the office complaining that she doesn't feel well and wants to go home often enough that it's obvious that she's not just sick.

She tells me that maybe I'm too focused on my kids and that maybe I should get a job so I wouldn't be thinking about this stuff and making myself crazy. I told her if I got a job that took my mind off of making sure my family's needs were getting met I probably would have really screwed up kids and a husband who wanted a divorce.

I thought she was someone who would understand- she had a child who is probably 2e, and here she is piling on the "you must be crazy your child is fine" crap. I said, all I wanted to know is if you think there is a problem with her reading - which there probably is as she hasn't grown in her comprehension and seems to have gone backwards a little, the Principal even pointed this out.

I really didn't expect to be suckerpunched like that in an SST meeting. I have never asked for services other than help with having her reading assessed. Even with my son, in all the time I have been at the school, volunteered and made myself useful, I never asked for services or even complained. I just tried to scaffold him from my side as best I could. Really really really disappointed right now.

Hi Portia - No, she wasn't really implying that. She was telling me to get a life.

Which is also a really horrible way of saying being a parent isn't the most important job there is.

Then again, maybe she is saying what you think she is saying too.

Well the joke is on her - I not only run a successful independent company, I spend hours volunteering at the school AND I have time to notice that my kid is resisting reading. So I already have a job, actually jobs, thank you very much.

But did they have any insights of her difficulties? Grade level is wrong for a girl of her abilities.

Nope. Cause I'm a crazy tiger mom who should get a job to cure me of my crazy tiger mom ways…

She has something going on, I just have no idea what. She can read words up to the 7th grade, but her comprehension is at grade level. The only feedback they gave me is she reads too fast and then doesn't understand what she's read. Since she's gone from above grade level (whatever that means, they couldn't tell me how high) to proficient - meaning at grade level- she is not progressing. They said maybe she just doesn't like reading. I have a hard time accepting this because no one in my family or my husband's family doesn't like reading. We are all readers (except my brother, who had to switch to audio books mainly because he has stealth dyslexia. He can read, but it takes a lot of his energy).

I can't remember what you've said about sustained attention...sometimes that's an issue for kids with good decoding, but poor comprehension.

Speculatively, she has probably gone from above grade level to grade level because she mastered decoding earlier than others did, but now they've caught up to her in decoding, and she hasn't progressed in comprehension.

She probably has some add - she's very creative. Likes to make books, crafts, fashion, creative writing. Very very social. No real interest in school unless art is involved. However I was very artistic and I was reading anything I could get my hands on at her age. Careless mistakes seem to be a marker for something… I had her do math on Khan Academy and she looked at an equation, read it incorrectly (missed a step) and got the wrong answer. It's a bit impulsive, answering before understanding- according to the teacher she rushes and that's when she makes careless mistakes.

How's her comprehension of personally-relevant, high interest text? Say biographies of artists, or how-to books on specific arts or crafts projects.

Impulsivity is the other half of ADHD. (The two prongs are dysregulation of attention, and poor inhibition.)

How very unprofessional of her to say anything like that, under any circumstance.

If even the Principal is noticing a bit of a backwards trend, you have reason to investigate it further.

On the math, our son has done similar things. I think he became so used to doing everything fast in math and that was almost his claim to fame. It's taken some time and is still a work in progress to get him to slow down on math. I'm guessing the reading reluctance/comprehension concerns are something different than the math impulsivity. But that's just a guess.

There is a lot of pessure put on kids to do things fast and in their head. It is not that surprising they make mistakes.

How frustrating! And obnoxious. I've received the same message from our spec ed support person, almost as bluntly. My kids are fine, I'm the problem. When you know the kids aren't fine, or you know what it's taking you to keep their heads above water and their souls from being crushed, that attitude is just.... just.... oh, insert some very bad word here. (My kids aren't at that school any more).

Anyways, to the point: do you know that she is actually decoding, rather than reading as sight words?

What was said was incredibly unprofessional, and I know it must have felt horrible - I've been on the receiving end of a few similar remarks from school staff. As horrible as it is to hear the remarks, I feel that it's actually a *good* thing to have them voiced - at least you now know what the other person is thinking, rather than assuming that they have no doubts or issues with things. It is annoying as can be, but it also gives you an understanding of what you need to do in terms of advocating for your child.

I've found the best way to respond to these types of remarks is to try to stay as calm and non-reactive as possible. It's soooo not easy - but one way to help make it easier is to prepare a canned comeback that you use whenever something off-base like this gets thrown out at a meeting. For instance, if a staff member suggests you should get a job, just turn it around and back to the focus of the meeting "My understanding is that we're meeting today to discuss how to the needs of my child at school. My employment situation is irrelevant." If the person was to continue on with that line of conversation, I would call a halt to the meeting (which you have a right to do). State that you feel the meeting is getting off track and you would like to call it off and reschedule. No one from the school is going to want to have to reschedule (it's not easy pulling a full team together for a meeting)... BUT... if they did.. then the first thing I'd do is go home and write up a summary of the meeting stating what was said and send it back to each member of the team, let them know this is your recollection of the discussion, and please let you know if there is anything you've missed. I can't imagine that the school staff would let that fly at all - can you imagine a supervisor hearing about this? Chances are the email would come back with an amended version of what was "intended" or "said". Then you start up advocating again, moving forward from there, knowing that the school psych is not an ally.

Hope that makes sense - and fwiw, that's all advice just re how to deal with uncooperative school staff. You also need to keep *your* focus on advocating for your dd. With the combination of the things you've described plus having a family member with dyslexia, I'd want to have an evaluation. You may be better off in terms of gaining more knowledge quickly if you seek a private eval, but re the school district - you need to turn in a written request for the eval asap. State your reasons: what you see re reading (watch her read aloud to you, also what you see in terms of how she reads silently for comprehension, is she having trouble reading instructions, etc), lack of growth in reading, and I'd mention that a close family member is dyslexic. You might want to check in with your brother to see what his early experiences with reading were like and compare that to what you see in your dd. Once the written request is in, the school is required by law to reply with either a yes, we'll evaluate, or a no, we won't evaluate based on ___ reason. Then you move forward from there.

Hope this makes sense - good luck as you move forward!

polarbear

That's the attitude I got as well. They didn't say I'm crazy (to my face--they did behind my back) or "go get a job" but they looked at me like I'm crazy and were completely uninterested in what I had to say. I even gave them an article on evaluating 2e children and how these kids often test average, then go on to dropping out of school. Don't think anyone read it. The sp.ed teacher said "She doesn't have to be good at EVERYTHING." In this case, she was testing average but her classroom work was clearly BELOW average, in terms of being able to complete assignments. They didn't care, because it was all about the test scores and how they had to be in the below-average range.

If you have concerns I think you need to get an independent eval, and depending on what it says, bring it back to the school. Make sure that you get someone who can give specific recommendations to the school.

Thank you all for your responses, I really appreciate it. PB I did not react well, basically I burst into tears so that didn't really help. I just was taken by surprise, so to have someone tell me that I was "THAT parent" when I had tried very hard never to be "THAT parent" - well it really upset me.

My instinct is to keep everything separate from the school, but her teacher said she thought we should check, she said her oral reading is very choppy and not fluid compared to other students in her class. So I thought it's easy, they just need to check her reading by having her read a passage or two - I didn't know I was going to get an opinion on my general character.

Aeh I think inattention probably figures into it somehow, and her brother has problems with impulsivity and attention as well (although neither of them lose things, etc.) but it doesn't seem severe. I'm going to try to have her read more interesting material and see if that makes a difference.