Sorry to read your story. I know what you’re going through. When you complain the teacher hates you and everyone at school does the same. They don’t know what it’s like to live with a child with differences. How about you make flashcards of sight words or buy them in Amazon for special kids. They come with drawings of the actions. It’s called snapwords list a pocket chart cards. Then make a song for the words that belong to the first group and make a hole to the cards on a corner to flip them using book rings. Every new year you have to give a small gift to the teacher. I do it on Christmas. I buy a perfume of 35 dollars or so. Then, you can also buy teachers pay teachers reading comprehension books by Anne Gardner. She has patterned sentences to target every sight word up to level D. Buy scholastic sight words books in Amazon. They also target one sight word at a time and have your child read with you or make a song about each book. They have 8 pages only. I did that with my girl. Still struggling but these things can help you too. They did helped my child. I’m a Prek teacher. You have to create materials for your child to improve and reward her for her efforts that might seem small steps but they push themselves so hard and I recommend praying too. God also can help us with our children get better.?

I have taught kindergarten for 13 years and tutor students struggling with ADHD and autisim. At no point is it OK for your daughter’s teacher to make you feel like your feeling are insignificant. I strongly believe that teaching is a group effort and looking at the family and nuturing that relationship is vital to each child’s success. You are the only advocate for your child and if you feel like your child is being mistreated and is effecting her well being you must do everything within your power. I wish she could be in my class!! I would give her a big hug and let her know that she is perfect!

personally, i say get her off of Concerta ASAP! i, and several of my friends, were on it and as i got older, i became more and more depressed. the doctor said that the concerta and the hormones of getting older affected that. it was bad to the point at once that i tried to end my life. same with 2 of my friends. please, i beg you, take your daughter off of Concerta now!

And ADHD! i forgot about the ADHD part of my LD’s. i cna’t stay organized for my life, but when it comes to planning for the kids at school, everything is detailed to the letter. my bedroom? a mess! the kitchen? a disaster!

I went to a college for LD students. they refused to call them learning disabilities. instead they called them learning differences! no one is disabled! everyone learns, some just learn different!

wow, my heart is breaking for you both. First, I must tell you that you are doing the right thing by requesting a teacher who loves your child. Don’t second guess that — you must get her out of a toxic classroom – even if you homeschool for the rest of the year.

I would see if you can get an advocate to help you – lawyers that specialize or someone they can recommend. You need to speed up this process and some systems will drag it out and you can’t wait that long.

I would start calling your pediatric specialist daily to find out if you can get cancellations. Or get in at a Children’s Hospital. Start asking all your friends for recommendations – who they have used, who they suggest.

Also, I’d back off as much as you can, cleaning her room, that sort of thing. Focus on helping her emotionally and mentally because without that being strong, she won’t be learning much anyway. Help her feel safe and confident. Give her little tasks that she can do that will help her feel confident – not necessarily school tasks either. You know what she can do. Putting the forks away. Whatever it is.

Having a child with special needs (don’t you hate that term?) is hard and most people won’t understand. Find people who do – support groups or online. You need to know that you’ll get through this and so will she.

Sending you a virtual hug of support!!!

Melissa

She went on to Kindergarten and was doing okay with her sight words. She has always written some letters and numbers backwards and continues to do so. We are told this is normal. We have a stack of sight words from Kindergarten that we have been doing for over a year now, nothing has changed, only something did over the summer. She started struggling more and more. By the time she started 1st grade, she now literally shakes when it comes to those words and acts like she is learning to read all over again. She is unable to say them, she has to sound them out as though she doesn’t know them at all. When she brings home her reader from school to do her reading assignment, she physically starts shaking and crying when I ask her to read to me. I try to make it fun and often times we take turns reading. I read the paragraph so she hears me read it, then I have her read it back to me. Same thing with the sight words. We play games with the words as well so it doesn’t seem like work, yet she still has to sound them out. Her ADHD goes beyond just not being able to sit still. She is unable to organize anything. Cleaning her room is impossible unless someone sits in there with her and physically helps her. We use buckets to organize different items as well. She has way too many issues with her ADHD to list them all here, but they affect her school work as well as her everyday life. Her doctor has referred her to a Developmental Pediatric Specialist, but it will take them so long to gather all the information from all her doctors that she has seen in her life, they won’t even see her until February or March next year. Her school Psych agreed to test her finally to see if she qualified for more help there as well, but even that takes time.

Our biggest issue this year has been her teacher. I can’t tell you how stressed our daughter has been. Her doctor changed her medication to Concerta. We have had to increase her dosage and she is now at 27mg. There are days when it seems like she never took anything at all. This part breaks my heart. She is in a class with a teacher who yells at her students. My daughters hair has started falling out the last two months and she now bites her nails so bad, her fingers often bleed. She has had mouth sores 3 times since school has started and her doctor and the dentist have both told us they are from stress and that only time will heal them. We have had several meetings with the Principal. It took me getting really upset before her Teacher would finally meet with me. We have requested she be moved to another class but I am being made to feel like I am wrong and a bad person for having done so. I find myself sitting and crying over all of this when I am alone because I feel like I am screaming inside and no one hears me. My daughter needs help, I know it’s out there, yet it seems like it’s so far away.. yet other times, it seems no one cares. I sat down with her reading teacher yesterday as she explained to me that in January she will be tested. At that time she will be expected to read 25-30 words in 1 minute. My heart sunk, help will not come soon enough. What am I to do?