"Questions Parents Can Ask…"
Reprinted with permission from the Exceptional Children’s Assistance Center
Parents of children with disabilities who are receiving “special education” reading instruction need information to participate in writing the IEP (Individualized Education Program) and in working with their children at home. When speaking with your child’s teacher(s) or education specialist, use the following questions to help you gather the information you need. And remember if you do not understand something, ask to have it explained thoroughly.
If you have questions about your child’s overall reading progress, ask…
- What is my child’s grade level in reading? What does that mean she can do?
- Where does she need to improve?
- Is there a difference between how well my child reads individual words and how well she understands what she reads? If so, what can we do to improve the weaker areas?
- Are you using a specific program to teach my child? If so, what skills does this program teach?
- IF you are not using a specific program, what strategies are you using to teach my child to identify words, read smoothly and understand what he reads?
- What kinds of things are you doing to help my child succeed in reading?
- What can I do at home to help my son/daughter read well?
- How will I be notified about my child’s reading gains? Can you update me every 2 - 3 weeks?
If you have questions about word recognition, sounds, and fluency in reading, ask …
- Has my child ever been tested for language and sound awareness? If so, how recently and what did the testing show?
- What is being done in the classroom to help my child avoid pausing unnecessarily at words?
- What strategies are being taught to help my child work through difficult sounds or words when reading?
- What are some books, poems, nursery rhymes, word games, videos, audio materials, etc. that I can use at home to help my child with word re- cognition, sounds and/or reading aloud?
- For practicing reading at home, would you help me select material(s) that my child can read comfortably (i.e. where 90% of the words are ones my child knows)?
If you have questions about reading comprehension, ask…
- When my child is having trouble understanding what she reads, what do you do to help her understand the material?
- Would you show me what you are doing?
- Can you tell me about some other activities that I can do at home to help her understand what she reads?
- What resources can you give me to use at home to help my child?
- What kinds of activities can we do before and after my child has read to help her understand the information?
If you have questions about reading instruction in other subject areas, ask…
- Which accommodations does my child need in core academic and special area classes to support her reading, writing and spelling needs? (You need to make sure that the special ways of addressing these literacy needs are specifically described in your child’s IEP.)
- What are my child’s other teachers doing to support and help her in light of her reading, writing and/or spelling needs?
If you have questions about spelling, ask…
- What impact does my child’s reading ability have on her spelling?
- How do you blend reading, writing and repeated practice activities in the classroom to help my child become a better speller.
- How do you decide what words my child will have for spelling?
- Are they words my child will be using in writing?
- What supports are used in a classroom to promote accurate spelling? Can I use these at home? If not, are there other supports that will work at home?
- If your child seems to do well on spelling tests, yet shows little improvement on spelling when he writes, ask: Can you tell me some ways I can support his transferring spelling test words into his writing?
If you have questions about writing, ask…
- How is my child’s writing affected by his reading?
- How are you helping my child learn to write each day?
- How often does my child write each day?
- What kinds of writing activities does he do?
- Can you tell me what writing strategies you are teaching my child so that I can prompt him to use them when he writes at home?
If you have questions about Testing, ask…
- Will my child be able to pass the state’s test in reading?
- What are you doing to prepare my child for the test?
- What testing accommodations are available for my child? (For example, extended time, writing in the test booklet, modified environment, instructions read aloud, one on one).
- If your child is not working on the same reading level as many of her same-age peers, ask: Can you tell me how you are measuring my child’s progress in reading to make sure that she continues to progress and does not fall further behind?
Words about reading that you might hear at an IEP meeting:
Automaticity - fast, effortless word recognition.
Blending - combining individual sounds into a word, or combining syllables to make a word.
Decode - to be able to make out a word by correctly recognizing the different letter sounds in the word.
Fluency - ability to read a text accurately and quickly, often with expression.
Multi-syllable - (also called ploy-syllabic) a word that contains more than one part or syllable (for example, computer, raining, supported).
Oral Language Difficulties - poor vocabulary, listening comprehension, or grammatical abilities for one’s age.
Phonics - ability to use knowledge of individual letter sounds to sound out words when reading.
Phonemic Awareness - ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken words (for example, orally producing rhyming words, isolating letter sounds in spoken words and blending sounds).
Reading Comprehension - ability to independently read and understand the meaning of sentences, paragraphs or entire texts.
Sight Word - high frequency words which make up about 50% of the words we read and often cause children problems, such as I, a, and, am, at, on, and me.
Syllable - having one word part
Visual Perceptual Abilities - the ability to recognize and visually distinguish between the letters in words.
