Are you considering applying to the IEB for accommodations or concessions for your child?

Physical disabilities and Learning difficulties such as Dyslexia, ADHD, Dyscalculia, etc can act as a giant hurdle to your child achieving to their full potential.  If your child has a physical disability or learning difficulty chat to his teachers about the possibility of applying for a concession or accommodation for his exams.  Different accommodations might be granted dependent on your child’s specific needs.  For instance, a severely Dyslexic learner might apply for a reader or a scribe (or both) so that they basically complete their exams orally or learners who take very long to complete projects and tests might apply for extra time during the exams.

The IEB requires a full assessment by a psychologist (using very specific tests) in application for an accommodation or concession.  Applying for a concession or accommodation can be rather complicated and it is best to use the services of a psychologist who has experience with the application process.  Below is a short synopsis of exactly what the accommodation or concession application entails:

IEB Accommodations and Concessions (Refer to: IEB Policy and Procedures 2011)

Background information

Examination accommodations are granted to enable candidates with specific barriers to learning to demonstrate their true ability in the examinations. These are learners with at least average intellectual ability. Barriers to learning are significant long term disabilities which compromise examination performance.

Barriers to learning for which an accommodation cannot be granted

• Low cognitive functioning where the learner’s cognitive functioning falls below the average range of intellectual ability and reveals and even cognitive functioning.
• Difficulty with language medium where the learner has difficulty with the language medium because the language of assessment is not the home language of the learner.

Accommodations which may be granted

• Additional time
• Amanuensis  (An amanuensis is a person who reads and scribes for a learner)
• Braille
• Computer
• Enlarged Print
• Handwriting
• Medication/food intake
• Practical assistant
• Prompter
• Reader
• Rest breaks
• Scribe
• Separate venue
• Specific equipment
• Spelling

Procedure for applications

• A  full psycho-educational assessment
• Medical report (if applicable)
• Supporting historical evidence (occupational therapy, speech therapy or remedial therapy reports)
• Teacher comments
• School report and school samples

The final decision as to whether an accommodation will be granted lies with the IEB and its accommodation panel not with the psychologist who conducted the assessment or with the school.

Don’t miss me and my 15 minutes of fame this Sunday on Hello Doctor at 4pm on SABC3 – the insert deals with stress in children.

Psycho-educational assessments:

Hearing that your child needs to undergo a full psycho-educational assessment often comes as a rather nasty surprise to most parents.  It’s what economists call a grudge purchase – not something you get because you really want it but because you feel you have to.  Here are some tips to help you get the most out of these assessment:

• Where do I even start?  Ask your child’s teacher or other parents who’ve been through this process to refer you to someone that can do the psycho-educational assessments.  In general, Educational Psychologists are trained and qualified to do these assessments. Counselling and Clinical psychologists will also sometimes do these assessments, but if you decide to go through one of these professionals be sure to ask how much experience they have in the realm of Education as a certain amount of educational  insight is needed in interpreting test scores. Psychometrists are qualified to administer the tests, but need to be supervised by a psychologist when interpreting the test results.
• Don’t hesitate to ask about a professional’s qualifications and practice number as well as whether they are registered with the Health Professional’s Council to administer, score and interpret the tests.
• Ask: What will be assessed? A thorough investigation into underachievement at school should at least include an aptitude assessment, a scholastic component, a perceptual investigation and an emotional screening as difficulties in any one of these areas could affect performance.
• Ask about the fees beforehand.  These assessments can be very expensive.  Find out whether the practitioner can claim directly from your medical aid or whether you’ll have to pay upfront and then claim the amount back from your medical aid.  Contact your medical aid to find out whether you are indeed covered for this procedure (you’ll probably have to get the relevant tariff codes from the practitioner first) and whether there are sufficient funds available. Don’t hesitate to ask your medical aid / another medical aid what a reasonable price for such an assessment would be.  Some professionals charge astronomically high prices, which the medical aids will then refuse to pay as it is higher than the scheme rate.
• Ascertain beforehand whether a report is included as part of the feedback and whether you will have to pay extra for this.  Some practitioners include the report free of charge, whereas others will only compile a report if requested beforehand and will then charge for this while yet others simply do not even offer the report as an option.
• If your home language differs from your child’s language of learning very careful consideration needs to be given to the language of assessment. In most cases where a child is struggling at school and the assessment is done to investigate possible reasons for the difficulty or to screen for a learning disorder it is advisable to do the assessment in the language of learning (language spoken at school), but where the main focus of the assessment is to get a clear indication of the child’s aptitude it may be better to assess the child in his or her home language, this is particularly relevant in the case of very young children.
• Be sure to bring important documents such as school reports, other assessment reports, relevant medical reports and relevant legal documents to the background session or to attach these to the background questionnaire.
• Ensure that your child gets to bed early on the night before the assessment to avoid under performance  on the day due to tiredness.
• In the case of long assessments, be sure to pack a healthy lunch for your child to enjoy during breaks to ensure that he or she maintains sufficient energy levels.
• Prepare your child for the assessment.  I would suggest telling them that they are going to spend the morning with someone to do some work and play some games.  That the purpose of the assessment is purely to see what they’re good at and what they’re not so good at and then to device a plan on how best to help them in those areas where they struggle.  Tell them just to do their best and try not to put any unnecessary pressure on them. Remind them at what time you will fetch them, for instance: Mommy will fetch you after lunch.  Never, ever say (as I’ve often heard children repeat:) “If you get even one questions wrong you’re going to be in so much trouble / fail this year / etc.
• Book a morning assessment.  In the afternoon, children are generally tired and chances are that they won’t give of their best.
• Arrive on time. Being late for the session will not only increase your child’s anxiety levels but will also put her under time pressure to complete the assessment, this could mean shorter breaks and more rushed activities which will not give a clear indication of your child’s true abilities.
• If therapy or further assessments are recommended, ask the practitioner for the names and contact details of professionals who might be able to do this or ask him or her to refer you directly or whether they will set up the appointments for you.
• Give the assessing practitioner feedback.  We want to know how your child is progressing and also need to get feedback, whether positive or negative, on our own findings and recommendations so that we can sharpen our skills.

Anel was invited as an expert guest last week to appear on the Voice of the Cape show. Listen to her interview below as she discusses early childhood development.

Click to listen to the Voice of the Cape show

I owe Cape Town’s Child Magazine and their comprehensive listing of pre-schools  for this one.  I would have never found the school on my own (and it turns out I couldn’t even find it with my GPS – thank goodness Jacky was able to direct me over the phone).

Hidden away in a quiet bend in Galway Road, Heathfield is the Blue Moon Montessori School set in a quaint little garden. The school building is pretty enough from the outside,  but it was the inside that really impressed me.  Big open flowing spaces filled with light streaming in from the wall to wall windows.  And here’s the big surprise … it was relatively quiet.  Busy:  with children walking, moving, eating, painting everywhere – but quiet!?! Text book example of organised chaos.

I realised that my preconceived ideas about the Montessori education system may have been way off.  I have never quite been able to fully grasp the concept of self-directed activity in a pre-school classroom, it seemed completely contradictory to what I had always thought education to be, but today I saw it in action and it worked!  I also saw two other practices in the classroom that completely astounded me: Firstly, all the educational materials were stored in glass containers.  Glass + 3 year olds = danger? Doesn’t it? But Jacky was ready for me.  When I asked her about it her answer was wonderfully simple: “We use glass because it breaks.  That is the lesson isn’t it? We can’t always keep children away from glass objects, but we can teach them how to handle glass carefully so that it does not break”.  The second practice was that of helping yourself to snack – today’s snack was a delicious looking fruit salad -when you feel like it. Whoa! I had expected that this would cause a stampede of little bodies, all fighting to get to the food first.  But what I saw was the complete opposite, a pretty little girl dishing up her snack by herself … and then washing her own plate! Double Whoa!!! It inspired me to read up more about the Montessori philosophy and the more I read the more it seems to make sense.

I spent my entire school career in a traditional, sit-still-and-listen, only-do-what-I-tell-you-to type of educational system (and I think I turned out kinda okay? – I hope? ), but in my professional career I have been intensely disillusioned by the results of this kind of educational setting.  It simply does not produce independent thinkers and is not conducive to the development of true leadership.  What I saw today at Blue Moon Montessori has given me some hope that reaching these ideals might just be possible.  Later, I found this quote by Maria Montessori and I couldn’t help feeling like Maria and I were kindred spirits: “Establishing lasting peace is the work of education, all politics can do is keep us out of war”.

Even better news is that Blue Moon Montessori now also have a foundation phase group (6-9 years) and I’m really hoping that they consider starting a senior primary (9 – 12 year) group.

If you are considering a Montessori education for your child, I would strongly recommend that you have a look at this school.  Contact Jacky on 021 712 0221 or ask to visit them on their campus.

Kids learning about the world through the wonder of play dough.

I’m not a night owl.  In fact, most nights I battle to stay awake past 8pm. But last Wednesday evening I found myself in the kitchen at 11:30pm happily humming to myself and shuffling along in my slippers – making play dough. I would have probably kept going till dawn had I not run out flour!

I never seem to tire of seeing how a pot full of runny gunk can turn into that wonderful, pliable, mouldable, stretch-break-and-reunitable substance known as play dough.  And it seems to have the same effect on kids.  In my teaching days I always relied on hauling out my big tub of play dough at the end of a difficult day to calm the kids down – and it worked every time. It also has immense educational value and so, I’ve decided to share with you my play dough recipe and some ideas on how to use it – have fun!

To make playdough you will need:

2 cup of cake flour (NOT the self-raising kind)

1 cup of salt

2 cups of water

2 tablespoons of oil

2 tablespoons of cream of tartar

1 teaspoon of food colouring in your favourite colour

Mix all the ingredients well in a medium sized pot and  place the pot on the stove. Stir over medium heat until the liquid thickens and becomes pliable then take the pot off of the stove and wait for your play dough to cool down. Ta-da: As easy as that!

Some ideas on how to use your play dough:

• Using primary colours to mix secondary colours: This must be one of my all time favourite party tricks (at least 5 years olds seem to find it pretty amusing). Make three batches of play dough in the primary colours (red, blue and yellow) and then break off equally sized portions from each colour. In your hands, mix and knead together two colours at a time and watch the colour change to a secondary colour.  This is a great way to demonstrate to your kids that red + blue = purple; red + yellow = orange; blue + yellow = green and then also that red + blue + yellow = brown. I also like to make a batch of white play dough (just leave out the food colouring) and use this to create lighter shades of each colour and of course, you’ll need to mix white and red to make every little girl’s favourite colour: pink.
• Enhance your child’s sensory experience  by adding a few drops of food essence or some aromatherapy oils to the ingredients when you make your play dough to tickle his olfactory (smell) sense or add different grains and legumes such as rice, sago, butter beans or lentils to your batch of already made play dough to stimulate his tactile (touch) sense.
• Make a batch of play dough in your child’s favourite colour (although the colour therapists would probably recommend that you use calming colours such as blue, green or purple) and add a few drops of lavender aromatherapy oil to it.  Give it to him to play with when he’s feeling a little stressed or needs to calm down.  This also works as a stress reliever for tired moms – you might even want to keep a small ball of this dough in your desk drawer at work.
• Use cookie cutters, plastic eating utensils, dough rollers, old curlers, and just about anything you can think of to make different shapes and patterns in your play dough.  The pliability of play dough also makes it a great tool to teach children about different shapes: for instance, if you stretch out the sides of a square you get a rectangle and in the same way you get a cylinder when you roll up the sides of a rectangle.
• All that tearing, kneading, rolling and pinching is wonderful to help develop and strengthen the fine motor muscles in your child’s fingers, hands and wrists.
• Let your imagination run wild. There is not a monster, creature or fantasy figure that cannot be crafted with a little bit of creative thought and a brightly coloured batch of play dough.
• If you have a school aged child, have him create his letters, sight words, spelling words and numbers out of play dough instead of the boring old pen and paper method.  Not only will he have tons of fun doing it, but he’ll have consolidated the lesson a whole lot better  having experienced the concepts in their 3-dimensional form.
• In the same way, play dough can be used very effectively to demonstrate the concepts of division and fractions to school aged-children

Story telling is an art as old as the hills and children of all ages love listening to stories.  A good story can inspire, teach and even heal and playtherapists often use stories in the form of narrative therapy with young children.

If you live in the Cape Town area, consider joining Lisa Cohen for an interactive storytelling evening and learn how to enhance your storytelling abilities so that your child receives stories in the best way possible!
In this workshop, Lisa focuses on:
- reading stories to children in captivating and enchanting ways
- harnessing your own imagination and creative expression
- making up or improvising stories to tell your child in any special moment/difficulty/celebration
- learning to listen and connect with your child
- having fun with the art of storytelling!

When: Thursday 16th February 2012
Time: 7:30 – 9:30pm
Where: TBA
Cost: R120
Booking essential!

Contact lisa@growatale.co.za or 083 6444980

School readiness depends as much on emotional maturity as it does on scholastic ability.

In order to be deemed cognitively school ready, children need to achieve a test age of 6  years 3 months on school readiness assessments.  Yet, I have assessed many children who have scored much higher than this and still recommended that they were not school ready based on their levels of emotional maturity.  This happens very often with children whose birthdays fall in the last quarter of the year and are having to compete with classmates who are virtually a year older and more capable, simply by virtue of their age.

There also seems to be a commonly held myth that all children reach the same level of maturity at the same age.  Children vary greatly in their levels of emotional maturity.  This is partly influenced by parenting but also depends to a large extent on a natural developmental process and will increase with time.

So what exactly do we look for when we assess school readiness? By no means are we expecting children to act like miniature versions of serious adults.  We still expect them to be childlike, to be more focused on fun than anything else and to be largely egocentric in their outlook, but we expect them to display some of the following traits:

• Confidence.  Is your child confident enough to speak up in a busy classroom when he is uncomfortable or needs help? A formal schooling environment does not always allow the teacher to pay individual attention to each child and children who do not speak up may easily fall behind. Children also need to be able to let the teacher know when they need a bathroom break, are feeling ill, do not have the right tools or are being bullied.
• Separation. Does your child separate easily from you when you drop him off in the morning or are the goodbyes long, teary affairs? Some crying in the first few weeks is absolutely normal and is even expected, but teachers simply will not have the time (and often will not have the patience) to console a tearful child all day long.
• Responsibility for his belongings. Does your child remember to put his lunchbox back in his bag and his eraser back in his pencil case or is his teacher constantly running after him returning lost goods?
• Concentration. Is your child able to sit still at a desk and concentrate for relatively long periods at a time?  Grade 1 teachers will allow for many short breaks during the day, but a child who is constantly getting out of his seat can be very disruptive and will soon elicit complaints from his classmates.
• Problem solving.  Is your child able to solve the majority of basic little problems that pop up on a daily basis? For example, will he know to borrow a ruler from a friend if he doesn’t have one or ask his teacher to phone you if he’s left his lunch behind or go to look in the lost property box when he can’t find his jersey? This also relates to social interactions. “Telling on” is probably the phrase heard most often on foundation phase playgrounds and teachers expect to be asked to be both judge and jury in certain cases, but children need at least some basic skills in resolving minor conflicts.
• Independence. Can your child complete most tasks on his own or is he constantly running to his teacher’s table for approval or intervention?
• Persistence. Carefully designed lessons include both tasks that are easy to complete, so that learners experience a sense of accomplishment, and tasks that are challenging, to extend the learners.  Some children have a habit of simply shrugging their shoulders and repeating the familiar refrain “I can’t do it” without ever really having given the task a full go, thus never progressing to higher levels of academic work.

Kids learning to read …

Learning to decode arbitrary symbols into spoken language … learning to gather information from authors who are not physically present and in some cases, might not even be alive anymore … It truly is a miracle!

Reading is definitely no small feat and all Grade 1 teachers undoubtedly deserve heaps of praise, but learning to read starts long before Grade 1.   Al quick look at the going’s on in a pre-school classroom might look like anything but an early literacy lesson, but what you are seeing there between the chaos of little bodies and coloured toys strewn over the floor is in fact kids learning to read.

The games they play at this age start forming connections in the brain to ease the transition to formal instruction in reading.  Here are some ways to enhance your child’s pre-literacy skills:

• Play games like I spy.  This is a wonderful way to introduce your little one to phonics.  Remember to use the initial sound rather than the initial letter though.  In other words, say something like “I spy something beginning with a Ah/Buh/Kuh/Duh” and not “Ay/Bee/See/Dee”.
• Play the clapping game. Choose a word, starting with short, simple little words and then slowly progressing onto longer words, and break the word up into syllables rhythmically clapping at the end of each syllable. For instance “but (clap) ter (clap) fly” or “hip (clap) po (clap) po (clap) ta (clap) mus (clap)”.  Being able to break words up into syllables aids children greatly when spelling as it helps to reveal double consonants and allows the child to focus on smaller sections of a long word at a time.
• Develop your child’s auditory discrimination skills. Tell him that you are going to be playing a game in which you are going to try and trick him. You are going to say pairs of different words that sound the same (such as bag – bad; run – fun; tub – tug) but every now and again to trick him you are going to say the same word twice (e.g. buck – buck, pin – pin) his role is to tell you when the words are the “same” and when they are “different”.
• Focus on spatial orientation  by getting your child to place one object under / above / next to / behind / in front of another.  This will help him with his letter recognition in that he will be able to remember that, for instance, that the letter i has a dot above it; the letter a has a line next to a circle, the letter g has a tail that curls in below a circle, etc.
• Enhance your child’s sequencing skills by asking him to copy the way you have thread different coloured beads onto a string or to copy a pattern with pegs onto a peg board from a stimulus card.  Later this will help him to remember simple reading & spelling rules such as: in the word cat the letter c comes first, then the letter a, then the letter t.
• Pick a word and see how many words your child can think of that rhyme with it.  This will help him identify words that start or end with the same sound.
• Kids learn to recognise certain letters through their association with common symbols. It is often no surprise that children can easily identify the letters M and P through their association with the MacDonalds and Pick&Pay signs they spot on an almost daily basis. This is called incidental learning.  Type out words for common objects (such as wall, door, ball, mat, bat, pen, etc) in a big, grade 1 font and stick the words on the related items.  There is a chance that your child will find these words more easy to recognise when his formal instruction in reading begins.
• Remember to point out shapes to your child.  Children are often taught letter recognition by being told that a capital A looks like a triangle with a line through it, the letter e is a half-circle with tail curving below it, the letter b begins with a line and then has a circle attached.