Is a charter school required to teach reading every day of the week (or an equivocal amount of time)

[sharon huntington]

My 10 yr. old grandson has dyslexia, and is not reading at grade level. His charter school only teaches reading 3 times a week. He has an IEP. Can he have an accommodation where he would get extra class time in learning to read?

[EmilyM]

This is going to depend largely on state law and how that's written. Does law specify how many hours/days for subjects?

If the state doesn't teach it more than your grandson needs, likely the IEP solution will be extra minutes of reading for him outside of class.

[Carolyn Rowlett]

Emily is correct that it would depend on your state standards, but I doubt there is any requirement for how many days or hours reading must be taught.  The standard will likely be what reading proficiencies are required for each grade, which will in turn dictate how much time school districts spend on reading.

So Emily is also correct that if your grandson is below grade level in reading, this is something more appropriately addressed in the IEP.  Is specific learning disability one of the areas in which he was found eligible?  If so, is he receiving special education minutes in reading?  If not, why not?  Was he not considered far enough behind?  Regardless, I would not want the extra reading time to be an accommodation - he needs specialized instruction.  An accommodation of extra reading time does not ensure the appropriate instruction is being given.

[Elemeno]

5 hours ago, Carolyn Rowlett said:

Regardless, I would not want the extra reading time to be an accommodation - he needs specialized instruction.  An accommodation of extra reading time does not ensure the appropriate instruction is being given.

The way you wrote this makes it sound even more ridiculous as an accommodation., so thanks for pointing that out.

Pure basic extra reading time without any real extra help isn't going to do much. Oh, it might help later down the road where it's appropriate to need extra time to read to learn about XYZ subject, but not when we're needing some specific reading instruction. 

[JSD24]

Find out what the school is doing for the remedial reading instruction he should be getting via his IEP.  He needs an Orton Gillingham based remedial program that's more intense than what students in general ed are getting.  Multimodal is what works so the material is presented with reinforcement.  Wilson Reading has a protocol of 40-60 minutes of daily instruction.  Whatever program the school is using, they should also be following the protocol for that program.

Read what the IEP says.  Is the school doing what they said they would do to remediate the disability?  Look at progress reports.  Is he catching up or falling farther behind?  You want to see the gap closing at a rate where he'll be at grade level sooner rather than later.

He could have an IEP but be getting RTI/MTSS for reading if he's not far enough behind to have an IEP level of intervention.

[Mich]

This interests me too. My son is in a 12:1 self contained here in NY. The Special Education department says reading and math remediation takes place in the self contained class. I happen to know that two of his classmates get pull outs for Orton Gillingham reading 5 x out of 10 days for 40 minutes each. My son's biggest reading problems are comprehension, vocabulary and fluency. He can read the words but had very little idea what he is reading. Is OG right for him? Should I fight for it?

[Carolyn Rowlett]

First I would want to know what "can read the words" means.  Sometimes students can "read," but that is only because they have memorized the words.  The real question is whether he can DECODE.  To determine that, you need an evaluation that tests nonsense word reading and also digs down into phonics and phonological awareness.  Have you had any evaluations that have done this?  If you don't have an evaluation that did this, request one.  It will be easier to "fight" for OG if you can show a phonological and/or phonics deficit.  But OG is also appropriate for the areas you mention - comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency.  It depends on how low his scores are in these areas (and thus what the present levels show).  You can fight for anything - but you need the data to support it.  If you have the data, also ask for goals in reading to be added to the IEP (comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and any phonics/phonological awareness deficits).  That way it will have to be addressed with specialized instruction as opposed to remediation, which I assume is general ed instruction/remediation that takes place in spec ed only because he is in a self-contained class - not because it is specialized instruction.