Beckee did a great job of explaining the differences between an IEP and a 504 plan. What you need to do prior to making your request to the school is to think through what your child needs and what you want to accomplish with your request. I think, from what you've posted, you are looking for instructional help with reading and accommodations for ADHD. With respect to the reading, there are two ways that could go (in our district) depending on the severity of the challenge. If the school perceives that your child's need isn't severe enough, they will not provide individualized instruction in reading, which is what is written out in an IEP. However, sometimes schools will include instruction as part of a 504 plan or as RTI. Don't convince yourself ahead of time that your child won't qualify for IEP services just because they are performing at grade level. Our EG ds was performing "at grade level" in writing (his area of disability) per our state testing, and when you averaged his achievement test results together his highs way outbalanced his lows so using the form that the district usually uses, he didn't appear to qualify - yet he was also a kid who could *not* write a 3 paragraph sentence (or even make a list) when he was in 4th grade. We requested that the school give him the TOWL which is much more specific re writing skills and we also made sure that the school looked at his specific test of writing achievement in his area of challenge and were able to argue successfully for IEP services. You're not dealing with written expression as a challenge, but I mentioned that because you can do the same thing with reading, just different tests
If what I said didn't make sense, let me know and I can try to explain it more specifically re how we argued our ds' case.
Another thing I'd think through ahead of time if you can is what does your child need for reading instruction - did you have any guidance on this from the private psychologist? Do you know what your school will most likely offer, and what is available at other schools in your district? Is the method your psych suggested offered through your school?
Re accommodations - these are typically put into a 504 plan for kids who have disabilities but don't need or qualify for IEP services. In our district, all accommodations for kids who have an IEP are put into the IEP and the student therefore doesn't have a 504. This is more (I think) for ease of administration and reducing total number of meetings the staff needs to attend than anything else. We ran into a slight potential hiccup with this philosophy in that our ds had an IEP specifically for written expression, but he also has a fine motor disability which impacts his ability to use handwriting. When we tried to get his fine motor accommodations put in place in his IEP there were a few which we were told (initially) that we couldn't put in because they weren't related to his IEP goals and the area under which he qualified for his IEP. It was all beyond ridiculous, and we successfully advocated to get them into his IEP (possibly because we requested a 504 meeting to address his handwriting disability lol). Another thing we ran into in our discussions about accommodations was that the school team did not offer up any accommodations beyond the very standard typical such as "quiet room for testing" and "extended test time"... there were some very typical accommodations for dysgraphia that the school staff didn't mention, so we absolutely needed to know going into the meeting what our ds would need in terms of accommodations, and it helped also to know how to word the request for each.
As knute mentioned, since your ds already has an IEP in place, additional goals can be added to the existing IEP. One thing that I suspect what will have to happen though is that to receive services for a reading disability your child will have to go through the IEP eligibility process again specifically for eligibility under SLD - reading. Students can qualify under multiple eligibility categories, but they don't typical receive services for a category that they haven't been officially qualified for through an eligibility process. I'm guessing his current eligibility is under Speech / Language disorder? If the eligibility category is the same for both, he won't have to go through another eligibility process.
Do you have a copy of the Wrightslaw From Emotions to Advocacy book? If not, it's worth taking a look at. If you have any worries at all that your school won't be receptive to your request, you might also want to consider consulting with an advocate - we were able to find a local (to us) advocate group who's services are free, and they were a tremendous help to us during the eligibility process for our ds.
Best wishes,
polarbear
