Parents: Watch this!

Once again, my hero Kelli Sandman-Hurley and her business partner Tracy Block-Zaretsky have done something, along with Learning ally that all parents should listen to, Know your rights.  I just spent the last 2 hours listening and taking lots of notes and I have found that my daughter still deserves more from our school district.

One thing that really got me was when asking for an assessment from your school, part of the assessment has to be of an observation of your child while they are doing what you want assessed. In our case, my daughter has a learning disability in the area of reading, so the observation has to be of her doing some kind of reading. It cannot be in math.  That may sound obvious, but this has happened. Watch for that. Also, and this I didn't know, as a parent you have a right to see the product that your child was working on during the observation. My daughter was observed during small group doing "plural reading". This was not an accurate observation. She should have been observed doing her own reading. Plural reading is reading as a group out loud. Many children, my daughter included, can fake reading in a group very well. Her comprehension is high during plural reading because she is listening more than anything. What we needed to see is her comprehension when she has to read on her own. This is where we begin to see the decline.

Watch their video.

Visit the following websites:
 learningally
 specialeducationadvisor
 national center for learning disabilities
 Wrightslaw
 Headstrong nation

Those are all excellent sites for parents.