504 advice

[Smorte]

Hi. I’m new to this forum, but I am comforted to see other parents here going through what we have been going through. My son is 9 years old and was diagnosed with ADHD in Kindergarten, this diagnosis explained a lot about how our son behaved in day care.

He’s currently a 3rd grader. We have implemented a 504 Plan this year. The accommodations are fair and working well so far. I just received an email from his teacher with an attachment of his Informational Report assignment. She said he verbally told her the sentences and she typed them. I’m wondering if this is going to serve him well in learning how to compose papers. Has anyone had experience with this particular accommodation?

Thank you for any responses.

[anirush]

I have never had a teacher have a child compose his own plan. But if what's on it seems reasonable and he complies give it a chance

[Smorte in reply to anirush]

I’m sorry I guess I’m not very good at explaining the situation. My son’s 504 Plan is managed by myself, his teacher and the school guidance counselor and a tutor. I meant that he is verbally giving his teacher sentences for his report on Orcas and she is typing it out for him. Is that less confusing?

So I’m wondering if this is actually helping him or hindering his education.

[beachdreamr1229]

I think it depends on a lot of different variables. If the problem is that he takes too long to type, this accommodation may make sense in terms of a target goal of understanding how to put pieces of information together to form a report. If the target goal is to type the paper, it's not a good accommodation. I would recommend working on a typing program at home to increase his speed and ability to focus on typing tasks. But, in terms of writing a report, as long as the teacher is transcribing exactly how your kid dictates it, it's probably not bad.

[Smorte]

She is transcribing exactly what he says. I do believe leaning how to research his topic and providing necessary information is the goal. Thank you. That helps to clear up my thoughts.

[JoyousExpectation]

My nine year old daughter also has all her written work scribed for her. Someone reads her the test. She verbally gives an answer and the teacher writes it down for her. I was shocked that the public school system is able to do this for the kids who are struggling with writing. I do appreciate the effort to help them get through the assignments. However I also want my daughter to learn how to write!!! At least four nights a week I make her fill a page with words that she is literally just copying out of a book but at least she is writing something. She does not put up much of a fight about doing it. I think on some level she might enjoy seeing that she is capable of writing even though it takes her a long time and many letters are backwards.

[Hsrobbins]

My son is 8 yrs old and was diagnosed with ADHD about a yr ago. He has trouble with his fine motor skills and thus pencil grip, so his teacher allows him to type his writing most of the time on an app or allows me write, while he dictates if his hand gets tired during homework. He doesn't seem to have any problems composing his writing. Typing his work maybe an accommodation tht you may want to add.

[reg2018]

For a child with AD/HD his or her performance from day to day can vary so this kind of accommodation can be appropriate depending on your child and even depending on the day. For example, even if your child can type at a decent speed, what if there is so much work one day that the burden of typing a paper becomes physically and emotionally overwhelming? The accommodation to be able to have the information dictated also makes sense in this situation. My youngest can type at a decent speed, but there have been days when he's been doing homework for two hours and still has a paper to type. It then makes sense to have him dictate, rather than have him type the paper.