Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Eval results - advice needed

I would agree with pb. "Sees that it matters" can mean a lot of different things. This is also one of the functions of oral pre-writing activities: that's when students grapple with the relevance of the writing assignment, not only on a motivational level, but also in terms of truly understanding the prompt--which is a skill in itself.

Those look like good, practical accommodations. Were they resistant to the "encouragement vs. criticism" language?

I'd also be interested in teasing out the "sees that it matters" piece. I don't know much (anything) about written expression issues but I know my son can also write well in some cases and not others. In his case, anyhow, it seems like it's more an issue of A) his current physiological state and B) whether or not he understands what he is supposed to be doing (i.e. requirements are clear and stated concretely).

How do you feel about the plan? Did the school folk seem positive/responsive to your concerns? Are you satisfied, uneasy, or both? (I don't mean to interrogate you! Kind of collecting data since will be doing this sort of thing--again--sometimes soon.)

I would add to the extended time ----with no penalty to grade.... It might sound like a no brainer but it needs to be put down that the student is exempt from penalizing. Some teachers don't get that.

Polarbear, yes, this was (and is) my concern as well. Apparently, an assignment was given in class, and my child wrote all of 2 sentences in nearly 2 hours. I asked him about it later on at home, and he said that he blanked out on what to write.
I think assignments where he has to relate or recollect something and produce written output is a challenge. I do not have tests to back up my statement, however. I just think so, from what I have seen. Also, FWIW, the school administered the WJ III test for writing (I forget what they are called), and he scored exceptionally well (it was one on one testing, and he typically tends to do well in it. However, I think, for some reason, he is not able to translate it to back-in-the-classroom for some assignments).

I am wondering what to do about this. I will try and post up his scores on the WJ III test a bit later on.I have still not signed off on the 504; I am debating about the writing thing.


Some writing assignments he simply does not seem to care about. I haven't seen this at home, but, at home, I don't have him write on topics I choose. He's free to write about anything. Some days he writes a lot, some days very little.

I also wonder if he understands what he is expected to do when a writing prompt is given.


Despite or inspite of all these challenges, I have a somewhat okay-ish relationship with the school psych as well as the teacher. The teacher was very hard to deal with in the meeting (though I think she has his best interests at heart), but the administration was okay, and seemed very eager to help. I am upset about this writing thing though.

I'd make a note of this. Ask your ds or the teacher what the assignment was too, and make a note of it. It might seem meaningless re what happened at this point in time, but over time collecting this type of info will help you understand what is challenging about writing assignments for your ds.

I'd also ask the teacher if your ds received any assistance or check-ins from the teacher or a classroom aide. Sitting and producing not-much-at-all for 2 hours while other classmates are writing can be extremely frustrating for a child. The whole point of going to school is to learn... so if a child is sitting and not working, someone should check in and offer help or support.


Which might be a sign of a challenge, or might be a sign of a student who needs someone to just step in and help him with a few quick brainstorming tips. Since it's happening repeatedly (I think), I'd suspect there's more to it than just needing a few brainstorming tips.


Since you have a suspicion of what the problem might be, you could do some informal "testing" of your own at home by giving him different types of writing prompts, and keeping the output as evidence of what type of writing assignment is more of a challenge for him and which types are easier.


The WJ-III writing subtests are very simple tasks that look at one skill at a time in isolation. It's quite possible that your ds has the skills he needs to do well on the WJ-III subtests and still has some type of challenge that is preventing him from completing written expression tasks. A widely-used and more comprehensive test for written expression tasks is the TOWL (Test of Written Language). This test requires students to actually write a paragraph (or more), and is often used by schools when testing for a suspected LD in written expression.


Since you haven't signed off on the 504, I would consider requesting further testing on writing. If you're wondering about the specific WJ-III writing subtests, you should be able to find descriptions of each subtest online.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - how old is your ds, and what grade is he in?

One thing I thought of is that you might ask him if he ever has trouble knowing what to say or what words to use when he's talking. You might also give him a "writing assignment" that is similar to something he's struggled with at school and ask him to reply verbally rather than writing it down. If your ds has a challenge with written expression that's related to expressive language, he might also have a similar challenge when speaking. My ds has both, but when he was in early elementary the verbal challenge wasn't obvious at all - he seemed very advanced in his verbal output. When he was around 4th grade though, he started telling us that he didn't know what to say and it became more obvious that whatever was challenging for him with writing assignments was also impacting his verbal expression too. That won't always be the case, but it's something to watch for.

I was also curious re how old he is because... 2 hours seems like a long time to sit and write no matter how easy it is for a child!

Best wishes,

polarbear

ditto pb. Your description sounds like he has trouble with idea generation, initiation, possibly organization and theme development. The WJIII does not assess any of these skills. These are actually more closely related to executive functions. Sometimes that may manifest as inconsistencies in written expression/output. A topic for which he has high interest and/or background knowledge may lower the threshold for the above EF-laden writing tasks.

Thanks, everyone. We finally have a 504 in place.


He definitely has issues with initiation. However, once he begins, he writes a fair bit. Sometimes, though, it seems like he is "stuck". The school is not really helping with writing (and it is only 2-3 weeks till the end of school). I am wondering what resources/writing programs/afterschool classes helps with this.


Polarbear, we finally did sign off on the 504. They showed us his WJ writing samples. Compared to his in-class work, it was very good.

Some of the staff in the school administration seem very helpful. We are going to assess his writing at the beginning of next year (in 3rd grade). Meanwhile, over the summer, I was wondering how to remediate this (where to start etc).

Also, I am not quite sure how much (in terms of length) a third grader should be writing. He is currently writing 10-12 sentences atleast on any topic (it sort of seems excessive to me in 2nd grade, but maybe it is the norm ?). Also, I keep wondering -- shouldn't content matter more than the length ? He's inconsistent with content, but that is more my focus than the length (which seems to be his teacher's focus).

mom2one - I'm in a hurry so not much time to post, but fwiw - here content started mattering in 4th grade. 2nd/3rd grade writing was all about getting ideas out. OTOH, even in first grade, the teachers were having the students focus content on a single subject per writing exercise, and they also had kids proofreading for things like neatness and catching punctuation/capitalization etc errors - they limited it to something small like one or two per assignment when the children were really little, but they did include that as part of what was important to be thinking of while writing. I'd try to find your state/school district curriculum guidelines to see what is expected in your area (you should be able to find the curriculum expectations by grade online).

If idea generation and initiation is a challenge, I have a few suggestions I could share via pm that our SLP used with our ds. Our ds' writing remediation (that made any difference - for him) came through speech therapy, and his first year or so of speech therapy was all about idea generation / initiation. They are things that aren't "writing" specific - a lot of it is verbal, but helps get thoughts moving "out"

If his writing is going to be assessed at the beginning of the next school year, I'd request the TOWL. This may also sound odd, but I'd pay attention to his verbal communications. When our ds was your ds' age, we thought writing was the issue - but it wasn't the *full* issue - the issue was related to expression (both verbal and written). Our ds was extremely verbal when he was young - never stopped talking or asking questions, and his vocabulary was very advanced, so we never suspected he was having any difficulty with verbal communications until he was in 4th grade, and he started telling us when he just couldn't get a thought together or get it to come out in words.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Hi Polarbear

I'd be interested in the idea initiation and generation activities as well. DS is in grade 1, and writing tasks are not too onerous, but he has a hard time thinking of what to write. He had to do a 'book report' earlier this year, which only involved describing what the book was about - I had to prompt him for each chapter to come up with a sentence describing what happened. I was scribing for him (typing into the computer) so it wasn't a mechanical issue.

DS is also very verbal with an advanced vocabulary and great spelling skills - so this is something I hadn't expected. But during the recent vision testing (see other thread) one of the activities was to simply read out 2 columns of numbers - he was quite a bit below average in terms of speed (100% accuracy though). The optometrist said this was maybe a processing speed issue?