-
Making Pictures out of Words
One of J’s biggest academic struggles is with reading comprehension. In the beginning he was a fabulous reader. He could sound out words and burn through the early reader books because he’s good at individual words. He loves to figure out how they work together and what the rules are for putting them together. He’s always been a kid who wants to know the rules. (As I’m typing this I’m wondering if we should be reading poetry with this boy to help him build those images and other sensory experiences with words…) There was even a time where he was obsessed with synonyms, antonyms, and homophones. Especially the homophones. He just thought…
-
Learning How to Learn
It’s taken the second semester of grade 7 to feel like I’m finally understanding how to reinforce what J’s learning at school at home. I feel like we’re starting to get a good system going with J’s paras and teachers in how to modify assignments, tests, and practice assignments that will help J learn the best. J’s strengths lie in memorization, and he does really well with flashcards (homemade ones or through Quizlet. Are you familiar with Quizlet? It’s a wonderful free little app that lets you practice through flashcards, matching, definitions, etc). He’s funny with the memorization though. You give him a map of Africa and he can…
-
Prepping for an IEP
J’s IEP is coming up this week. It’s something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. I have binders full of Assessments, Evaluations, Re-Evaluations, Progress Reports, IFSPs (an IEP for kids under 3), IEPS (an Individual Education Program once a child turns 3),and behavioral assessments. I even have copies of “my rights” as a parent of a child with disabilities from three different states. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a parent without all of these binders. To just send your kids off to school and collect report cards a couple of times a year. Over the years, I’ve learned some things…
-
Bringing Autism to a Rock Concert
I should start off by saying that there probably isn’t one right way of doing this. In fact, initially, we weren’t sure if there was any real way of doing this. If you do the math, taking J to see Imagine Dragons looked like this: autism + travel 3 hours to Winnipeg + alternative rock concert late at night = pure insanity So we decided to go ahead and buy 4 tickets despite of all that. YOLO, right? We were banking on a few things. This was Imagine Dragons. J is absolutely obsessed with Imagine Dragons, so there was a chance it might work. And J is fresh off his first year of middle…
