Today Holland had his ceramics class at his charter school. I only signed him up for one class a week. We're already doing a homeschooling co-op and the more I'm out of the house, the less school work I get done if I'm running around every day. I tried to get there a little early so I could make copies of his work for his work sample notebook. It wasn't enough time before class to figure out the copy machine, so we just sat on a bench outside the door to his class. I overheard one of the secreteries talking to the art teacher and picked up on key names (one of them being Holland's name). I figured out that they were talking about the woman who is now involved in his IEP and works for the school district. We had talked about her coming to observe Holland during his class so she could check on his behavior goals.
She's really nice, so I didn't mind at all. We actually have an annual review IEP meeting this Friday and we were able to discuss current goals and possible goals for this year. Imagine how surprised I was when she said "I think I'll just take all his behavior goals off. Is that okay?" Uh, yeah! She said he had met all his goals from last year and didn't see any reason to add more based on my observations and what she saw today. Yahoo! And what's even better is I get to write his IEP goals for reading, writing and math. How cool is that? I have all these great notes from the Language specialist evaluation last week and I'll be able to put down 'no phonics'; 'writing to read' through shared context, drawing about the context, labeling, writing and reading back what he wrote. I also started his picture dictionary. I used bubble letters and drew a small picture above the word and every time he needed to access the word for a reading comprehension workbook, he knew exactly which word it was. I'm so excited to see his progress!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Who Cares About Oatmeal, Anyway?
Holland has been really wanting oatmeal. He used to eat it for breakfast or lunch or just a snack. But now since he can't have it, we've gotten more creative with his menu. Like this morning, for example. He was in a soccer tournament this weekend. He played two games yesterday and a game today. His lunch yesterday was a handful of almonds and chocolate chips and a juice drink. He said he wasn't that hungry, so I just let it go. When he finished the games, he did eat the rice bar I brought. He did not want the costco chicken that super-hero brought home, so he just had corn for dinner. I think he did eat another handful of almonds later on and maybe some popcorn.
This morning while I was getting the other two kids ready for church, I couldn't find anything to feed Holland. He had poured through the pantry and all he could find was gluten-free gingersnap cookies (which he ate). We are out of wheat-free cereal, out of eggs, can't have toast, forget pancakes. I was just stumped. Then I remembered I had a little bit of sherbet left for a fruit smoothie, so I made one really fast. Lunch wasn't much better. I had to make tacos (again. How many times is that now, in the last week?). He ate one and then went outside to play. Dinner was baked salmon, sticky rice and broccoli with fresh lemon. I really was in the mood for some dessert (we've stopped buying cookies, muffins, etc. We're on the South Beach diet and didn't even try!) I had returned all the gluten-free cookbooks and the boys were on the computer. So I just decided I would find a brownie recipe and make it. A couple months ago I bought two Martha Stewart cookbooks from costco: one is entirely cookies and the other is a seasonal cookbook. I found a brownie recipe, substituted my GF (gluten-free) flour mix I have already mixed up and added a few chopped pieces of Hershey's chocolate bar for a double chocolate brownie. The boys were so excited and I hadn't even told Holland it was gluten-free. I gave them eat a plate with a warm brownie and a glass of milk. He said it was even better than what I usually make, which is the boxed Hershey's brownie mix from Costco. Then I told him it was gluten-free and he couldn't believe it! I also had to tell super-hero to stop eating them and save some for Holland. He said he couldn't even tell they were different!! Wa-hooo!
Forget oatmeal. We have chocolate.
This morning while I was getting the other two kids ready for church, I couldn't find anything to feed Holland. He had poured through the pantry and all he could find was gluten-free gingersnap cookies (which he ate). We are out of wheat-free cereal, out of eggs, can't have toast, forget pancakes. I was just stumped. Then I remembered I had a little bit of sherbet left for a fruit smoothie, so I made one really fast. Lunch wasn't much better. I had to make tacos (again. How many times is that now, in the last week?). He ate one and then went outside to play. Dinner was baked salmon, sticky rice and broccoli with fresh lemon. I really was in the mood for some dessert (we've stopped buying cookies, muffins, etc. We're on the South Beach diet and didn't even try!) I had returned all the gluten-free cookbooks and the boys were on the computer. So I just decided I would find a brownie recipe and make it. A couple months ago I bought two Martha Stewart cookbooks from costco: one is entirely cookies and the other is a seasonal cookbook. I found a brownie recipe, substituted my GF (gluten-free) flour mix I have already mixed up and added a few chopped pieces of Hershey's chocolate bar for a double chocolate brownie. The boys were so excited and I hadn't even told Holland it was gluten-free. I gave them eat a plate with a warm brownie and a glass of milk. He said it was even better than what I usually make, which is the boxed Hershey's brownie mix from Costco. Then I told him it was gluten-free and he couldn't believe it! I also had to tell super-hero to stop eating them and save some for Holland. He said he couldn't even tell they were different!! Wa-hooo!
Forget oatmeal. We have chocolate.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Language Evaluation
I got the report back from the Language and Learning specialist. I think it was totally worth the money, although I'm sure super-hero would disagree. She wrote some pretty interesting things about the way he processes information, how he uses language, his fine motor skills and speech.
"Motor development is typically viewed as a function of fine and/or gross muscle groups, with speech motor acts produced with fine muscle movements; and walking produced with gross motor movements. The central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) is necessary for these motor acts. Damage to the spinal cord affects the motor function at the peripheral level (limbs, trunk, etc.) but not at the cognitive, speech or language levels. However, damage to the cerebral cortex can affect not only the motor ability to physically perform an act but also the ability to consciously want to execute an act. Thinking about execution is a cognitive (cortical) function. Execution of cognitive motor acts is not only a function of the motor strips but also a function of the frontal lobe in concert with the temperal and parietal lobes. The temporal and parietal lobes provide information about the language that a person is able to put to a motor act. For example, a child sees the feet move up and down. An adult watching this movement says the child is "walking". The child learns that when the feet move up and down a certain way, that motor act is called walking. Conscious execution of motor acts is a language function."
She observed his fine motor skills when he drew pictures, played with legos and spoke words. But she said he had "overflow" of the motor acts. For example when he ate a snack he used his left hand to pick up the small pieces while his right fingers were moving in parallel ways. Also when he wrote with his right hand, his left fingers would move. The movements on the opposite sides of his body show a "shadowing" which is more typical of a young child. He has this "lateralized" movement that affects his connection of motor patterns to the space that the patterns are in. This was interesting: "His body is divided into two equal parts and his eye movements see the letters on both sides of his body but in opposite position. Likewise, he sees the letters upside down and right side up at the same time. This means that he cannot use letters for the sounds of words. But, he can feel the shape of what he sees so that if he can store an idea as a motor shape, then it has no letters, no directions, and he has a visual pattern attached to an idea that he can retrieve." When Holland was asked to write a word with his eyes closed, he was able to do it. Dr. Arwood said because he can store the idea as a motor shape and he has a visual pattern attached to an idea he can then retrieve the information.
This makes complete sense to me. Recently I started signing words to him while he was reading when he got stuck. Sometimes he would try to "sound" out the word, but most of the time he would sound out letters that weren't even in the word. When I added a sign, he would be able to retrieve the picture for it and know the word. So he is obviously using "pictures" he has in his mind to retrieve information, reorganize it and give it back. Dr. Arwood also suggested that I fingerspell in his hand for vocabulary words. That way he could feel what the word looked like.
Speech requires fine acoustic motor patterning. "He responded well to falling or rising intonation indicating that he could hear the paralinguistic tones." He also heard a distant phone ring and asked about it, which suggests that he can also attach meaning to sound patterns of everyday actions. "However, the complex fine motor movements of speech for longer phrases or sentences and for sounds that require rapid movements during production such as glides and some blends, are often problematic for Holland. This is typical of auditory processing issues. Auditory processing requires a neurological connection of acoustic with visual patterns. Holland can produce the acoustic patterns and the visual patterns but his learning system does not integrate the two types of patterns for auditory concepts." He will also run his words together when words become too complex and he lacks the sound segmentation. (She called this "cluttering").
Holland's language and cognition was evaluated and it was found that his concepts are represented in visual form. He can see single pictures and is beginning to make those pictures into short "movie" clips. But because his speech showed auditory processing difficulties, Dr. Arwood asked him an auditory question. "What do you do on a typical day?" He replied, "playing, do math, stuff like that." This reply showed no "sequence of time, time-based wording or an understanding of the time of these events. He does not use the time-based properties of language."
When he was asked to read a first-grade passage, he immediately used his mental pictures to tell the story even though he could not read 80% of the words. For example, he would say the fox wanted to eat a hen. The passage read, "He was looking for food....He wanted a nice fat chicken." "He could mentally see what the meaning of the print was even though he did not know the names of the words. This means that Holland has visual or pictured concepts mentally to which he can put some sound for speech but cannot use sound for developing the meaning of ideas."
She suggested that I have Holland draw what we've read, add the words to match the picture and label the people/objects in the picture. She also said it was important to include thought bubbles and word bubbles so he could create perceptual patterns. I asked if I should correct spelling while he was writing and she said definately. It takes an average of 40 times to spell a word correctly that was learned incorrectly. If he learns a word that is spelled wrong, it will take him so much longer to "unlearn" that and learn the correct spelling. Good advice for all those "inventive spelling" teachers out there! That's what I was taught in my teaching program. 'Let the kids sound out words and experiment with spelling.' I suppose that would work if 100% of your students were auditory learners. But I'd be willing to bet that more people are visual rather than auditory learners.
The other thing that we will be doing is making a picture dictionary. She had a paper with about 12 squares on it for writing a word and then "bubbling" it. I had been 'framing' the words before, but this was new. She actually outlined the word, like you'd see on a high-school dance poster! Then she would erase the letters, so just the outlined showed. She had an example of a whole sentence written this way. At first Holland was uncomfortable with all the lines, but when he was shown the 'bubble' sentence, he was able to read all the words! Amazing. He could see the shape of the word, rather than be stuck on what the letters represented phonemically. She also had a little box for what she called "glue words." These were all those words he got stuck on like; I, me, you, they, their, there, them...etc. She drew a small picture above the word. Like the word "go" she drew little feet so he would have a picture to connect to a concept and then be able to create meaning.
So now you'll be able to use all these great ideas if you have a more visual than auditory learner. You're welcome.
"Motor development is typically viewed as a function of fine and/or gross muscle groups, with speech motor acts produced with fine muscle movements; and walking produced with gross motor movements. The central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) is necessary for these motor acts. Damage to the spinal cord affects the motor function at the peripheral level (limbs, trunk, etc.) but not at the cognitive, speech or language levels. However, damage to the cerebral cortex can affect not only the motor ability to physically perform an act but also the ability to consciously want to execute an act. Thinking about execution is a cognitive (cortical) function. Execution of cognitive motor acts is not only a function of the motor strips but also a function of the frontal lobe in concert with the temperal and parietal lobes. The temporal and parietal lobes provide information about the language that a person is able to put to a motor act. For example, a child sees the feet move up and down. An adult watching this movement says the child is "walking". The child learns that when the feet move up and down a certain way, that motor act is called walking. Conscious execution of motor acts is a language function."
She observed his fine motor skills when he drew pictures, played with legos and spoke words. But she said he had "overflow" of the motor acts. For example when he ate a snack he used his left hand to pick up the small pieces while his right fingers were moving in parallel ways. Also when he wrote with his right hand, his left fingers would move. The movements on the opposite sides of his body show a "shadowing" which is more typical of a young child. He has this "lateralized" movement that affects his connection of motor patterns to the space that the patterns are in. This was interesting: "His body is divided into two equal parts and his eye movements see the letters on both sides of his body but in opposite position. Likewise, he sees the letters upside down and right side up at the same time. This means that he cannot use letters for the sounds of words. But, he can feel the shape of what he sees so that if he can store an idea as a motor shape, then it has no letters, no directions, and he has a visual pattern attached to an idea that he can retrieve." When Holland was asked to write a word with his eyes closed, he was able to do it. Dr. Arwood said because he can store the idea as a motor shape and he has a visual pattern attached to an idea he can then retrieve the information.
This makes complete sense to me. Recently I started signing words to him while he was reading when he got stuck. Sometimes he would try to "sound" out the word, but most of the time he would sound out letters that weren't even in the word. When I added a sign, he would be able to retrieve the picture for it and know the word. So he is obviously using "pictures" he has in his mind to retrieve information, reorganize it and give it back. Dr. Arwood also suggested that I fingerspell in his hand for vocabulary words. That way he could feel what the word looked like.
Speech requires fine acoustic motor patterning. "He responded well to falling or rising intonation indicating that he could hear the paralinguistic tones." He also heard a distant phone ring and asked about it, which suggests that he can also attach meaning to sound patterns of everyday actions. "However, the complex fine motor movements of speech for longer phrases or sentences and for sounds that require rapid movements during production such as glides and some blends, are often problematic for Holland. This is typical of auditory processing issues. Auditory processing requires a neurological connection of acoustic with visual patterns. Holland can produce the acoustic patterns and the visual patterns but his learning system does not integrate the two types of patterns for auditory concepts." He will also run his words together when words become too complex and he lacks the sound segmentation. (She called this "cluttering").
Holland's language and cognition was evaluated and it was found that his concepts are represented in visual form. He can see single pictures and is beginning to make those pictures into short "movie" clips. But because his speech showed auditory processing difficulties, Dr. Arwood asked him an auditory question. "What do you do on a typical day?" He replied, "playing, do math, stuff like that." This reply showed no "sequence of time, time-based wording or an understanding of the time of these events. He does not use the time-based properties of language."
When he was asked to read a first-grade passage, he immediately used his mental pictures to tell the story even though he could not read 80% of the words. For example, he would say the fox wanted to eat a hen. The passage read, "He was looking for food....He wanted a nice fat chicken." "He could mentally see what the meaning of the print was even though he did not know the names of the words. This means that Holland has visual or pictured concepts mentally to which he can put some sound for speech but cannot use sound for developing the meaning of ideas."
She suggested that I have Holland draw what we've read, add the words to match the picture and label the people/objects in the picture. She also said it was important to include thought bubbles and word bubbles so he could create perceptual patterns. I asked if I should correct spelling while he was writing and she said definately. It takes an average of 40 times to spell a word correctly that was learned incorrectly. If he learns a word that is spelled wrong, it will take him so much longer to "unlearn" that and learn the correct spelling. Good advice for all those "inventive spelling" teachers out there! That's what I was taught in my teaching program. 'Let the kids sound out words and experiment with spelling.' I suppose that would work if 100% of your students were auditory learners. But I'd be willing to bet that more people are visual rather than auditory learners.
The other thing that we will be doing is making a picture dictionary. She had a paper with about 12 squares on it for writing a word and then "bubbling" it. I had been 'framing' the words before, but this was new. She actually outlined the word, like you'd see on a high-school dance poster! Then she would erase the letters, so just the outlined showed. She had an example of a whole sentence written this way. At first Holland was uncomfortable with all the lines, but when he was shown the 'bubble' sentence, he was able to read all the words! Amazing. He could see the shape of the word, rather than be stuck on what the letters represented phonemically. She also had a little box for what she called "glue words." These were all those words he got stuck on like; I, me, you, they, their, there, them...etc. She drew a small picture above the word. Like the word "go" she drew little feet so he would have a picture to connect to a concept and then be able to create meaning.
So now you'll be able to use all these great ideas if you have a more visual than auditory learner. You're welcome.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Projects For Everyone
So this year seems to be all about the projects. Holland made gliders to test differences in wing size; we made a bat house (which is for our next study in flying creatures); and today we did an art project based on "Fish is Fish" by Leo Lionni. He created a new fish/animal, did a background texture rub with crayon and then he wrote a story about his Fin-fox (body of a fish; head of a fox). He's also really enjoying his ceramics class on Mondays.
So today I needed a project. And since food has become a major focus lately, I decided we needed something we could all eat. Last night we had hamburgers and (store-bought) french fries. Holland didn't even mind that he ate his hamburger without a bun. (I even gave him some of my pop to make him feel better!) We had leftover patties today and Holland actually said that sounded good. But of course, all the french fries were gone. I found some russet potatoes in the pantry and decided I needed homemade french fries to go with my hamburger (and a tomato from my garden!) I peeled, sliced and soaked the potatoes for about 15 minutes. I cooked them for about 3 minutes, drained them, cooked the next batch and then cooked them a second time. They were soft on the inside and cripsy on the outside. Holland loved them. He was so excited that potatoes were not a forbidden food.
So today I needed a project. And since food has become a major focus lately, I decided we needed something we could all eat. Last night we had hamburgers and (store-bought) french fries. Holland didn't even mind that he ate his hamburger without a bun. (I even gave him some of my pop to make him feel better!) We had leftover patties today and Holland actually said that sounded good. But of course, all the french fries were gone. I found some russet potatoes in the pantry and decided I needed homemade french fries to go with my hamburger (and a tomato from my garden!) I peeled, sliced and soaked the potatoes for about 15 minutes. I cooked them for about 3 minutes, drained them, cooked the next batch and then cooked them a second time. They were soft on the inside and cripsy on the outside. Holland loved them. He was so excited that potatoes were not a forbidden food.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Little Breakthroughs
The past few days have been very hectic. Trying to figure out what to feed Holland with what's in my pantry. How to pack gluten-free food for soccer games or co-op days. I've bought many tiny bags of gluten-free snacks and a 24 oz bag of pancake mix. This puny bag of Pamela's cost me $6.89. I loved making pancakes and waffles and breakfast-y food. I've heard this is the best pancake mix (sorry Bob; no competition) but hope to be able to duplicate it if it's a success. Otherwise we're going to end up spending two or three times the normal amount on food.
It's not that he's a super-picky eater. Romania fits that bill more than Holland. He loves fruit and vegetables. He told the gastroenterologist on Monday that his favorite food was corn. Go figure. Corn. Not hot dogs. Or pizza. But corn. I'm also rediscovering the art of the smoothie. The best book is "Jamba Juice". This is the only way I can sneak plain yogurt into my kids. Their favorite smoothie so far is cranberry juice, strawberries, blueberries, plain yogurt and raspberry sherbet. That's the ticket! Putting ice cream in a smoothie. Today, Holland and Egypt and I made smoothies. They each drank about a cup and then we made popsicles with the rest. We saved them for an after-dinner treat and they all thought it was dessert! Sweet. I even told Holland I'd let him eat a smoothie popsicle for breakfast. Big smile on that one. I'm such a cool mom.
We've all been kinda pouty after Holland's diagnosis because we thought we'd barely (if ever) be able to go out to eat. (Well, I was probably more pouty than super-hero. He's probably thrilled we're not spending money on restaurant food!) Not many restaurants are gluten-free friendly. Red Robin. Nope. Spaghetti Factory. Forget it. But with all my poking around on the internet, I've found lots of bloggers blogging about gluten-free stuff. Recipes. Restaurants. This one blogger mentioned the best pizza she'd ever eaten (gluten-free!) Of course, I kept reading and it was located in Arizona. Bummer. Maybe we could visit there. I think I have relatives in Arizona, right mom? I decided to check out their website anyway. Maybe they had recipes or other links. I scrolled down on their 'locations' page and had to read the word "Oregon" twice. No.... there couldn't really be the "best gluten-free pizza ever" located in Portland?!? And guess what? It's only a few blocks from super hero's office! I'm already planning an afternoon of lunch when Romania has a Friday off. I also decided to check out other pizza joints. There's an awesome pizza place where we had our "Happy Adoption Day" celebration. Holland really liked their pizza. On the left-hand side of their website was a list and the words "gluten-free" popped out. They actually have an entire gluten-free menu coming out. Should be available on October 1st. (Do they take reservations? Because we're going!) The little blurb about the new menu showed how much they know about cooking with wheat and gluten-free flours. They have separate equipment; separate baking areas and are training the employees how to handle the food so there's no cross-contamination. They even hunted down a gluten-free mozzarella. I'm impressed. I don't even care what it costs. We are eating pizza on October 1st.
It's not that he's a super-picky eater. Romania fits that bill more than Holland. He loves fruit and vegetables. He told the gastroenterologist on Monday that his favorite food was corn. Go figure. Corn. Not hot dogs. Or pizza. But corn. I'm also rediscovering the art of the smoothie. The best book is "Jamba Juice". This is the only way I can sneak plain yogurt into my kids. Their favorite smoothie so far is cranberry juice, strawberries, blueberries, plain yogurt and raspberry sherbet. That's the ticket! Putting ice cream in a smoothie. Today, Holland and Egypt and I made smoothies. They each drank about a cup and then we made popsicles with the rest. We saved them for an after-dinner treat and they all thought it was dessert! Sweet. I even told Holland I'd let him eat a smoothie popsicle for breakfast. Big smile on that one. I'm such a cool mom.
We've all been kinda pouty after Holland's diagnosis because we thought we'd barely (if ever) be able to go out to eat. (Well, I was probably more pouty than super-hero. He's probably thrilled we're not spending money on restaurant food!) Not many restaurants are gluten-free friendly. Red Robin. Nope. Spaghetti Factory. Forget it. But with all my poking around on the internet, I've found lots of bloggers blogging about gluten-free stuff. Recipes. Restaurants. This one blogger mentioned the best pizza she'd ever eaten (gluten-free!) Of course, I kept reading and it was located in Arizona. Bummer. Maybe we could visit there. I think I have relatives in Arizona, right mom? I decided to check out their website anyway. Maybe they had recipes or other links. I scrolled down on their 'locations' page and had to read the word "Oregon" twice. No.... there couldn't really be the "best gluten-free pizza ever" located in Portland?!? And guess what? It's only a few blocks from super hero's office! I'm already planning an afternoon of lunch when Romania has a Friday off. I also decided to check out other pizza joints. There's an awesome pizza place where we had our "Happy Adoption Day" celebration. Holland really liked their pizza. On the left-hand side of their website was a list and the words "gluten-free" popped out. They actually have an entire gluten-free menu coming out. Should be available on October 1st. (Do they take reservations? Because we're going!) The little blurb about the new menu showed how much they know about cooking with wheat and gluten-free flours. They have separate equipment; separate baking areas and are training the employees how to handle the food so there's no cross-contamination. They even hunted down a gluten-free mozzarella. I'm impressed. I don't even care what it costs. We are eating pizza on October 1st.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
I feel like such a flake. I haven't posted in about a week! I have too much going on. We finally got the definite diagnosis of celiac disease for Holland. With school, meetings, doctor appointments and Holland's first ceramics class, my life was just too blurry. We also had three straight nights of soccer games and practices, too.
I also took Holland to a language evaluation last week. It's crazy how God lined all these things up. I had to go to school to become an interpreter; then get tendonitis from interpreting; then go back to school and get my degree; then go to graduate school for the deaf education program. While doing my student teaching, I was paired with a teacher in Washington who became a good friend. We've stayed in contact over the years and she referred me to this language expert. It was the most amazing evaluation I've ever been to. All she had to do was listen to his speech, see the way he held his pencil, watch him draw a picture of a fox and a farmer, see that he left out vowels when he wrote to come up with methods for me to use to improve his reading and writing. I went out and bought a digital recorder a few days before so I could tape the meeting. I knew there was going to be so much information and I didn't want to miss anything. I'm so glad I did! I transferred the recording to my computer and have been listening to it and taking notes on things.
She said he has auditory processing issues. He hears perfectly, but his brain doesn't transmit the sound into meaningful information. Phonics mean nothing to him because he can't differentiate between sounds. He has pictures in his head of words that are meaningful to him. That is how he writes; if he has a meaningful context for a word, then he can remember how to write it. But movement actually makes the pictures drop off, so as soon as he tries to write something, he loses that information. It's a crazy thing. I also had concerns of FAS (fetal alcohol spectrum). I sent her an email prior to the appointment just so she'd be aware of my concerns, but not wanting to talk about them in front of Holland. She said based on his ability to recall information and the way he drew details in his pictures (big fluffy tail on the fox; big teeth, pointy ears) that she did not believe that FAS was part of his learning differences.
He also left out vowels in words which she said is a huge indicator in auditory processing disorder. Vowels are not important because the consonants give more meaning to a word. He wrote "frm" for "farm" but he was able to read back what he wrote so she knew he understood the story. She also pointed out that while he was reading, when he came to a word he didn't know, he would insert a word that made sense. So he was making logical predictions about the story. She said this would not be happening with an FAS child. It feels so good to know this because now I have some tools to help him with his perceptual patterns.
The other interesting thing she did was to 'bubble' the words on a sheet of paper with squares set up for a picture dictionary. She would write the word he needed/wanted to know and then create a bubble around the entire word. This is a bit different than what I was doing before. When I was student teaching in Washington, the teacher I was with was a very visual teacher and would 'outline' words for the kids. It would look like you were drawing squares around the letters, but it would all be connected. This really seemed to help some of the kids who, being deaf, are obviously more visual learners. They could see the shape of the word. This method didn't really seem to stick for Holland. The language evaluator told me he needed an even more precise outline of the word. She showed me a sample sentence written entirely in bubble words. The letters were not written, so Holland was just looking at the entire shape of the word. She asked him to read the sentence and he didn't even flinch! It was so amazing. A meaningful pattern was now attached to these words.
The most important thing for me to do now, is to read him a story, have him draw what we read, write sentences to match the pictures and then read back what he wrote. I asked if I should correct his spelling while he was writing. As a teacher trained fairly recently, the rage was to let the kids do "inventive spelling". Let them use their phonics skills to sound out words and write how they believed the word to be spelled. Well, since Holland has no phonics skills, it makes no sense to let him sound out words. She said it takes an average of 40 times to write a word the correct way after learning it incorrectly and know how to spell it. Teach a child the correct spelling the first time so they do not have to "unlearn" it later.
I also took Holland to a language evaluation last week. It's crazy how God lined all these things up. I had to go to school to become an interpreter; then get tendonitis from interpreting; then go back to school and get my degree; then go to graduate school for the deaf education program. While doing my student teaching, I was paired with a teacher in Washington who became a good friend. We've stayed in contact over the years and she referred me to this language expert. It was the most amazing evaluation I've ever been to. All she had to do was listen to his speech, see the way he held his pencil, watch him draw a picture of a fox and a farmer, see that he left out vowels when he wrote to come up with methods for me to use to improve his reading and writing. I went out and bought a digital recorder a few days before so I could tape the meeting. I knew there was going to be so much information and I didn't want to miss anything. I'm so glad I did! I transferred the recording to my computer and have been listening to it and taking notes on things.
She said he has auditory processing issues. He hears perfectly, but his brain doesn't transmit the sound into meaningful information. Phonics mean nothing to him because he can't differentiate between sounds. He has pictures in his head of words that are meaningful to him. That is how he writes; if he has a meaningful context for a word, then he can remember how to write it. But movement actually makes the pictures drop off, so as soon as he tries to write something, he loses that information. It's a crazy thing. I also had concerns of FAS (fetal alcohol spectrum). I sent her an email prior to the appointment just so she'd be aware of my concerns, but not wanting to talk about them in front of Holland. She said based on his ability to recall information and the way he drew details in his pictures (big fluffy tail on the fox; big teeth, pointy ears) that she did not believe that FAS was part of his learning differences.
He also left out vowels in words which she said is a huge indicator in auditory processing disorder. Vowels are not important because the consonants give more meaning to a word. He wrote "frm" for "farm" but he was able to read back what he wrote so she knew he understood the story. She also pointed out that while he was reading, when he came to a word he didn't know, he would insert a word that made sense. So he was making logical predictions about the story. She said this would not be happening with an FAS child. It feels so good to know this because now I have some tools to help him with his perceptual patterns.
The other interesting thing she did was to 'bubble' the words on a sheet of paper with squares set up for a picture dictionary. She would write the word he needed/wanted to know and then create a bubble around the entire word. This is a bit different than what I was doing before. When I was student teaching in Washington, the teacher I was with was a very visual teacher and would 'outline' words for the kids. It would look like you were drawing squares around the letters, but it would all be connected. This really seemed to help some of the kids who, being deaf, are obviously more visual learners. They could see the shape of the word. This method didn't really seem to stick for Holland. The language evaluator told me he needed an even more precise outline of the word. She showed me a sample sentence written entirely in bubble words. The letters were not written, so Holland was just looking at the entire shape of the word. She asked him to read the sentence and he didn't even flinch! It was so amazing. A meaningful pattern was now attached to these words.
The most important thing for me to do now, is to read him a story, have him draw what we read, write sentences to match the pictures and then read back what he wrote. I asked if I should correct his spelling while he was writing. As a teacher trained fairly recently, the rage was to let the kids do "inventive spelling". Let them use their phonics skills to sound out words and write how they believed the word to be spelled. Well, since Holland has no phonics skills, it makes no sense to let him sound out words. She said it takes an average of 40 times to write a word the correct way after learning it incorrectly and know how to spell it. Teach a child the correct spelling the first time so they do not have to "unlearn" it later.
Friday, September 12, 2008
First Day of HIGHday
Thursday was the first day of our homeschooling co-op. We did this last year with Romania and Egypt while Holland was at school. It's three hours of school taught by other moms. You teach or assist two classes and then the third class you get a break and time to socialize with other moms. Romania was a little disappointed because he remembered how much fun it was last year. I reminded him that Holland was unable to participate last year and this was just how life works.
I had asked to be placed in Holland's first two classes: "fun with electricity" and a chess class. I knew Holland would like the electricity class because during the school year last year, he almost electrocuted himself when he put a paper clip into an outlet. It didn't really matter that I had told him not to do that. He simply had to find out himself what it looked like when he did. I guess sparks went flying but now he knows what that looks like and hopefully will not do it again. (When he was a little over a year old, he touched the front of our gas fireplace several times and got blisters from doing this. My helpful sister-in-law pointed out that I just should have told him not to do it. After all, that's what she did with her kids. I've known for a long time that he needs to experience something to learn it.)
The teacher did a great job. The kids all paired up and had a cell (a battery), a small bulb and a ribbon of foil for their experiments. Their first job was to find out how to make the bulb light up. The kids tried all sorts of ways and finally figured out how it worked. She handed out papers with drawings of different ways to get it to light up. The kids had to draw what worked and what didn't work. Then they had to make predictions about several drawings and actually do it to see if it worked. Holland actually got all those right. Chess class was a little more difficult because the teacher did not do a good job of seeing who knew what. I know that several kids (including Holland) had limited experience with playing chess. He assumed that all the kids knew what the pieces were called, how many moves each could make and how many points they were worth. Holland got a little confused, but he partnered with his cousin who knew quite a bit about chess and was able to tell him which moves he could do. I thought chess was a good way to use predicting skills and sequencing.
Overall it was a great first day experience. He socialized so well with his peers - maybe the IEP team should come in and see him and then they can get rid of those dumb behavior goals.
I had asked to be placed in Holland's first two classes: "fun with electricity" and a chess class. I knew Holland would like the electricity class because during the school year last year, he almost electrocuted himself when he put a paper clip into an outlet. It didn't really matter that I had told him not to do that. He simply had to find out himself what it looked like when he did. I guess sparks went flying but now he knows what that looks like and hopefully will not do it again. (When he was a little over a year old, he touched the front of our gas fireplace several times and got blisters from doing this. My helpful sister-in-law pointed out that I just should have told him not to do it. After all, that's what she did with her kids. I've known for a long time that he needs to experience something to learn it.)
The teacher did a great job. The kids all paired up and had a cell (a battery), a small bulb and a ribbon of foil for their experiments. Their first job was to find out how to make the bulb light up. The kids tried all sorts of ways and finally figured out how it worked. She handed out papers with drawings of different ways to get it to light up. The kids had to draw what worked and what didn't work. Then they had to make predictions about several drawings and actually do it to see if it worked. Holland actually got all those right. Chess class was a little more difficult because the teacher did not do a good job of seeing who knew what. I know that several kids (including Holland) had limited experience with playing chess. He assumed that all the kids knew what the pieces were called, how many moves each could make and how many points they were worth. Holland got a little confused, but he partnered with his cousin who knew quite a bit about chess and was able to tell him which moves he could do. I thought chess was a good way to use predicting skills and sequencing.
Overall it was a great first day experience. He socialized so well with his peers - maybe the IEP team should come in and see him and then they can get rid of those dumb behavior goals.
Monday, September 8, 2008
We've Got Books!
We finally were able to go pick up some books. Not all of them were in, but math and history and some writing books came in. We did the first chapter of Early Modern History. There are so many names to remember. He's not going to be able to answer all the comprehension questions and I'll have to work on narration with him. But I'm so glad that he's at least being exposed to all the subjects I chose.
I finished organizing the school room and put away old books from last year. What to do with all those books? The problem is finding a place to store them if I need to look back at them for any reason. My garage is getting smaller and smaller.
We have a busy week. Tomorrow Holland will have his biopsy. We have to be at the hospital at 6.30 am. Then Romania has a soccer game that night. On Thursday we start our homeschooling co-op and I also will have my first meeting with my Educational Specialist. This is where I have to show Holland's work and evidence that I've actually been teaching and not sitting on the couch watching Oprah.
I finished organizing the school room and put away old books from last year. What to do with all those books? The problem is finding a place to store them if I need to look back at them for any reason. My garage is getting smaller and smaller.
We have a busy week. Tomorrow Holland will have his biopsy. We have to be at the hospital at 6.30 am. Then Romania has a soccer game that night. On Thursday we start our homeschooling co-op and I also will have my first meeting with my Educational Specialist. This is where I have to show Holland's work and evidence that I've actually been teaching and not sitting on the couch watching Oprah.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Good-Bye Molly
Last night I made the decision to put my cat down. She was 16 years old. I got her about a year after we were married. Back in May, the vet said she had some kind of lump and we could do surgery to find out what it was, but I opted for antibiotics and some fluids. She seemed to perk up for awhile and then the end was just cleaning up cat throw-up off the floor. Holland came with me to the vet and we said good-bye. Here's the last picture of her with the kids.
Friday, September 5, 2008
This afternoon was Holland's IEP "transition" meeting. I knew I was in trouble when I heard the woman that was 'supposed' to be on my side comment to the district rep "I read his file last night and my first thought was 'why fix something that's not broken' ". She said this not knowing that I was the one she was representing. I did not know who she was (the person that I thought was going to be there, had lined up this woman in case she couldn't get back from her other committment). I'm glad I didn't introduce myself because this is the only way I would have found out (accurately) that she did not support this placement. This is the person from the charter school that Holland is now enrolled in.
So basically, the entire meeting was me making point after point of why I did not see last year's placement a good fit for this year. How I was going to make that work and how they were going to monitor progress. I wish I had never gotten involved with the school district. I did so, because I believed it was the only way to get the academic help I needed. What I got was an overzealous group of 'professionals' who are more concerned that Holland won't have enough socialization this year. He actually is getting more appropriate socialization than he had last year. Last year he was around kids with some pretty serious emotional problems. This year, he'll be taking a ceramics class, learning about electricity, learning how to play chess and playing soccer. I'd say those were pretty good socialization activities.
Again the money situation was brought up. The district rep's boss was there (never met him before; he's never shown up at any other IEP meetings) and he said it cost $37,000 to educate Holland at Heron Creek last year. Before I could stop it, the comment "I can do it cheaper" came out of my mouth. Such a sharp-tongued comment. But I guess if you're bringing up what something costs, then I should have the same opportunity to comment on that. Big-man boss did not find that funny; but I saw the district guy crack a smile. I asked if a placement at this other charter school would have been cheaper than $37,000 and he said no. I do not believe that one bit. I guarantee they don't spend half that per student at the charter. They only get $5,500 extra per child on an IEP. I bet having an aide out there would have been comprable if not less expensive. They are already servicing 3 students on IEP's - all with academic needs.
The rep even asked if my ultimate goal was to get him at Romania's charter school. I said there was no way I would be plucking him out of his current situation. I spent the whole summer wondering where he would be placed this fall and when I finally decided that the best placement was with me, I would not be making any more adjustments to his schooling right now.
I guess it's good to know before things progress much further who's really going to support me in a pinch. And it's not the woman that showed up today. I did get a very nice compliment from Holland's former program supervisor. She left before the end of last year on maternity, so I didn't see much of her at the end. She said she was proud of the way I handled myself. That it must have been difficult to advocate for my child in a room full of people that weren't in agreement with me. And that I handled it with grace.
Yep. That's my job.
So basically, the entire meeting was me making point after point of why I did not see last year's placement a good fit for this year. How I was going to make that work and how they were going to monitor progress. I wish I had never gotten involved with the school district. I did so, because I believed it was the only way to get the academic help I needed. What I got was an overzealous group of 'professionals' who are more concerned that Holland won't have enough socialization this year. He actually is getting more appropriate socialization than he had last year. Last year he was around kids with some pretty serious emotional problems. This year, he'll be taking a ceramics class, learning about electricity, learning how to play chess and playing soccer. I'd say those were pretty good socialization activities.
Again the money situation was brought up. The district rep's boss was there (never met him before; he's never shown up at any other IEP meetings) and he said it cost $37,000 to educate Holland at Heron Creek last year. Before I could stop it, the comment "I can do it cheaper" came out of my mouth. Such a sharp-tongued comment. But I guess if you're bringing up what something costs, then I should have the same opportunity to comment on that. Big-man boss did not find that funny; but I saw the district guy crack a smile. I asked if a placement at this other charter school would have been cheaper than $37,000 and he said no. I do not believe that one bit. I guarantee they don't spend half that per student at the charter. They only get $5,500 extra per child on an IEP. I bet having an aide out there would have been comprable if not less expensive. They are already servicing 3 students on IEP's - all with academic needs.
The rep even asked if my ultimate goal was to get him at Romania's charter school. I said there was no way I would be plucking him out of his current situation. I spent the whole summer wondering where he would be placed this fall and when I finally decided that the best placement was with me, I would not be making any more adjustments to his schooling right now.
I guess it's good to know before things progress much further who's really going to support me in a pinch. And it's not the woman that showed up today. I did get a very nice compliment from Holland's former program supervisor. She left before the end of last year on maternity, so I didn't see much of her at the end. She said she was proud of the way I handled myself. That it must have been difficult to advocate for my child in a room full of people that weren't in agreement with me. And that I handled it with grace.
Yep. That's my job.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
School is Back in Session
Romania is on day three of school. I took him in on the first day and listened to all the announcements for the yearly activities, their goal as a school community and pleas for parents to volunteer. I stayed two of the three hours because I had Egypt with me (Holland had spent the night at my parent's house) and she was coming to the end of her 3 year-old attention span. His new teacher is nice and there are several kids he knows from his 1st grade class. It's a 2nd/3rd split and so many of the kids had the same teacher last year.
This year will be a lot easier in the driving schedule. Since I am homeschooling Holland again, I don't have to worry about his bus coming and we leave the house a few minutes after 8 to drop Romania at the bus hub. They added another stop this year, so it's a bit closer and I don't have to use so much gas to and from school. Yesterday, Holland and I finished his school work before noon and he was able to play with a neighbor boy for a couple hours in the afternoon. So far he's doing pretty good. I still don't have all of my school books I ordered over 6 weeks ago. They are still sorting them at the school and their method of inventory only allows one person on the computer at a time. So we are finishing up the last few pages of his math, and doing some reading and handwriting stuff I had left over. I've even been pretty successful keeping Egypt busy with coloring, building blocks and painting. Holland seems less stressed out, so I'm praying this year will look a lot different than it did two years ago.
This year will be a lot easier in the driving schedule. Since I am homeschooling Holland again, I don't have to worry about his bus coming and we leave the house a few minutes after 8 to drop Romania at the bus hub. They added another stop this year, so it's a bit closer and I don't have to use so much gas to and from school. Yesterday, Holland and I finished his school work before noon and he was able to play with a neighbor boy for a couple hours in the afternoon. So far he's doing pretty good. I still don't have all of my school books I ordered over 6 weeks ago. They are still sorting them at the school and their method of inventory only allows one person on the computer at a time. So we are finishing up the last few pages of his math, and doing some reading and handwriting stuff I had left over. I've even been pretty successful keeping Egypt busy with coloring, building blocks and painting. Holland seems less stressed out, so I'm praying this year will look a lot different than it did two years ago.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Labor Day Weekend at the Lake
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We had a great weekend at the Lake cabin. Romania did most of the swim activities and Holland did almost all the boat races he qualified for. Egypt entered one race and when I popped her in the water for her swim, she cried, turned around and I picked her up out of the water. She still got a ribbon, though.
I was very impressed with how well Holland did in the boat races. Last year he got so frustrated and pretty much gave up the first race and then back out of the rest. This year, he did the rowboat (he said was his favorite), the kayak, the two boy canoe race with his brother, the boy/girl canoe race and the parent/child canoe race.
Romania did all the swim stuff he qualified for. He won his swim race and did the diving competition and the slide as well.
We had terrible weather :-) It was so cold for being the end of August. And on the night of the all-lake BBQ, it poured! They had a little awards ceremony and it was sprinkling. We started dinner at 4.45 because we were all worried about getting soaked. By 5.45 it was raining so hard it looked like November! The kids had a great time, but were so tired by the end of it all. Monday is a do-nothing, get-ready-for-the-first-day-of-school day.
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