You Are Not the Language Arts Teacher

Being in education often makes it frustrating to be the parent of school age children who are dyslexic.  Today one of my boys came home with an assignment from a non-language arts class that requires rhyming.

Really???!!!

The purpose of the activity is to show that the student understands a document.  That is a reasonable outcome, but I don't understand why it must include some sort of rhyming.  Dyslexics often struggle with rhyming.

So, what's a mom to do?  I'm all about holding my children accountable and my husband tried to work with my son, but after 45 minutes of total frustration there was a nuclear meltdown.

I have emailed the teaching explaining my son's challenge with phonological issues such as rhyming and requested an alternative assignment.  I suggested completing the activity without rhyming.  I will be interested in receiving a response...so now it's all about waiting!  By the way, I really like this teacher and my son seems to like the teacher too, but at a recent IEP meeting the teacher expressed frustration with my son's challenges with focusing.

In the meantime, I did a basic search to find more resources that I can share if needed.  Here's what I found:

• A study that included an fMRI demonstrating a difference in phonological processing between normal-reading children and dyslexic children age 8-12.  http://www.poldracklab.org/pdfs/temple_neuroreport_2001.pdf
• A study demonstrating that computer remediation can improve phonological processing for dyslexic children. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC151431/
• Here's another study that basically says that part of the dyslexic brain doesn't work during phonological experiences.  http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=591676

I'll post more when I hear from the teacher.  

In the meantime, let me shift gears and provide another resource.  My son who has dysgraphia came home and requested a special pencil from the Therapy Shoppe.  The pencil is call PenAgain "Twist and Write" Pencils.  The pencils arrived in the mail a few days ago.  I was happy with the price and the product.  My son was happy too!