Yesterday we met with Joshua's team of teachers at his school to discuss his progress and the plan for next year. It was a full room with his teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist and school psychologist.
The good news is that they have graduated Joshua from physical therapy and speech therapy so he will no longer receive those services at school. On his testing he scored within the "normal" range and has met all of his IEP goals for the year in those two areas. This is consistent with the reports we have received from him private speech and physical therapists so I'm glad to see everyone is on the same page.
He will still qualify for services next year for cognitive, adaptive, reading, math, and fine motor skills. He still has a lot of short term memory and expressive skills issues that are making school difficult for him. He can only identify 1 letter of the alphabet and 1 number despite working on it all year. He cannot identify the letters in his name, not even the "J" after repeatedly working on it. In addition, he cannot follow directions from his teachers without being shown the activity and be given a lot of visual cues and help. Once he is shown how to do something a few times and witnesses it, he can then usually do the activity. However, for simple tasks the expectation in Kindergarten is that he can be told to do something and he can follow the directions - unfortunately he is not there yet. In addition, he still sometimes shuts down in class, refusing to participate or sits out by himself. He also still has low energy days at school where he won't engage.
Based on all of the above (and a few other things) they have recommended that Joshua attend Developmental Kindergarten instead of General Education Kindergarten. Although this was exactly what I expected based on earlier discussions with his teacher, it is still hard to hear the difficulties he continues to have at school when it is read aloud to you. I'm glad of the recommendation though because he does need the extra help and I think General Ed Kindergarten would have been way too difficult and stressful for him. He will be going to another new school next year as the program is in a different school with a different teacher. This will be a very difficult transition for him and I'm not looking forward to making the change either. He absolutely loves his teacher (Ms. Janet) and we do too so it will be hard to leave her. She has been so amazing to our Joshua and I'll be sad she won't be teaching him anymore. Ms. Janet will be setting up a time to take us to the new school to meet the new teacher and see his new classroom which will be great. I have a lot to update his new teacher on regarding the diet and his condition. I'm happy though that her classroom size will be very small (approx. 9 kids), she will have a para educator and she has a special education degree just like his current teacher.
I'm glad we had the meeting and that we now have the plan for next year as it has been weighing heavily on me. I'm a planner so I feel better just having a plan and knowing where he will be at next year. I'm extremely thankful for the great programs in our school district and that Joshua is able to get the help he needs.
Ben is having a hard time academically as well. :( He's about to finish kindergarten, but we are waiting on the ARD decisions to determine what will happen for next year. As a kindergarten teacher myself, it is so hard to see him struggling. I ordered these snapwords cards for him and I think they are going to help him. There is some research that some kids really need a strong connection to remember something. So the story, the visual, and the action that goes with the cards may prove to be helpful for him. They have an alphabet set as well that I need to purchase. Here's a link for the cards:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/SnapWords-Sight-Pocket-Chart-Cards/dp/B00239J64C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367097250&sr=8-1&keywords=snapwords
I hope you get to meet the new teacher soon. Blessings to your family!
SARAH MORGANc
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