So even though she has a diagnosis the school won't help with it anymore then allowing her extra time and a keyboard? You are scaring me.
Ya know what is funny I just realized that I gave the wrong age for her LOL! What kinda mom am I? She is 9 and doesn't really keyboard all that well either.
I wish that I had a simple answer to this. I realized that the school was not teaching DD how to read. Between K and 1st, I taught her to read and have kept supplementing her instruction. Right now her reading seems to be in a good place. I keep track of her reading by continuing to require her to read out loud to me and doing some "guided oral reading" on more challenging books. The school gave me phonics exercises to do with her at home but her teacher agreed with me that DD was beyond the exercises. We also had her evaluated by Lindamood Bell as recommended by the psych who did DD's testing. LMB felt it was questionable whether their program would help DD.
The school did a vision assessment and concluded that she had tracking issues. We privately paid for vision therapy that seems to have been beneficial (fewer headaches, less exhaustion when reading). DD has started reading a lot more voluntarily since we did VT. Prior to VT she would never sit down and read a book unless I demanded it.
The school did a handwriting evaluation and concluded that she never makes her letters the same way twice. The OT thought that she had never formed a mental template so there is nothing automatic about it. At the same time, the OT would not qualify her for services because her handwriting was not sufficiently impaired.
Getting a 504 was difficult because the school psych did not consider DD to be disabled (a requirement for a 504). Luckily, her 2nd grade teacher supported me on getting the 504 designation. I've read that DD should be able to qualify for an IEP based on her writing impairment. I just haven't tried to wage that battle yet. If/when I get to that point, I will need to go beyond the building level because I don't think that the current administration will budge on this issue. Fortunately, DD has a great teacher this year who has dealt with kids like DD in the past. She is trying some different things with DD and is great at encouraging DD.
