Ryan's Academics

Both on Thursday and Saturday, I attended two different Parent Conference meetings for Ryan. The first one was to meet his General Education Teacher. The second was to meet the Resource Special Program teacher.

On Thursday, we mostly talked about how to improve on having him completing the task. He was having a difficult time completing the entire classwork. Strangely, he was able to complete the work when he is with me easily. The Autism Specialist teacher came to give us Picture Communication System. On the communication system, it gives him step by step such as taking out of your pencil (change from do it to finish), pencil (change from do it to finish) and place it in the complete work in a bin (change from do it to finish) along with other task throughout the day. This will begin on Monday.

On Monday, his General Education Teacher will tell him that he needs to earn five stars if he complete five working tasks then he can go to my room. Ryan also likes to come to my classroom for five to ten minutes only, and then he will do it all over again. He will need to do the same for the Resource Specialist (RSP.) However, the RSP teacher confirmed to me that she had worked with one of the autistic kids, who is now in 5th grade. She explained to me that it is very typical for any non-disability and disability to start out having a hard time doing completing work at 1st grade. Also, she stated that the autistic boy, who is now in 5th grade, is working beautifully, completing the work. She has a faith in Ryan will do the same. That was relieved for me to hear this comment.

One of the goals is have him displaying grade level ability in the core subject areas of reading, written expression and mathematics with an average of 80 % accuracy.

Since Ryan is only first grade, he reads at second grade level. Thus this core academic is not a problem for him. It is same as for Math. He also excels in math, just like his brother and their dad, David.

As far as for written expression, he is below grade level at this time. Both General Education and RSP teachers who were at the meeting felt that he is able to do better at the end of the school years. I think with the star disciplines will make difference. He knows how to express beautifully, but he often does not want to write. With me at home, I forced him to tell me two sentences (the first graders should be writing two sentences, he only writes one sentence.) For illustration, he wrote it at home on his own, " I like to play computer. It is fun."

The nicest part was the three of us (General Education teacher, RSP and I) do work and communicate each other well. They loved my ideas about giving him the star for each complete work. They both felt that he is in appropriate placement: in mainstream class because of his academic levels.