Tag Archives: special education

An Open Letter to Our Education System

An Open Letter to Our Education System - Dyslexia Training Institute

An Open Letter to Our Education System – Dyslexia Training Institute (Photo by GenerationBass/Flickr)

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When it comes to dyslexia, you are doing a terrible job, downright awful and some days I want to say you are dreadful at teaching and identifying children with dyslexia. By doing so, you are negatively affecting the lives of these children, their families and those trying to help them for years to come. All in the face of a mountain of research.

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Dyslexia: The Incredible Disappearing Goals

Dyslexia - The Incredible Disappearing Goals     (Photo by Wonderlane/flickr)

Dyslexia – The Incredible Disappearing Goals (Photo by Wonderlane/flickr)

Download the PDF version of this article here.

 

What could I possibly mean this time? A disappearing goal? Was the goal written with a special pen? Did the goal disappear when the student met the goal? Nope and Nope. What happened was really a brilliant and quite creative way for a school district to solve the problem of failing to teach a child with dyslexia to improve his reading and spelling. Below is the story of the incredible missing goals and other IEP magic tricks that every parent and/or advocate should be on the lookout for.

I would like you to meet Jason. He is entering the fifth grade and has had an IEP since the middle of third grade. His initial assessment included documentation of teacher comments from each grade who reported that Jason had difficulty with phonemic awareness, fluency and spelling. He has dyslexia. His initial IEP included two goals, fluency and spelling high frequency words. His fluency goal was to read a third grade passage (he would have been in 4th grade by the next IEP) with 90 CWPM – not a terrible goal, right? Now, I am not going to get into the fact that there only two goals and no baselines…yadda yadda yadda (for more about goal writing and dyslexia: http://www.specialeducationadvisor.com/dyslexia-its-all-about-goals-goals-goals/.) What I have to tell you is much more interesting.

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Dyslexia: A Fresh Start for the Fall

Photo by JustinCinMD/flickr

Dyslexia: A Fresh Start for the Fall (Photo by JustinCinMD/flickr)

Download the PDF version of this article here.

Dyslexia: A Fresh Start for the Fall

If you are anything like me, the summer is a respite from IEPs, 504s, meetings, letters, assessments, policies, laws, services…should I go on? But with this respite comes reflection. Reflection about what didn’t work last year, what worked and what I can do differently to be a more effective dyslexia advocate. Fall is right around the corner and it is an opportunity for a clean slate, a fresh start and a new approach. Since we always recommend a meeting at the beginning of each school year, I am sharing some tips to either tune-up an old IEP or to help begin the process for a student with dyslexia.

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