Gearing Up for the New School Year

The Debate

It's that time of year again. When you get messages from the school about how excited they are for your kids to be back and all of the fantastic learning they have in store for the year.

Really, all it does is ratchet up my anxiety. Who will his teachers be? Will they understand dyslexia? Will they accommodate his disability? Do they have any idea what Universal Design for Learning is? 

Sidebar: you should check out UDL, they are actually supposed to use it in the district, but I'm pretty sure that not one teacher has had any professional development around it.

Check out these pages for information about Universal Design:

 Understood.org: What is Universal Design for Learning (UDL)?

CAST: Universal Design at a Glance

Reading Rockets: Universal Design for Learning: Meeting the Needs of All Students

Every year at this time I try to decide if I'm going to be "that mom." You know the one. The one who contacts all of the teachers for her 15-year-old child to tell them how they need to teach her child. Reminds them that he has an IEP and to save them time, adds all of his accommodations to the email, perhaps highlighting the few that are the most important for that particular class.

So far, I've only done this once. It was in the 6th grade and all the teachers I contacted responded with, "I already know that your kid has an IEP." And when I did it late in the year for 8th grade, the teacher completely focused on "need for praise" which got left in from elementary school and my son HATED it. He does not ever want people to praise him. He would rather float under the radar. 

But this year, as he enters 10th grade, I feel like, I need to take that first step. I'll reach out to the teacher, provide the information, and let them know that he's working on self-advocacy, but he struggles with that when he is with unfamiliar teachers. He HATES to ask for help. 

UPDATE: I did it! I sent messages to all of his teachers and I feel like I've gotten a pretty positive response. Today was the first day of school so we shall see how things progress. What to know what I said? Here's my email with names removed to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent.

My name is Anna Ingram and my son is in your [specific class name] class this fall. As you may know my son has an IEP for a Specific Learning Disability in reading and writing. 

He is extremely bright and remembers nearly everything he hears. His listening comprehension is in the 96th percentile while his reading and written language skills have hovered in the single-digit percentiles. He still spells many things phonetically. 

I wanted to reach out to you and highlight some of the accommodations that are most beneficial to him.

My son will also likely reach out, but he is still working on advocating for himself and will sometimes not ask questions when he doesn’t fully understand something. This is especially true when he’s unfamiliar with the teacher.

General Accommodations

• Example of the finished product to help with the understanding of expectations.

• Alternative assessment - Allow understanding to be demonstrated in different ways, like oral reports, posters, and video presentations. (For assignments where the goal is to make sure that content is understood rather than an assignment that is strictly about writing.)

• Break assignments into more manageable "chunks" 

• Frequent comprehension check-ins, check his work to show understanding and that he knows how the start assignment

• Some of this can be alleviated just by having clear directions that are bulleted and/or by someone going over all of the directions with him.

• Opportunity to retake the test after demonstrating a relearn, option to test in the learning center

• Preferential seating near instruction away from distractions

• Extra time to complete assignments/assessments as negotiated with the teacher with full credit;

• Option to have a teacher/EA read questions on tests or assignments

Reading and Writing

• When applicable access to the second set of textbooks or access codes for online use at home

• Access to technology for audiobooks, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and editing software.

• Option to use the computer over handwriting in classes

• Graphic organizer for writing assignments

• Access to repeated adult (teacher or EA) editing assistance

Organizational

• Access to class notes/slides (teacher/peer)

• During note-taking, Garret can listen only then write down what he heard

• Access to tech for organizational support

• Access to digital copies of assignments and any resources that go home.

Thank you for your time and please feel free to reach out to me or his Case Manager if you have any questions or concerns.