Clearly you have a bright son! You mention difficulties with recall and and written output. Tell us more about these. Is the written output primarily a motor issue (handwriting), or are there other/different issues such as formulation, organization, spelling etc?
Punctuation is pretty much non-existant, his writing is messy and I think that the task of writing is so difficult that he tends to have poor organization and a lack of ability to get his point across. He can talk to you for 10 minutes about a topic then will write 5 words when it comes to describing. Some letters are still backwards and he will completely skip the "ands and thes" at times. I suspect dyslexia and we are looking into it.
What about the recall - is this mostly in oral communication (ie word retrieval), or does this extend to other things such as long term memory, ability to remember details etc.
The recall is mostly with word retrieval and automatic recall of math facts... 7 + 5 is not memorized etc. Sometimes he gets confused with some of his long ago learned information and how it relates to topics that are being discussed - for example the teacher was talking about the Chunnel and he said he knew about that it was called the underground railroad.
Generally an IEP has instruction in addition to accommodations. Does his IEP include any? I'm thinking perhaps OT, speech and language, maybe previewing of concepts ideas so that he can better formulate his oral and written responses to take advantage of class discussion. How is he with math facts? Does he use a calculator?
His IEP doesn't include any of that - those are good points. I think that he would do really well if he was given some preview time. He doesn't use a calculator but again that should go in the IEP given his rapid recall of math facts.
What are his strengths and interests? How does he like to learn (reading, discussion, hands on?) Tell us a bit more about your son as a learner and about his school's current approach to his education, and maybe we can chime in with some ideas to reach his strengths and to compensate for his challenges.?
He loves any kind of learning - in order I would say hands on, reading then discussion. He loves science and history. He is a self directed learner at home - I will bring home books from the library and he will devour them, we go to the science center and he lights up. He loves Lego and K'nex, he loves science experiments and figuring out how things work. He is in a regular classroom and the pace is quite slow.
Thanks for your help - this totally helps to get the juices flowing in my brain!
