Letter to teacher
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Letter to teacher
| Tue, 09-04-2007 - 11:36pm |
Today was the first day of school (4th grade for David, AS).
| Tue, 09-04-2007 - 11:36pm |
Today was the first day of school (4th grade for David, AS).
Evelyn~
I think this sounds great. The only editting I would do would be to change the "try not to be too hard on him" statement into something more positive like, "I'm sure you understand..."-no, my example is not perfect, but insinuating that he *might* be too hard on David could put him on the defensive. KWIM?
You did an excellent job of relating how this particular assignment highlights (for lack of a better term) some typical Aspie anxiety issues.
Kudos, mom!
Amy
Dear Evelyn,
I'm having a hard time with this kind of stuff, too. I know my child; the teachers don't have the same level of intimacy. I would think that it is helpful to give information, but it is easily mis-interpreted as a criticism. I have tried a new approach with my son entering 1st grade because, while the education was good last year, there were definite problems with communication. I followed Renee's suggestion, partly because she's sitting on both sides of the fence right now. There is another thread on that somewhere.
I agree with Amy, and would focus on what kind of thing you hope the teacher does, rather than fear he does. In this case, I would hope he acknowleges the effort that David put into this. I would hope he checks David for comprehension from time to time. (since David had a very specific idea of what "should know" means. and to David: stumbles=being stupid. And he must have over-applied some instruction to make every sentence different.)
Of course, it would be impossible for the teacher to predict all or even most of the words that David might define differently. This is the hard part for me. How to explain some of the ways that David is thinking, without making it seem like the teacher has dissapointed Mom?
How is that for a non-helpful response? You might get more from the pressed-wood gods.
-Sidney
Wow Evelyn, why didn't I think of this. Sravan's first week was total disaster. On the third day of school, he forgot to write his hw assingment and so he forgot to complete it. When it was time for correction, he totally panicked and had a meltdown. SO the teacher called the asst. principal and she was so rude and kept repeating that he should behave like a 5th grader (can you imagine the situation). Things went even more downhill and they called me. The principal (new one) also did the same line of speech and more issues, so I hurriedly picked him up and left the office. Came home and cried if I made the right decision. Soon called everybody in the spec. ed (the director was former principal of this school and a very nice lady). My fingers are crossed everyday. The only good thing is the teacher understood him so well.
We are going to have our IEP on Sep 11 (yes that is the day) and I think this kind of letter would be helpful. SOrry to hijack your post, can you please share your final version.
thank you,
Anandhi
Well, as it turns out, David managed to complete the assignment this morning.