Thank you for your help!
For the meeting, I wanted to let you know what I am finding at home, for you to share. I would have liked to have been there, but I am at a school up in Havre de Grace tomorrow, with IEP meetings. I think its harder to explain what she does in an email, its better to explain it verbally or show you, but I have tried to do the best I can!
Here are some things that I had never really paid attention to before, but now in doing some research, appear to be relevant.
*Sydney has difficulty remembering people's names. All through Pre-K she would tell me that someone was her "best friend" but wasn't really able to tell me their names. She knows Jessie in your class now, but she is still foggy on some of her classmate's names.
*Sydney will replace words with those of similar meaning. For example, the other day she pointed out that "a police car pulled someone over in the elbow" (rather than the shoulder of the road). Switches Potato/tomato/tornado, but consistently. "Tomato soup" is always "potato soup", a "tornado" is always a "tomato"
*Sydney always put her shoes on the wrong feet, saying they felt more comfortable. I thought it was just because she had club feet as a baby, and we had to cast her, then put the shoes on in reverse. She also tells me her right foot is her left, and vice versa.
*I can see the issue with motor planning and left/right giving the need for adaptive PE. But I think Ms. Cox should be aware that Syd has taken dance since she was 3, and does very well in it. I think she may be just imitating what she sees in the mirror in class, and learning the motor patterns by visualizing it (possibly in reverse with the mirror image?) She also learns best with music, and a beat. (it seems that is how she learned her name, her last name, and some of the sight words when I put them into a "rhyme")
*Syd was having trouble making her "s" on her homework this week (I put a note on the homework sheet so you can see) I'd say make an "s" with the stretch spelling and she would make what looks like a "3" I would cue her that it the letter in her name, and she still did a "3" and then got frustrated and scribbled. She is often getting frustrated with her homework, and scribbling. This seems to be a pattern. She will recognize a letter for awhile, then "lose" it, but gain the recognition of other letters.
* Sydney is "finding" her sight words everywhere, but can't always tell me what they are. Additionally, she is finding them in REVERSE! For instance, she looked at her sister's name L-I-N-D-S-E-Y and said she found the word "YES" She seems to be finding many of her sight words out in the community in reverse.
* She has trouble when doing her homework with writing the letters. I'll tell her "k" and she says she doesn't know how to make that, or can I show her. Its that way for I, H, K, R, N (unless she decodes it using her name as a reference). Her D is better, not reversed as often. In the last week or so, I have been able to get her to visually recognize letters (esp. the K or R) but if I tell her to write a "k" she says she doesn't remember how. Same for several letters.
* She goes around all the time saying "ba, ba, ball starts with B", etc. so I know she is comprehending the letter sounds. But if I tell her to sound out a word, she has great difficulty. Mostly because she doesn't recognize the letters, so can't make its sound.
Luckily, she really enjoys websites like "Starfall" and will ask me to type it in so she can play "the ABCs" She also enjoys the Leap Frog match/rummy alphabet game, and enjoys reading her Tag reader. She is now repeating words we say, and then tells us what the word starts with, so there is improvement! Just don't ask her to then write the letter. She will have to verbalize the alphabet until she "sees" the letter in her head, and then identifies it.
Sorry for the length. I cut and pasted what I had mentioned to you earlier so it was all together. Please let me know what they came up with at the meeting, I am very anxious to hear! Thanks for all you do!
