I am more of a lurker than a poster here but was hoping I could get some advice.
My son (9 years old) has ADHD. He is unmedicated but currently working through the Dore Program and we are hoping for results from that.
Through out the school year he has been having difficulty. I have spent many hours trying to teach him or work with him on his school work but it has not helped. Unfortunately I should of gotten a tutor long ago but now it is required. He must have a tutor or else he cannot progress onto 4th grade.
I have ~10-12 resumes and recommended tutors in my area (all with experience working with ADHD). But now I am at a loss of how to pick which one is right for my son.
His core problem is his reading (no comprehesion and often skips over words or guess). This though effects his other subjects such as science, social studies, and even math. Math also he is struggling (still adding on his fingers, no correlation between topics, etc. and has not gotten above 65 on any test this year).
I have no idea how many hours a week he should be tutored, no idea whether we should try to just concentrate on math and reading or whether he should try to go back and relook at some of the science and social studies and religion also. I am very lost here. His school is being of limited assistance (I have the curriculum from this year and know which topics he has struggled on but am unsure of what he really needs). Additionally a lot of his school issues stem from lack of confidence and lack of organization - can a tutor help with these issues also? I know at home we try to work on these but I feel like I am fighting a losing battle.
Any suggestions on picking a tutor and tutoring would be greatly appreciated. (Sorry for the length of this post!)
Melissa
Has your son been tested to see if he has any hidden learning disabilties? If not, that would be where I would start, before hiring a tutor.
This may be a stupid question but how would I go about having him tested for other learning disabilities. Normally I would think I could go through the school but in this situation it is not an option.
Do I go to a particular doctor for this?
Well, do you have a psychiatrist for him? If so, they might be able to give you recommendations. I went to Dr. George Dorry, here in Colorado. My daughters psychiatrist recommended him to us. He did a full woodcock johnson, mmpi. From those it was suspected that she had an auditory problem, so then we went to a speech and language place for auditory testing. The reason I am pointing you in this direction, is my daughter too in 4th grade started struggling in issues in school, so I paid for Sylvan. Which for the short term worked, however because at that time we didn't know she had a learning disability, what they did , was basically a quick fix. I finally got her diagnosed at 15! Yes , the schools , just kept telling me, if she applies herself she can do the work. The school finally in 9th grade did " testing", which I was told didn't show enough of a gap per our law. Little did I know at that time they gave only certain subgroups of the test, not the entire test, to get a FULL picture. If you have a childrens hospital near you they might be able to point you in the right direction also, most insurance does not cover for this testing, however it is tax deductible. Hope this helps abit, maybe you could post where you live, I'm sure others might be able to give to advise to your area.Woohoo! This is my subject. My son has been tutored and tutored. He came to live with us as a foster child, right before he entered third grade, and he really struggled academically. You think your story is long, well, now, here is our tutoring story:
3rd grade in public school--went to a tutoring center to be prepped for third grade reading TAKS because if he did not pass the test, he did not pass the grade. All tutoring was centered on the test, so he took practice tests out the boozoo. He passed the reading TAKS with a 70, but, hey, he passed, which was pretty good for a kid who could not read.
4th grade in private school--I suspected my son had dyslexia, even though with his socio-economic background, he was difficult to dx. I, therefore, hired a private tutor who specialized in Orton-Gillingham, a reading program designed for dyslexics. He received this tutoring two-to-three times a week for the second half of his 4th grade year.
5th grade in private school--Orton-Gillingham continued until January, when his homework became ungodly, two to three hours a night. We quit the tutoring and fought over homework. My son was privately dxed with a writing disability in April.
6th grade in public school--Having gone through three years of homework hell, I hired a homework coach, which I found at our local high school. He was a young man who had graduated the year before and was attending college. He came and did homework with my son twice a week from September to January. It was fabulous! The young man worked kind of like a homework tutor and kind of like a mentor. The homework struggles with my son ended. Also, I had my son privately dxed with dyslexia (no surprise), and at the end of January, the beginning of February, he received an IEP at school for a disorder of written expression. In February, I found out my son had scored a 40 on his mock TAKS math test, and I was floored! I searched and searched for a math tutor, and I found a dyslexic mathematic's tutor at Sylvan. My son started Sylvan at the end of March and goes there four hours a week, and like the teenager who worked with my son, this man is both a mentor and a tutor. He will continue at Sylvan through the summer, then he will have private Orton-Gillingham next year.
Sooo...We've used all kinds of tutors and for different reasons. I think what you need to figure out before tutoring is what you are trying to accomplish. Unless you have some idea where your son's difficulties are, it is difficult to remediate them, which is what tutoring is. From reading your posts, I would say that reading should definitely be addressed, but from what angle? That's what private testing will show you.
You can have your son privately tested in many different ways. Because reading appears to be a huge problem and is crossing over into his other subjects, I would start there. I would try to find a specialist in the diagnosing of reading disabilities. Once I knew where the reading difficulties were coming from, I would hire a tutor who could remediate in the particular difficulty--phonetics, comprehension, etc.
Ha , just reread my post, and never said what the diagnosis was.. She has an auditory processing disablitiy, short term memory is her biggest issue...9% auditory recall! She also is add/inattentive, and has an above average IQ of 130. We are guessing that's how she made it so far without absolutely falling flat on her face. With working with Beth, my advocate, who has 3 teaching degrees, she has taught her how to chunk information to get it into long term memory, and worked with her on math. Math in the higher grades actually past about 4th grade is taught more auditory here , I don't know about your school. Her last report card was all a's and b's, which last semester they were all F's and the year before she had 3 F's and barely passed the other classes. We are still in the process of getting an IEP in place, all of her teachers are already using accomodations that we recommended. Should be interesting to see what the school does since she has been in the same district since preschool and definately MISSED the boat!
My girl have same problem with reading and math. Last year I was at home keeping pregnancy so I had lot of time to work with her. But this is happened:
When we improve reading - math skill are worsening and reverse. And its still like that. When she bring home B in math I know there would be problem with reading and writening. Dont know whats going on. Her intelligence is average.