[blindkid] inaccessible homework and a quick math question.

[Richard Holloway]

Having guidelines in the IEP and staying on top of this are great ideas, but it is probably never going to be a perfect system. Our regular TVI had a medical issue earlier this year and was out for several months. As far as I know, there was never a significant gap in services. Problem is, we ended up with two alternative TVI's plus a transcriber, plus our regular paraprofessional, as well as our Regular Ed teacher and the classroom Special Ed  teacher all trying to cover part of the gap. The net result was continual mistakes. Braille would come without print. Print wold come without Braille. We would get only a web URL to a place where a screen reader would not work and where we could not display Braille though we knew there were books at school with the same content. Sometimes, they'd just forget to send anything, or it would show up days late. Funny though, the test dates stayed the same, and it isn't like the homework system was perfect before our TVI was out sick.

I think the big problem is a general lack of the concept of learning for a blind student. We kept hearing of things due that we're not written in Kendra's agenda. ALL students are required to use agendas in her school. Well, they finally told us Kendra was keeping her agenda in her BRAILLE NOTE. Okay, well in the first place, nobody told us, and the written agenda was still being sent home with only partial info in it. So why would they send home mismatched info in two places?

Beyond that, why would we suddenly look on the BrailleNote for this after two years? They never did this in first or second grade. Besides, when we HAVE checked since then, we often find that BOTH lists are incomplete. Finally, this is a third grader. All parents of kids this age need to be able to look in their kids' agendas to see what they are supposed to be doing. What do they think will happen if a kid can read a Braille list and "accidentally" skip reporting some work thats's due whenever they like? Are WE supposed to struggle through reading this list in Braille on her notetaker? Are we supposed to plug into a VGA monitor to check this every time when parents of sighted kids parents just open a notebook and read the list? We're doing these things in the car on the way to swim lessons or yoga class, for goodness' sake.

And it has been more than just dealing with the homework list. Letting Kendra listen to content from a talking website when other kids can read the content visually from the screen is just not the same for her and teachers need to understand that. We tried without a way for Kendra to read this material for herself. She was getting 75's on tests. We got it for her in Braille and suddenly she was back to making 100's. That is no small deal for our child!

I guess this is all a long way of saying that the critical part of the process is getting the teachers to understand how important it really is to have all of this material at at home in all the right formats. Try to let them see how it all has a direct impact on getting homework and study completed and on the quality of learning which is possible for our kids. I think at least for Kendra,that is our best hope for improvement in these areas. 

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 12, 2011, at 6:05 PM, Penny Duffy <pennyduffy at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am noticing more of Abby's assignments (she is in second grade) are
> coming home  in an inaccessible format.   I try and be understanding. It
> seems to be a trend right now not a rare assignment forgotten about. Her
> math is always braille but its her word work that seems to be the program.
> It seems like I get them trained and things come home right and then they
> kinda fall back into not doing it.  (she was sick for a week)  Is this
> going to be a problem that keeps coming up? We had a great IEP meeting just
> less than two weeks ago.  They know I am going to help her with her
> homework and they seem to use that as a fall back. She actually has a great
> TVI and a great classroom teacher it just seems like 'little' things like
> this happen all the time.  I plan to calm down a bit and sending a quick
> email reminding them that all her work is suppose to come home in braille.
> I am just a wee bit frustrated.
> 
> Also Abby is doing really well in math. She has a great mind for numbers (I
> wonder if she is my kid) I noticed in her last assessment that there was
> some areas she wasn't really strong in an all of them involved a visual
> element to it.  graphing, measuring.  They didn't include her answers this
> time (usually its attached) This is a common area for a blind child to
> struggle in correct? I was told verbally she did great in the assessment.
> So I was taken a back when those areas were labeled "developing"
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> --Penny
> ----------
> A lucky mother to two amazing children - visionfora.blogspot.com
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