Support Disappeared

Matthew has been back in school for 2 weeks now. His 1:1 support for 5hrs a day seems to have disappeared.
True to form, I had to contact school about it. Spoke to the SENCo who tells me the support is still being funded by LEA (great), BUT the TA who supported Matthew for most of last year has been seconded to the Foundation Phase (this is the new way of teaching for nursery classes which requires larger number of staff to children ratio to supervise, which in theory I fully support). The new trainee LSA has also been seconded to the Foundation phase. The Headteacher is trying to employ a LSA, but she told me this over a year ago and we haven't seen one.
I contacted the LEA to try and understand how this can happen and it was them who told me they are funding his help and that the Headteacher should contact the Head of Learning Support for help and advice.
My husbands take on it is "they have removed much needed support so that the nursery children can play outside"

Reading gains

I was interested to have a look at what sort of gains were expected by Dyslexic children normally with just Language/phonological Support. I had another look at the Spellit Summary Report (not peer-reviewed) a research programme carried out by the Dyslexia Action Group. Taking another look at it, this is what I can glean from their report:-
Research design looks very similar to that of the Balsall Common Study i.e. not only Dyslexic children were chosen, they chose the lowest 10% in literacy, there was a cross over control group.

Results.

Home reading, age increased 9 months in 9 months - made no actual gains, remained as far behind as they were at the start.
Dyslexia Action, teaching made 11 months in 9 months - Caught up 2 months.
Combined, (Dyslexia action and Home reading) -not reported -disappointing results?
Waiting group, 6 months in 9 months- fell further behind their peers.

Now compare this to the gains Matthew has made,

Dore plus Home reading (+1 hr a week group support):-
29 months in 12 months.

I realise we are only 1 here, but know we are 1 amongst many who are seeing these gains. Another interesting factor was that children with specific verbal memory weaknesses and slow processing skils made less progress, and from what you can see from this blog (check previous Ed Psych reports) Matthew was in this catagory (OMG was he ever!).

Come on people there has to be something extra going on here. Why can't we have Dore plus phonological lessons for all Learning difficulties children? I admit it may not work for 100% of cases, but I think there would be absolutely no harm in trying it out for those who want to give it a chance. We need it in our education system ASAP.

Dore is currently being restructed, hopefully to make it substantially cheaper to run,allowing it to be available to a larger market and hopefully easier for our Government to embrace.

Concert today

We had a great concert this year, the 2 top classes together. All the children had a speaking part and Matthew got all his lines correct. Even better he was bright and alert, singing all the songs and getting the words correct, he was for the first time singing his heart out with a big smile on his face. HUGE difference.

New LSA

For the past few weeks Matthew has had a new and trianed LSA teaching him for his 1:1 within the class, I haven't met her and true to form the school hasn't let us know what's happening. Matthew informed me and at the school fayre I chatted to the TA who used to help him. She was sad to leave him, but says the new LSA is on her third module of specialist support, so good news. Matthew says all he sems to be doing at the momwnt is reading, but she has been removing him from concert practice to give him his required 5 hrs throughout the week, I'm sure when they get back in September she will be helping him within the class.

SEN Review- Neales Analysis of reading Ability

Here's Matthew review from the Language support teacher (weekly 1 hr group class) who does a reading test once a year, this test encompasses accuracy, fluency and comprehension. Here's the report

Click on pic for bigger image.
His reading score has improved by 2.5 yrs since July 2007. THe only problem is they haven't given us the actual age equivalent to the score, I saw the class teacher and she has promised to ask the LSA to phone me tomorrow.

PS found this write up on Primary Movement and Dyslexia while searching for informattion on the Neales test. There's a reasearch paper mentioned from the Lancet which I will have a look at when I have more time.

Swimming Success

Matthew tried for a distance badge last Sunday, the last one he swam was 400m.
He decided he would go for the 1 mile badge (1600m) as the week before he heard anohter boy talking about it. I'm pleased to say that he had no trouble at all, and was infact the first one to finish. He happily went around putting his thumb up every time he passed me and declaring that "he wasn't even out of breath yet" at 1000m mark. I can remember things when anything was too much of an effort.

More good news

Our new private tutor has been sorted out. A semi retired Dyslexia/Special Needs teacher living on our estate, so Matthew can walk around to her house. Amazingly her grandson has done the Dore programme, she is very pleased with his progress, also teaches 2 other boys who are doing the program and she can also see the progress they have made. She says undoubtedly the program is beneficial to these children
She tested out a good few things with Matthew such as Alphabet tested him on a few unusual spelling patterns and agree with me that the on the whole he is doing really well, she tried asking him the months of the year and could pick up on the slight hestitiation when asked what is the month 2 months before, although only a slight processing pause. She is going to work on the writing side of things, getting things ordered in his head and try some Mind Mapping. She can also work on the handwriting if we want (yes please) but says he is not as bad as she thought.

News about the Dore programme. Assessments have restarted at Kenilworth (Dore HQ) with more in local patrtnerships (don't really know what that means) to follow. Assessments are going to be shorter and less frequent, but with the help of MyDore hopefully this will make the programme more affordable. I'm very hopeful at this point that Dore will available to those who most require it.

Good News

Spoke to Matthew's teacher this afternoon, to discuss the fact he is sitting next to a boy who is being "mean" to him, he has ADHD and his mum's the TA helping Matthew. Understandably he is feeling some jealousy towards Matthew. However should a child who is extremly hyper be sat next to one who has extreme problems with attention himself? The teacher says she is going to move Matthew, but also said normally when children get above 90 on their end of year tests, they are released from SEN. She has decided as she is the Senco that his support will however remain and I think this is right.
My only concern about this is that there should be more than hitting a number in a test to determine whether a child needs extra support (an obviously in our school they are using they experience of this).
Matthew did extremley well on his English and Welsh classwork today as he was excited to tell me and so was his teacher. Strangely enough the distracting influence (the boy)was absence today!

Private Tutor Problems

We had to stop Matthew's private tutoring last night. The lady who had been teaching him had been absent for a few weeks and I thought she just had a break, but we found out yesterday that she had left abruptly. She was a SENCo and knew exactly how to procede with Matthew and we could see a structured programe was being used with him. However the lady who took over- the person who is running the Kip McGrath franchise, had no idea Matthew even had SEN problems.
My husband dropped him off and went in to let them her know that he hadn't completed the homework because it was too much to ask of him (write a fictional story about anything!), I spent 3 X 20 mins trying to help him, but he just didn't know where to start, and wrote a few unorganized sentences. She said "No! Matthew that should have taken you 10 mins.", my husband went on to explain that this is the very thing he needs help with and he just doesn't get it, with his SEN problems. She replied that he didn't have SEN problems, he is bright and articulate he just couldn't be bothered!! (AKA lazy) .
Needless to say I went to pick him up, put her straight and cancelled his lessons, she had changed her tune after I told her all the support he gets at school and that is why he is there. Her resposne was he will not always get 1:1 and Kip McGrath is a happy medium with 1:5 teaching, my respnose is if he is never taught how to do things he is never going to do it by himself??!!
I know a lady on our estate who is a Dyslexia teacher, so I'm going to try her.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He has obviuosly picked up so much that he appears to have the ability and this is fooling the teachers into thinking that he can but won't. This is the very problem that worries me the most, future teachers in comprehensive schools thinking him able and lazy. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!

Independent Reading

Matthew has moved on to his next book, another Michael Morpurgo- Waiting for Anya, harder than the last book as it has slightly smaller print and NO pictures (gulp), We chose it as it is about the 2nd World War and that's what they have covered this term in school.
We had a hesitant start, where I had to go back and hear him read as he was resistant (?confidence issue) and needed to get "into" the characters, but once he got into it he is again reading 4 pages a night.
Dad went to tuck him in last night and he retold what he had read (as I ask him to do this to check comprehension). Dad asked if it was a good story and he says he's enjoying it!!