LD HS students and study groups: has anyone gotten school support for these?

[NotUrsula]

DS is going to be starting HS in the fall. He has a visual processing disorder and does MUCH better on schoolwork when he can process it out loud rather than on paper. DH and I remember our grad school study groups, and we really think that a similar sort of group study/discussion setup could really help DS understand and retain material from literature and history classes, and perhaps even the sciences.

The trick is going to be figuring out how to set them up. DS is not a very social kid, and he doesn't have friends that he could invite to join him in this. Of course, kids this age are not as motivated as your average twenty-something, either, but we'd like to try. We would need to work with the school's LC's to get something sponsored, I think, but I'm not sure of what all the issues might be.

If anyone has successfully set up or have a child be part of a formal outside of class time study group in high school, I'd really like to hear about your experiences. (Actually, I'd like to hear about unsuccessful tries, too -- all the better to recognize pitfalls before we step into them.)
Thanks!

 

[brat]

Back in high school I was part of one set-up by the high school during lunch hour. We ate during study lunch.The teacher who set-it up was worried that her son did not have friends and that some of us disabled kids were needing more study help.This gave the Son who I now understand is high-fuctioning ASD a chance to buddy teach some of us who were falling between the cracks.

The big-pitfall is the ones who do not want to be there.We were free to not go so that got rid of them. Now the bonus that helped was that we got foods we liked.

 

[Kat77]

I don't a high schooler yet. Our district provides something called Content Mastery to assist LD children. The teachers in these classrooms are skilled in varied learning methods and often have neat tricks they use to teach the kids. http://www.angelfire.com/tx/contentmastery/ (not my district) Maybe yours has something like this already in place?

 

[NotUrsula]

He has done programs like that (we actually hired a LD specialist to tutor him on special study techniques.) The thing is that his Dad and I can't spare the time to quiz him aloud on every bit of his homework anymore now that the number of assignments has increased so much; he needs someone else to practice aloud with several times a week.

He uses Dragon, but he isn't motivated enough to just listen to lecture tapes or his own voice over and over; it bores him stiff, so he blows it off after only one review, which of course isn't enough. He loves to debate, though, and we think it would be especially helpful for his literature classes to be able to sit around and discuss plot points with classmates. (Doing it online won't work unless they use Skype or something similar -- it needs to be an oral discussion rather than a written one, because he doesn't retain when he studies written materials. This is a fairly common type of LD, so surely he can't be the only kid in his grade who would benefit.)

 

[brat]

Does he have any of his books on tape?

My Foster son reads textbooks on tape for blind kids.We found out that the wait for the books can be longer for some text than it shoud be and he loves to read.

You could ask his school if they have an oral learners group and if not ask there help starting one.