Hello Everyone!
I am here because I need some guidance on the best path to take for my 6yo son's education.
A little background....
He attended the Head Start program for pre-school and is now in grade K at public school in La. All during his time in pre-K and for the first half of the kindergarten school year he was considered a "problem child".. disrupting class, loud out bursts, trouble transitioning from one center to another, aggressive behavior towards other kids and adults, refusal to do assignments.... the list goes on and on. He was taken out of his regular ed. classes and put into a smaller special ed. class setting with inclusion in reg ed class for things like lunch, group activities nap time and centers. His behavior has improved considerably but he does still have slip ups.
During the course of testing done for his IEP he was given an IQ test and scored 142.My son still cannot correctly identify all of his upper case and lower case letters and cannot read even 3 letter words. He tells me "that stuff is boring" and refuses to pay attention. He identifies the capitol letter"A"but analyzes the capitol"V" "it looks like the "A" but it's upside down and doesn't have the little line... I don't know what it's called"When it comes to asking him what words he recognizes he completely shuts down and will no longer co-operate with the teacher. Unfortunately the smaller special ed class cannot help him academically, so now they want to send him to another school entirely, one that has what they are calling a "May Class" that deals with behavioral issues and working on academics at the same time. But there has been no mention of addressing his gifted education.
What do I do? Do we address behavior first or proper class room setting? Is he bored and in need of a challenge? Is it possible that he also has ADD/ADHD or other learning disabilities? How much trust do I put into the school system?
How he shows his smarts: Loves the computer, video games,(only thing holding him back in those 2 areas is not being able to read) awesome problem solver and loves to "invent" things, he can find a loophole in any argument and always wants to debate every point. I believe him to be a visual-spatial learner. He can come home and tell me all about the life cycle of a butterfly or amazing things about the solar system. His imagination and story telling is so vivid I myself can actually "see" what he is telling me. He does not have an imaginary "friend", instead he has a "nemesis" named Invisible that is always taunting him and trying to make trouble for him (Strange? Unusual? Unhealthy? Any help and advice on that is welcome!)
I am sure a lot of this makes no sense and that's mostly because I am so confused on what to do. I want my son to excel and rise to his potential.
