Dyslexia/dysgraphia

[Stacey miller]

The loaded question- my son has made progress on reading goals but his iq is 95 and standard score for reading is still about 85. So he’s we came up from 75 to 85 but still more to go to close the gap. For reading we have been using the Wilson reading system and school uses the Sonday system.  Written expression on the other hand Is super poor. School does not have a specific program and clearly it shows on the psych eval. I would Love to push harder with the school but of course they can always show “progress” on their Iep goals but per the psych eval it is not even Coming slow to where his potential is. I guess My question is how can I prove this? I guess Get a lawyer and hope we can prove written expression is not making progress?

[Carolyn Rowlett]

Hi Stacey.  In my opinion, you're not at the point of needing a lawyer.  An advocate, maybe, but see the below first.

The school doesn't need a "program" to work on written expression goals.  I'm assuming from your post that your son has a goal for written expression.  If so and he is not making sufficient progress, the services should be changed in some way (sufficient progress is not necessarily meeting "his potential").  The school shouldn't "always" be able to show progress if the goal is written is a correct, measurable way with a baseline and the child is not, in fact, making progress.  When you say the "psych eval," do you mean the school evaluation or an outside evaluation you obtained?  If it's the school evaluation and you believe that evaluation is not enough to get him the necessary services, the first step (even before getting an advocate) might be requesting an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE), which the school has to provide at no cost to you (or take you to court to prove they don't have to provide it).  Once the results of that evaluation come in, the team will hold a meeting to consider those results (they only have to consider; they don't have to use them) and at that time you can (hopefully) show his lack of progress and push for different services.

[JSD24]

Was written expression identified as an area of need when the school evaluated him?  If it's not assessed, the assumption is he's on level so no remediation or progress monitoring is needed.  Since Endrew v Douglas County was decided by SCOTUS, the new benchmark is 'significant progress'.  He went from 75 to 85 in reading - that's significant.  What are his scores in written expression?  Did he go from 75 to 80?  (That might be significant.)

Start by looking at the school's data before you spend good money on lawyer fees.  If they missed evaluating written expression, your next move should be to request that the school evaluate that area.  If they are providing instruction & he has goals in this area, how is the school measuring progress?  Goals should be measurable.  I'd expect progress in reading and writing to be parallel.  If he moved 10 percentiles in reading, I'd expect at least half of that in writing.