Posted by Caroline on 11:15 Jan 17
My 12yo dd has nonverbal learning disability. Her vocabulary and reading skills are out-of-this world, but she has problems organizing her own thoughts. We're using IEW for writing-seems like a perfect program for teaching organizational skills, but...
This happened today, and it's representative of the problems we're having. Yesterday we watched SWCC B lesson on the formal essay format. Today we sat down to write the introduction to what was formerly a report on Beethoven. I helped her to decide on a decoration to grab the reader's attention. I helped her to write the complete sentence. Then I helped her to write the whole paragraph(it was "just too hard"). Then she complained that her paragraph wasn't good enough. Aaargh!
She breaks down and cries and says I won't help her if I push her to do any of it on her own. I know from reading messages on an NLD board that organizing her thoughts is hard, and I have heard Mr. Pudewa say to *always* help a student who asks for help. It just seems out of hand, and I don't know where to draw the line. She will cry for hours when she is frustrated.
We have similar struggles with math. The difference is that in math, she can do it herself(mostly) if I talk her through it. It makes for very long math lessons. Sometimes she does get very easily frustrated and give up on problems that she is able to do.
For any of you who have children with NLD, how have you changed your teaching techniques? How much help do you give? How do you deal with meltdowns? How can I get her to try something challenging without just throwing in the towel and crying? I hope that this child will be able to go to college. I hope that she will learn techniques to work through her frustrations(we do have our first therapy appt. coming up). Her language abilities are off the chart, but problem solving skills and grapho-motor skills are a big problem. School was much easier in the grammar stage.
Any advice?
Thanks.
Caroline