Writing problems. Was: more poetry

October 11, 2008

>

> LOL. Never a dull moment! Now can your ds write poetry well? My

older ds could not do it. But I remember he had the sped teacher

dealing with it and so I didn't have to.

Well, my son has never had problems writing in general. But he does

have problems understanding directions and having little pragmatic

language glitches sometimes. And he's very impatient and sensitive

about it, hence the frustrated answers.

When my son is having a pragmatic language problem, sometimes all he

needs is for me to explicitly explain it. For example, he might have

responded very similarly to your son with the white elephant sale poem

assignment, but if I explained that " white elephant " means " used items

like in a garage sale " (he's been to garage sales), then he probably

would have been fine. The problem is getting teachers to pick up on

this when he doesn't know what to ask!

Another problem with my son comes with his processing speed and

working memory issues. He has very delayed reactions and simply needs

time--sometimes lots of time. And if you push him too hard he may

shut down. So, he and his teachers try to rush it at school, out of

necessity really, and he ends up stressed out and usually with an

unfinished assignment and a puzzled, possibly stressed out teacher.

Sometimes I have to give him all evening to work through an assignment

little by little around other things. Some teachers have noticed that

when they initially assign things at the beginning of class he doesn't

do anything, but about halfway through class, he'll start working on

his own if they leave him alone. Of course, then he doesn't get

finished. I've learned to accept that he needs to work like this,

although I don't know what on earth he's going to do once he's grown

up and at a job.

Does this sound like your son? My son has a 35 average in language

arts right now. His teacher is offering to tutor him before or after

school. So I have to try to explain all this to her without offending

her by not accepting her offer but asking her instead to keep more in

touch with me so I can help my son get things done at home. She wants

to ignore his 504 Plan and do her own tutoring thing. I guess we'll

have to work this out with the assistant principal, who is the 504

coordinator.

Any thoughts on my own problems are welcome! Roxanne, does that give

you any ideas on your own situation?

Ruth

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