What everyone else said about the IEP: if it's in there, they HAVE to follow through. And making this be between him and them (at least the school piece) is essential for his growth, even if he needs extra support around it right now. In college, you won't be there at all, and he's going to need to know how to solve these problems himself, which means the problems will be between him and his teachers.
In the meantime, don't make him independent until the teachers (and you) have taught him all the constituent skills.
His dysgraphia-induced dreamy state of mind at school is making it extremely difficult to create some successes in this area.
Is it just dygraphia, or are there other EF matters going on? This sounds like more to me.
Our steps we set in place already:
1. The entire student body carries with them a planner with room to write assignments each day for each class, so he keeps this with him at all times.
2. At the beginning of each class period, he takes out his planner and writes down the homework assignments written on the board. He does this faithfully.
3. He checks the planner during snack when he gets home to determine what work he finished in class and what needs to be done.
4. He completes all unfinished classwork, homework assignments and works on projects right after snack and before playing.
Those are good steps. I might add to the IEP that each teacher checks his planner on his way out of their class to make sure he's understood and noted what he must do.
It may also help to have an end of day backpack check to make sure that all the requisite worksheets, books, etc. are coming home. They can later fade this to *him* checking the backpack against his planner more independently before leaving school, but under teacher guidance, and then eventually independently.
2. He completes work, puts it in his binder in his backpack and promptly forgets about it. When it is collected the next day, his is not in the pile, either because he forgets that he did it or he's off in his own world when the teacher asks for it.
Teachers either have to prompt him for it again, or you need to work out a system where all the work to turn in that day is in the front of the binder, and that section checked at day's end to make sure it all went in.
3. He will avoid at almost all costs approaching the teacher to ask what assignments are missing or to advocate for more time for an assignment that he finds particularly challenging, either due to the large amount of writing for the assignment or some other task that makes it harder to process.
This can be improved through role play: give him the script to use, have him practice it with you but then also do it with the teachers. Also get it into the IEP that this is an issue so that teachers are aware of this problem. This sort of thing drives them crazy, but if it's in there at least they know about it.
I really don't want to get in the middle of the process and be the nag every day - because that will set up the pattern that he will learn to depend on me instead of learning processes that give him independent success.
There is nagging, and then there's nagging. I try to nag in a way that builds skills: "Where is this piece of paper going to go so that you remember to turn it in?"
DeeDee
