I am considering homeschooling my 5 year old son. He is quite gifted verbally (IQ >150), but has poor visual-motor integration and very poor fine motor skills. (He scores in the first percentile on the motor subtest of the VMI, sixth percentile overall on this test).

The district wants to place him in a regular kindergarten class with pull-out services once a week for giftedness and OT for the motor skills, although he completed the kindergarten curriculum last year at a private school, and excelled at everything except writing. He reads at a third-grade level, but can't form letters well yet.

My gut feeling is that a regular classroom will be alternately boring and humiliating for him.

I think that if I keep him home, we will be able to do more OT to improve his skills, and will be able to differentiate and compact his curriculum more effectively than a teacher who is trying to teach 20-some-odd children in a regular kindergarten.

I am supposed to meet with them Tuesday to write an IEP. Any ideas on how to handle this? I would love to find a way to continue to access services for him through the school system - I just don't want him sitting for days doing nothing productive while the other children learn their colors and shapes!

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Aculady

I do NOT have a child in this category, so I am telling what I know from reading NOT from experience!

It is my understanding that programs for special needs are SEPARATE from regular schooling and that every district in every state MUST offer special needs service to homeschooling families. Ask about bringing him in once a week for OT and doing the rest at home. These services are paid for by FEDERAL dollars and are separate from regular classroom teaching.

Every year I homeschooled, I had to sign a letter stating that the district had offered me special needs services and that I DID NOT want or need it.

You can continue a reading/math program at his understanding level at home. Certainly reading is not very dependent on motor skills except for eye tracking. You can also work more intensely on writing than the public school would as his motor skills improve. Parents on this board may be able to offer suggestions for a writing program that works well with poor motor skills. A program called "Handwriting without Tears" comes to my mind, but I have never actully seen it.

Kysa

I will check out the handwriting program and the district about providing special services Tuesday.


Thanks again,
Aculady

Are the services worth it? There is a federal law that they must provide services which was written in the 1970's but they have gotten around it in many locations. I don't get services where I live now, they totally deny all homeschoolers. That said, I have gotten services in 2 states for 3 children. They were a huge waste of time. I wouldn't even consider it babysitting. My one son got speech in K. It was once a week for 30 min with 2 other children who had completely different problems so my son got less than 10 min a week. In another state, another child got speech therapy. Well that is what the school claimed but to be a speech path, you have to have your Master's, do a clinical internship, and pass a test to be certified. My son's speech didn't have any of that. AND again we had the group situation with kids with totally different problems. Communication with the school was a giant joke and every time I had anything to do with them, it strongly confirmed homeschooling. 2 funny incidents were:
7 am call demanding I return a form they said they had placed in my son's backpack and was required by law by the close of school the next day. What form? Oh yes we put it in his backpack!! Interesting, my son doesn't own a backpack and hasn't been on school property for 6 weeks and every time he has, I have been with him so explain this to me. Silence.
I finally got totally fed up and called to withdrawl my son. He had started when he was 3 and it was several years later ( time I honestly regret) and they said, "Are you sure that is his name?" Well yes, I am sure what my son's name is. "Well how long did he get therapy?" Several years. Turns out they lost his records and had them in a totally inappropriate department, a 7 year old in the preschool program. So before you look into this, see if you can find many satisfied customers. Cause chances are, you won't and it is a waste of time.
Peace, Nedra

We had the meeting today (it was rescheduled because the regular ed teacher and the gifted teacher hadn't been notified of the first meeting).

It was like talking to people from another planet.

The two things we were really interested in getting for him, assistive technology and occupational therapy, could not be included on his IEP, according to the person running the meeting, because he has not been found eligible for OT services, and assistive technology falls under the occupational therapy department. He hasn't been found eligible for OT services, they say, because we don't have an OT evaluation to support the need for them...even though we DO HAVE an OT evaluation AND an Ed psych evaluation which both clearly state the nature of his difficulties, that they will adversely affect his school activites, and that there is a need for OT, assistive technology, and accomodations. They contend that since the OT did not "observe him in the classroom setting" (he is entering Kindergarten...), this evaluation can not be used.

His proposed regular Ed teacher seemed intent on "really working his motor skills" (i.e.,making him practice writing) , despite the fact that the ESE people in the room and the Ed Psych kept repeating to her that this was a neurological processing-level problem that was not going to be improved by more drill, but which might be helped by OT, which, BTW , he was not eligible to receive...(!)

I suppose that if she had a blind child in he class, she would insist on "really working those visual skills" and withhold a cane, a dog, and Braille materials to encourage the student to use his eyes more...

By state law, they say, they have to place him in Kindergarten due to his age, although everyone agrees that he has already mastered the curriculum , with the exception of writing skills, through at least the middle of first grade (up to the third grade level in some areas). They will not consider placing him in a higher grade for his regular classroom instruction. They say that it is out of the question. But they want to place him in a gifted class once a week. They don't have any other gifted Kindergarteners, so they want to add him to a class made up entirely of gifted second graders (who are functioning between a fifth and eighth grade level). Does this seem strange to anyone else??? They want to make him sit through the Kindergarten curriculum again, practicing things he has little chance of improving at this point, with kids way below his intellectual level, four days a week, and then be placed in a group of kids that is functioning way above his level once a week.

With no OT. And no keyboard.

Does anyone else see this as a recipe for disaster?

I'm writing my official homeschooling letter tonight!

Aculady

Unfortunately that sounds very familiar. Did they give you the one about how no kid could ever just need OT? You have to have something else wrong with you to get OT. I guess God doesn't read that manual when he makes a kid. It is like saying people who don't wear glasses can never break their leg. This is so classic I could have totally predicted everything they said. Homeschooling is a great success and these fools wonder why. I wouldn't trust a school with a cardboard box. I mean after sitting in this meeting, do you honestly think you could give these people an unassembled cardboard box and expect a correctly assembled undamaged cardboard box in 13 years?
Peace, Nedra