Gifted Bulletin Board

Welcome to the Gifted Issues Discussion Forum.

We invite you to share your experiences and to post information about advocacy, research and other gifted education issues on this free public discussion forum.
CLICK HERE to Log In. Click here for the Board Rules.

Links


Learn about Davidson Academy Online - for profoundly gifted students living anywhere in the U.S. & Canada.

The Davidson Institute is a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting profoundly gifted students through the following programs:

  • Fellows Scholarship
  • Young Scholars
  • Davidson Academy
  • THINK Summer Institute

  • Subscribe to the Davidson Institute's eNews-Update Newsletter >

    Free Gifted Resources & Guides >

    Who's Online Now
    0 members (), 591 guests, and 14 robots.
    Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
    Newest Members
    streble, DeliciousPizza, prominentdigitiz, parentologyco, Smartlady60
    11,413 Registered Users
    March
    S M T W T F S
    1 2
    3 4 5 6 7 8 9
    10 11 12 13 14 15 16
    17 18 19 20 21 22 23
    24 25 26 27 28 29 30
    31
    Previous Thread
    Next Thread
    Print Thread
    Joined: May 2012
    Posts: 1,733
    I
    Irena Offline OP
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    I
    Joined: May 2012
    Posts: 1,733
    Hello All. So, I just had a meeting about my younger son who has a GIEP but no needs-based IEP (yet) who for some odd reason can not spell. I had to drag it out of them BUT he is at a 3rd grade spelling level and he is in 5th grade. I am livid this has been allowed to continue. And pulling that info alone out of the reading specialist was like pulling teeth so I guess they know they screwed up. I have been expressing concern for years about his spelling and am always told "he's fine." So, they were saying they will not put a needs-based goal in a GIEP so they said they would send me a Permission to Evaluate. In the meantime, I insisted that they must remediate his spelling and writing mechanics while waiting for the eval because he is going to middle school next year and it is already October. If we wait for the permission to eval and the eval to be done, it'll be the end of the school year before anything happens. They said they would come up with a plan - let's hope so. I need to know what tests does he need to be given (he is currently in 5th grade and is 10 years old). He already had a WISC V done a few years ago (which is how he ended up with a GIEP) and he has/had a nice even profile - all subtests moderately gifted (very gifted in the Visual-perceptual subtests, , no evidence of any disabilities. He has no other issues - above grade level in reading. Well above grade level in math (accelerated two years), athletic, coordinated, learns things easily (except spelling). Just a very neurotypical bright kid who Can.Not.Spell.

    I think he needs the PAL II for writing and writing mechanics and spelling(?) What other tests? Thanks!

    Joined: Apr 2014
    Posts: 4,047
    A
    aeh Offline
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    A
    Joined: Apr 2014
    Posts: 4,047
    Any norm-referenced achievement instrument will have a straightforward spelling test on it: WJIV, WIAT-III, KTEA-3. You might also want a spelling of sounds-type subtest, such as is on the WJIV and WIST (the assessment used for spelling in the Wilson OG-based remediation program for reading and spelling). The WIST-associated WADE could also be useful in looking at phoneme knowledge.

    You may also consider other phonological processing assessments, such as the CTOPP-2.


    ...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
    Joined: Dec 2010
    Posts: 658
    G
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    G
    Joined: Dec 2010
    Posts: 658
    What happens when he reads a word he's never encountered before? Does he decode it nearly accurately? I have two stealth-dyslexic kids, and my oldest reading level was so far beyond what had been assessed in school that no one heard her tackle a new work in reading after kindergarten. She now describes having learned two different languages growing up: spoken English and written English. When asked to read aloud, she would translate on the fly.

    My two stealth dyslexics each somehow score ~50th percentile on the CTOPP, but with modestly mixed scores (~25th-75th percentile). The scores in isolation don't sound any alarms.

    My kids demonstrate their difficulties with the WJ language testing plus the supplement Spelling of Sounds in Words, particularly setting the contrasts between word attack and spelling in comparison to reading comprehension.

    The TOWL has also been useful to demonstrate spelling in contrast to vocabulary.

    None of these were particularly great for progress monitoring for my kids, though. We've gotten more from various Orton Gillingham-based spelling progress monitoring, which differentiates between learned words and decodable words for spelling. They don't provide a percentile or grade level, but instead an accuracy rate, which can be compared pre- and post-intervention.

    Joined: May 2014
    Posts: 599
    C
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    C
    Joined: May 2014
    Posts: 599
    Correct me if I am wrong....I have not been a resource compliance specialist/program specialist since 1999 (spent 20 years as a stay at home mom) but back then Deficits in spelling only did not qualify as a specific learning disability....needed more to get an IEP.

    But immediate help should be available through MTI (multi tiered intervention).

    Twenty to twenty five years ago I had great success with SRA programs such as spelling mastery and spelling through morphographs.

    Joined: Apr 2014
    Posts: 4,047
    A
    aeh Offline
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    A
    Joined: Apr 2014
    Posts: 4,047
    IEP eligibility for spelling only depends on the state regs and district practices, and on the impact on the student's access to an education. Technically, spelling is part of a specific learning disability in written expression. At the high school level, typically it just gets accommodated (most of those students have had years of remediation in phonics and spelling, and have likely maxed out on benefit; it's just diminishing returns to continue at this point). At the elementary level, it's typically worth remediating, as it can have real impacts on written expression. During the middle school years, I think it's pretty individual, and depends quite a bit on the presence or absence of a history of OG/phonics remediation with fidelity.

    But I would agree that the classification matters much less than the access to remediation. SRA approaches do have their own positive history. It's a bit of a different approach than OG. And sometimes, it's just that there has been limited systematic instruction of any kind in spelling, as many schools have deemphasized spelling even in the younger grades.

    BTW, geofizz, I had a student once who essentially had two forms of the same language as well. Also severely reading disabled, but with very effective reading comprehension. The origin of the deficit was probably a bit different from your kiddos', but the net result was the same: no sound-symbol correspondence.


    ...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...

    Moderated by  M-Moderator 

    Link Copied to Clipboard
    Recent Posts
    Testing with accommodations
    by aeh - 03/27/24 01:58 PM
    Quotations that resonate with gifted people
    by indigo - 03/27/24 12:38 PM
    For those interested in astronomy, eclipses...
    by indigo - 03/23/24 06:11 PM
    California Tries to Close the Gap in Math
    by thx1138 - 03/22/24 03:43 AM
    Gifted kids in Illinois. Recommendations?
    by indigo - 03/20/24 05:41 AM
    Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5