Most of you know that I have been and remain very involved with a charter elementary school here in Chicago ~ for the past several years, I have been tutoring small groups [2-5] and single kidlets in reading and [much to my own horror] math ~ this year promises to be even more consequential ~

We have a 4th grader who transferred to us this year ~ she canNOT read ~ I don't mean she cannot read well ~ she cannot read at all ~ she can recognize letters at a kindergarten level ~ she's been tested and there appears to be NO medical reason [iow, dyslexia or other recognized abnormality] ~ she seems to be a victim of horrific neglect, both by her family and by the school system ~ we are all rabidly furious that this child has slipped thru the cracks and just promoted each year until now ~

I will be working with a "partner" and with one of our spec ed teachers in a very intensive effort to help this child [@4 hours a day, 5 days a week] ~ the "partner" is a college senior who needs "interning experience" to complete her degree ~ she will work on M/W/F and I will go in on T/T ~ we will meet together, and with the spec ed teacher, later this week or early next week to form a plan for all of us to follow ~

I can't decide if I'm excited or intimidated ~

Sooz

I'd be a combination of both.

You'll be great!!!!

Aww, sooz, You'll be GREAT!

Just imagine the look of pure joy once this child "gets it"! It happens with younger ones, but I'm pretty sure she has felt left out and probably "stupid" because of this for years. What a great opportunity.

At Waldorf schools, they don't teach reading until age 10 and they are quite successful. ( The VP of American Express is a Waldorf graduate). In the Sudbury model, a lot of kids don't read until age 10 or older- and they learn at a highly accelerated rate due to readiness and willingness. Not only is your task possible, there is a very high likelihood of success.

go Sooz!

Sooz, I would love to talk details with you. I can probably help you with resources and strategies if you want. With the level of support this child is getting, and given that there doesn't seem to be anything organically wrong, there is a very high chance of great success for this kid.

make sure she's had her eyes and hearing checked.

do you know about the 100 most frequent words? That make up about 80% of common print? I don't have an electronic version, but it's probably online somewhere. will you be working on "sight" vocabulary?

Will you be starting right out with the alphabet?

One of the most important things will be that the child experiences some small successes right away--her self esteem is probably in the gutter.

Oh! I wish i was closer to you. I would love to dig my teeth into that task with you. I love that kind of challenge. Have fun with it. this kid has no where to go but up.

I can't decide if I'm excited or intimidated ~

Who could blame you for mixed emotions?!

I'm guessing the her potential for learning is quite good. A shame - since reading certainly can set a student back in all areas - but at least this can be corrected.

I like greenapple's words, "this kid has no where to go but up."

Thanks to all for your confidence ~ this will definitely be a challenge ~

greeny, I don't know the answers to your questions yet ~ I'll know more specifics after our group meeting ~

There is NO way this kidlet's prior teachers didn't recognize/know the severity of her problem ~ and I'm deeply furious that she was advanced year after year ~ I asked yesterday if there was concern that pulling her from class for 4 [maybe more] hours a day will push her even further back ~ the answer was, counter-intuitively, it might help her catch up faster because now she was absorbing virtually nothing since she is incapable of doing the homework or tests or even classroom work without being able to support the vocal words via reading ~ it's a sad commentary on too many levels to count ~

Sooz

There's different levels of Special Ed. I would think because she can't read at all in the fourth grade that she should have been in the self-contained Special Ed classrooms.

The child will be removed from the general school population for all academic subjects to work in a small controlled setting with a special-education teacher. Students in a self-contained class may be working at all different academic levels, with different textbooks and different curricula. Self-contained classes offer structure, routine, and appropriate expectations, but some students may require a higher level of specialization.

I did some fieldwork in an eighth-grade self-contained special ed classroom and it had five students to one teacher and a teaching assistant. They had real comfy lounge chairs and were permitted to lounge on the floor if they wanted. The entire eighth grade was reading Jack London's A Call of The Wild and their book was abridged with a slightly more limited vocabulary.

I think all the Special Ed students are promoted and only the level of Special Education changes with the student's progress.

don't waste time in anger at previous teachers. You have no idea yet about this kid's background. She may have moved around, been pulled out of school, missed a lot. There may have been trauma that made it impossible for her to concentrate.

I wish all kids made it through the system with all the skills they were supposed to develop, but unfortunately, this kind of thing isn't as uncommon as I wish it was. Kids are placed age appropriately -- no one fails a grade any more.

Just focus on the chance you're giving her now. I can think of 10 others i wish were getting the same chance.

I spent a lot of time today at school, meeting with the spec ed teacher ~ the first bombshell was learning the college student has apparently decided not to participate ~ school spoke with her Wednesday morning, she was all fired up ~ about 3:30p Wednesday afternoon, she sent an email, saying only her plans had changed ~ and she did not return phone calls or emails since then ~

So ... it's gonna be Jalisa [the kidlet] and me, with the spec ed teacher available as needed ~ I did not meet Jalisa today, but the spec ed teacher said she's a sweet child who wants to please ~ apparently she's the only child in a close-knit family, but her dad died this summer which has her mom [and Jalisa herself] feeling lost ~ the spec ed teacher detailed the problems, which [sadly] are MANY, and extend beyond not being able to read to math and socialization skills ~ the spec ed teacher feels she needs to be in a full-time spec ed classroom, which we do not have nor do most other public elementary schools here these days ~ we'll start a week from Tuesday [today is the end of the 1st quarter, so no classes next week] ~ the spec ed teacher will do lesson plans that I'll follow, 4 hours a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays ~ we'll start with a kindergarten "curriculum" ~ I'll update this post again after we start ~

Sooz

I am sure you will do well and will enjoy reading more each time you post on this and her improvements. What a challenge for the both of you.

If she is of average intelligence, I believe a mainstream classroom is the place for her (our board also feels that way) for socialization reasons, with removal for special help and programming (as you will be doing).

honestly though, there are some things that don't seem...kosher? in the story here. IF she is of average intelligence with no discernible learning disabilities, and IF she comes from a close knit family who love her dearly and raised her well, why hasn't she learned anything? I mean, even if she didn't attend school at ALL she should have picked up some skills.

The fact that she also has socialization issues raises red flags for me. That is often education code for behaviour problems and violence. I'll bet there's more to this story than is being told. See if you can get a look at her student record before you commit to more than you can handle, sooz. And make sure they tell you the whole story, and that you will have support from the school if you need it.

Today was day 1 of my challenge ~

Jalisa is a pretty, sweet, friendly 9yo ~ very petite ~ she showed no anxiety that I was sitting in and by afternoon we were pals ~ we worked with the spec ed teacher this morning, where I mostly observed ~ since our afternoon session was longer, we repeated the morning lessons and then went a bit further ~ we worked on the sounds of basic letter combinations [tr, ly, an, ou, etc] and then sight words ~ we also spent time on simple math, beginning with addition ~ I think [and reported before I left school] that I see some signs of either dyslexia or another learning disability ~ for example we used a grid with numbers from 1 - 100, 10 across/10 down ~ each of the 3 times [over maybe an hour] I asked her to point out 41, she pointed to 14 ~ she didn't show those signs during the letter/word practice ~ she has virtually no retention ~ she's okay while we're repeating, but if we come back to a word or problem an hour later she has no memory of it ~ she does not know her phone number or address ~ and yet her vocabulary is at or above her age ~

There are still many unanswered questions, but mom is meeting with the spec ed teacher, our social worker, and our principal on Friday ~ according to the spec ed teacher, Jalisa's IEP, which was done at the beginning of this school year at her former school, is a bad joke ~ so generic and vague it could apply to almost any child ~ by law here, a parent or guardian must request further testing and our "team" will encourage mom to do so ~

I wrote up 5 addition problems and showed her how to use the grid to get the right answer ~ she promised to bring me the answers on Thursday ~ we'll see ~

Sadly, Jalisa recognizes she is "different" ~ and is embarrassed ~ but we talked about everyone being different and I think/hope she felt better about herself ~ again, we'll see ~

I need a nap ~

Sooz

A type of autism?

Sooz, if she does have a learning disability, dyslexia or something similar, then reading in context might be really important. For instance--instead of practicing sight words on flash cards, write sentences with her and have her read them back to you. The familiarity with the subject, and the fact that she dictated the sentence herself will help her remember the words, and will give her sentence context to predict unfamiliar words.

I had a little boy last year that did not know his alphabet when i got him, but he could memorize short books and sentences that he and i wrote together from contextual clues and pictures, and then we worked on one to one correspondence so that he could identify those words when he saw them in unfamiliar context. Turns out he does have a learning disability and will likely never learn through conventional phonetical means, but is capable of memorizing sight words from contextual situations, partially because he had good oral grammatical structure and a large vocabulary. Sounds a little like your girl, but younger. I found out 6 months after i started those strategies with him that that was what his doctor recommended.

Be SURE to have her hearing and eyesight checked, or make sure they've already been. It's amazing how many potential learning disabilities in reading end up being just ears or eyes.