They seem to say that she's okay with respect to LD as she's performing at or above grade level.
You may find your dd stuck in a bit of a middle-ground-black-hole here. There is a difference between having what is considered an LD by the school (which means qualifying because you meet a certain set of very low-performing-high-impact scores) and having a challenge that impacts your ability to perform to full ability in school as well as potentially impacting the student outside of school. If she does fall into this in-between land - doesn't qualify for services for the LD but does in fact have a challenge, you'll still need to do as much as you can either through outside help or by advocating and supporting her in her schoolwork to help her find her way through the challenges.
I don't think you're really truly stuck in that hole in a way that you aren't going to get support from the school - yet. Keep advocating and keep looking for understanding. Definitely ask for clarification/testing re the writing challenges at your IEP development meeting.
However, her teacher and I said she tries to do the minimal amount of actual writing and her teach says she goes through really clever means to write less.
FWIW, while these may look clever, they might also be screaming "I can't write" or "something about writing is difficult" and they might really be all that she can do.
For example, in a math problem where she is supposed to write out how she figured out the problem, she just wrote another equation. In another case, she is supposed to write the assignment of the day in her planner by copying what the teacher put on the board. DD paraphrases the assignment down to one word and thus reduced the amount of writing.
When you are advocating, remember to compare this to what other students are doing and are capable of doing. There are signals here that are important - she seems to be lagging in terms of skills she will need now and in future grades.
Her teacher noted that the DRA just administered (results not in yet) will score her lower than her actual comprehension since DD had to give answers in writing.
I think you can administer the DRA using different books (I might be wrong). Or that the books change as you move up in levels. I'd ask the teacher if she could possibly test your dd again, maybe starting at a higher level, and scribe her responses. If the teacher doesn't have time to do this, request this at the IEP meeting. I'd also ask for the TOWL (Test of Written Langauge) at the IEP meeting.
Between her behavior around writing assignments (it triggered big "freak-outs" pre-medication and difficulty while on medication), what you all have helped me with interpreting tests, and how much I know goes on in her head (regardless of how messy that closet is, I think there's something about writing that is inhibiting her, frustrating her and contributing to her distorted view of her abilitities.
I'd also request a Speech Language eval for expressive language - I'll explain a bit below under blackcap's post. You might not get it, but it's worth requesting.
It's also possible (maybe likely) that what will happen at the IEP development meeting is that since she's qualified, the school staff will tell you they can offer certain goals/services based on the teacher's notes about copying and math answers etc. That's all good, but what you really need to know is the *why* so that instruction/remediation/accommodations can be appropriately targeted. If they are resistant to further testing, let them know this is *why* testing is important. You don't want to spend valuable school resources attempting to help when what is being tried isn't going to work because it's not aimed at the correct target. Hope that makes sense!
Best wishes,
polarbear
