How hard should I push - 11/14/08 05:50 AM
Hello all - I am looking for advice concerning DS5. He has SPD and Dyspraxia and due to his needs and lack of programs in our area, we decided to homeschool for Kindergarten this year. He has an IEP for both speech and OT and I drive him in for his sessions each week to the neighborhood school. I am ex-teacher in my county and know that IEP meetings can be nuts and I called an IEP meeting at the beginning of the year to let the team know I was homeschooling and to request achievement testing (we have done the SB test and he scored very high in several areas and low in some areas and the tester stated that his SPD was definitely an issue and suggested that we look into achievement testing as well to maybe help us figure out just where he lies). At the time, our county allowed homeschoolers to come in and attend the one day a week pull out gifted program but thanks to budget cuts, that is no longer. They informed me at the meeting of this and then stated they felt that testing would be useless since there are no services to offer him...I pushed back stating it would be extremely useful since I would be the one teaching him and I honestly had no clue achievement wise as to where he was. I came away from the meeting with everyone stating they would not do testing and I though ok, maybe I can figure this out.
Fast forward to today - we have been homeschooling for about 2.5 months and I currently feel like I am throwing whatever I can at the wall and seeing what sticks as far as trying to figure out just what levels he is on. We got Singapore Math and we did the assessment you can do before you buy and he was handling 2nd grade level just fine so we decided to go with the 1b workbook first in hopes of building up his confidence level and I was worried that there were some gaps in his knowledge and wanted to make sure that he didn't miss some good foundation lessons - dumb idea...he finished that workbook in less than a month and every other word was, "this is too easy" and so now we are on to level 2 - again, I am hearing -"too easy"...I have been pulling several different materials I have collected from my years of teaching to do reading and he has been speeding through everything. Out of curiousity, I gave him the complete dolch reading word list through to 3rd grade and he rambled each and every word off with no issues and I have NO clue how in the world he learned half of the words. I have pulled out 2nd grade chapter books (reading is not his love - math and science are)and he is reading and comprehending them and he is bored, bored, bored. We have been doing 2nd grade I-Science and he is way past most everything in the workbook...so I have been throwing in everything including the kitchen sink....how in the world do I figure out where to start with him without feeling like we are skipping past some basic building blocks?
Does achievement testing give you an idea as to what academic levels a child might be on? If my little guy is able to do math on a much higher level, I want to be able to offer this to him, I just have no idea as to how to go about figuring out where to start. How far would you push in demanding that the county give your child achievement testing? Sorry to ramble- I am just a wee bit frustrated because I so very much want to try to meet his needs, but am at a loss as to how to figure out where to begin without just throwing a dart at the board and saying, hmmm, let's try 5th grade or how about 4th. I am an early childhood educator and all of my special studies and continued educational training have all been in early childhood so I am at a loss. Thanks for any help or guidance!
Fast forward to today - we have been homeschooling for about 2.5 months and I currently feel like I am throwing whatever I can at the wall and seeing what sticks as far as trying to figure out just what levels he is on. We got Singapore Math and we did the assessment you can do before you buy and he was handling 2nd grade level just fine so we decided to go with the 1b workbook first in hopes of building up his confidence level and I was worried that there were some gaps in his knowledge and wanted to make sure that he didn't miss some good foundation lessons - dumb idea...he finished that workbook in less than a month and every other word was, "this is too easy" and so now we are on to level 2 - again, I am hearing -"too easy"...I have been pulling several different materials I have collected from my years of teaching to do reading and he has been speeding through everything. Out of curiousity, I gave him the complete dolch reading word list through to 3rd grade and he rambled each and every word off with no issues and I have NO clue how in the world he learned half of the words. I have pulled out 2nd grade chapter books (reading is not his love - math and science are)and he is reading and comprehending them and he is bored, bored, bored. We have been doing 2nd grade I-Science and he is way past most everything in the workbook...so I have been throwing in everything including the kitchen sink....how in the world do I figure out where to start with him without feeling like we are skipping past some basic building blocks?
Does achievement testing give you an idea as to what academic levels a child might be on? If my little guy is able to do math on a much higher level, I want to be able to offer this to him, I just have no idea as to how to go about figuring out where to start. How far would you push in demanding that the county give your child achievement testing? Sorry to ramble- I am just a wee bit frustrated because I so very much want to try to meet his needs, but am at a loss as to how to figure out where to begin without just throwing a dart at the board and saying, hmmm, let's try 5th grade or how about 4th. I am an early childhood educator and all of my special studies and continued educational training have all been in early childhood so I am at a loss. Thanks for any help or guidance!