Need Edu. Help for My Single Parent Nephew

hi i am a mother of three. i had the same concern for one of my children. it is not up to the teacher. this is your child and you have a valid concern. go to the school counselor and they have specialized testing to assess children.

I think it is great you are helping your brother. I am a grandmother now. I don't know if you belong to a church but some of the churches offer tutoring programs. You may want to try that. I wish you the best.

I had a similar problem with my daughter at age 4. WE did not have the money for private testing either. I talked with a neighbor who was a teacher and she told me the school will test for free. Make an appointment with the counselor and ask for testing because you feel he is not on task, that he may have a disability. They will test him and give you a report which will be presented in a ARD ( a meeting with the counselor and teachers) which they will present what they feel is needed to correct and help his situation. The schools do not advertise this, but this is part of what we pay for in our taxes...My daughter was placed in the early childhood program, which prepared her for kindergarten. She was tutored until 5th grade when we decided along with her teachers that the extra one on one was not needed anymore. Start with the counselor.....

The school is required to test children if they demonstrate characteristics or learning difficulties, that suggest a learning disability. I fought my son's school insisting he was dyslexic. They refused to test him because he was passing, however he had already failed 1st grade because he couldn't read, and his 15 mins of nightly homework took us hours to complete. Thus, he wasn't failing. I ended up taking him to a facility and paying $1800 to have him tested, then came back with the results and ended up having to call the school district superintendent, demanding to have him tested. She agreed with me that he needed testing, and should have been long before, and told me to call the diagnostitian back and inform them that the supt said TEST HIM! Also, I don't know where you live, but in TX if a school does not provide the kind of special services or classes that the child needs, they have to PAY to send the child where he can get the help. The reason they didn't want to test him was REALLY because they get a certain amt of testing dollars each year, and they didn't want to use them to test a child not failing. Hope this helps. FIGHT!! DEMAND!! Also, here's another CROCK that exists in TX. The funds for a reading lab (special help for those that need it) are based on how many kids are on the free lunch program. If enough kids aren't signed up for free lunches, then that school doesn't get funded for a reading lab. WHAT A CROCK! Do they actually think that only poor kids can't read? Consequently, only the elementary school in the poor part of my town had a reading lab. In the entire city, 1 school offered reading lab. And it wasn't in my zoning. FIGHT your schools for what your kids need. I didn't do it enough when my son was young, now he's 25 and doing manual labor at reduced wage and can't make it on his own.

Contact the education department of University of Houston. Sometimes Texas Children will do it if the need is big enough. Your nephew may benefit from a year of growth and start Kindergarten over in the fall. First grade is hard for a struggling boy.

Hi, I have 3 sons on the Autism Spectrum. I had evaluations done in Spring on all 3 at the School District before age of three. Just call your school and ask to speak with the Diagnostician. This person is supposed to help you get what you need for your nephew.