From: "Suzanne Heath" To: Subject: Re: Middle School and Reading Date: Thursday, July 07, 2005 4:45 PM To answer your questions - 1 - IDEA no longer requires a discrepancy. 2 - Dyslexia is specifically mentioned in IDEA 2004, which is in effect now. You have been working at this for a while and the school has still not taught your daughter to read fluently at grade level. Consider hiring an advocate to work with you for a while to help you understand the new law and to get a program in place for your daughter. You can either hire the advocate to come to meetings with you, or just to help you behind the scenes as a coach and consultant. IDEA 2004 http://www.wrightslaw.com/idea/index.htm http://www.copaa.org/pdf/IDEA97-04COMP.pdf Advocates http://www.copaa.org/find/index.asp http://www.napas.org/ http://www.education-a-must.com/aalist.html http://www.yellowpagesforkids.com/ Dyslexia Resources http://www.nhida.org/ http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/read.index.htm http://www.interdys.org/ http://www.focusonlearning.org/ Sue Heath ----- Original Message ----- From: Rhinedv@aol.com To: sueheath@wrightslaw.com Cc: Rhinedv@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 6:49 PM Subject: Middle School and Reading My daughter is 12 and just finished 6th grade. She is very dedicated and does her homework, goes to dance and we review and review so she gets good grades. Luckily I am currently a stay at home mom but that will need to change in 1 year. She got straight A's most of the year so the school planned to drop her from her IEP. I refused to permit them to reevaluate her since she was fully evaluated by the school in 4th grade and she could not sound out words she did not know, skipped words etc. for example she could not sound out the word suds in a sentence preceded by soap. I also refused because I had asked them to test her writing which is very simplistic and disorganized but they refused saying they had tested her too recently for a change. We noticed her reading concerns since 1st grade enrolled her in Sylvan's and more and we were always told she is doing well, progressing as appropriate etc. NIH met with her briefly while I was there with my ADHD daughter and told me they did not think she was dyslexic 2 years ago. It was not until I learned of the book overcoming dyslexia that I felt I finally understood what was going on with Amanda. I had her tested independently and she came back with the dyslexia diagnosis. In fact Amanda said to me if they got to know me they would know I have a hard time reading they dont need to test me anymore. The school will provide accommodations I requested due to the tone the principal set to include: extra time, read aloud when requested, spelling errors should not be counted against her, oral presentations and read alouds by student assigned by teacher in advance or on a voluntary basis by student, no oral testing, study guides, coordinate when needed to tape lectures, and she will receive social studies and science book in advance. They are not equipped to handle her reading disability because she is above the EC level and there are no pull out sessions. We were concerned they would be able to drop her from the IEP if they pursued having her retested because of her grades, EOG scores and if they considered her broad reading scores only. So we decided to focus on accommodations and use our external tutor trained in Orton Gillingham 2 x per week. My questions are: 1. Can they use only the broad reading score and can they choose not to consider the WISCIV general abilities index? 2. When I asked that the fact that Amanda has dyslexia be noted on the IEP I was told dyslexia is not recognized. Is this true? I wanted it noted so that anyone reviewing her file would know that this is not a condition she will out grow and that accommodations will be needed during her school years. Any other resources specifically pertaining to dyslexia would be very much appreciated. I am now living in a state not known for proactive efforts (North Carolina). Although the principal (not from NC) has been very helpful. Thank you Diana Rhine 704-321-5359