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| Dear Christine, Who can make a determination of a "specific learning disability" under OAR 581-015-0051(9) (so that the child can be assessed under a privately developed plan instead of standardized testing)? Amy Amy and all, This is a very new field for those of us working with homeschooling families. Thanks for bringing it up. The disability has to be determined by an expert in the field of the disability. There is a very complicated explanation of what, specifically, is considered a disability and how it is determined at http://www.ode.state.or.us/sped/spedlegal/oars/581-015-0051.pdf You can find the text of the homeschooling part of the law and administrative rules at the OHEN website at http://www.teleport.com/~ohen/ Christine Dear Christine- As I was perusing an old pile of HEM magazines the other day, I ran into an article you wrote about homeschoolers going to college. One comment you made in the article is that you wished you hadn�t worried so much about how much your son wrote. I worry all the time about my son�s writing. He hates to write anything, even a short email to get information he wants. When he does write, he wants constant help and feedback. The only thing he writes without supervision is webpages. He is 13 and wants to be a roboticist. His science, computer and math skills are excellent, but I wonder if he�ll be able to get into college and/or succeed in college if he doesn�t learn to write. Did your son eventually develop interest in writing? Or at some point did he just decide that to achieve his goals he would need some writing courses? What kind of writing preparation did he have before applying to college? How did you deal with this and how would you deal with it now if you could do it over? Thanks, Sue Sue and all, Those teenage boys! My son has always been a pretty good writer. Not outstanding, but pretty good. Interestingly enough, when he got to college he realized that he was better than almost anyone in his required writing class (all engineering students) and they had almost all gone to public school. I have lots of mixed feelings about writing. Yes, I think kids need to learn basic writing fundamentals�how to express themselves, how to write decent paragraphs and how to organize their thoughts coherently and in order. I don�t think it takes years and years of writing to get a young person to that point. And I do believe that if we force writing on younger people they will learn to hate it and resist the bits they do need to know when it becomes necessary to learn them. For kids like my daughter (15) writing is their life�she takes her notebooks or computer everywhere with her �just in case� she has a great idea to add to something she�s writing. For others its a huge pain to try to get their thoughts on paper or computer screen. Adam took one writing course when he entered college. It was geared toward pretty basic stuff and he did very well. I had nagged him and nagged him through his teen years to do SOMETHING but he just never did. When he went away to college I handed him some �how to write papers� books and said �You�re a smart kid. Figure it out when you need to.� If he had been headed for a more liberal arts type of degree he probably would have had more trouble but as an engineering student it wasn�t a problem. I don�t think expressive writing is something everyone is comfortable with and I don�t think most adults, unless they love to write or are in a profession that requires it, write much beyond the occasional e-mail, letter or memo. They certainly don�t write �papers� unless they are publishing research or are in a field that requires a lot of writing�and who would choose a field like that if they hate to write? One of the most fun things I�ve done with kids was when I worked with a very small group of teenage boys a few years ago in a writing class. We used a book to work on some basic skills and then just wrote each week. One won a first place ribbon at the state fair for a poem he wrote in that class. His mother was astounded as he�d never liked to write before that. Three of the students went on to help develop, and write, the scripts the kids used in their Destination Imagination competitions. My advice? At 13 I wouldn�t worry about it. Make it clear that he has to learn to write in at least a basic format before he applies to colleges because it will be required and he will most likely have a hard time getting accepted if he doesn�t develop those skills at some point in the next few years. Help him see some possibilities for how to pursue the skills (form a writing group, take a community college class, take an online class, work through some writing books). There are lots of possibilities. Relax, give him the information, and let him decide how he wants to handle it. He has lots of time and it isn�t too difficult to develop the skills in less than six months of work. Thanks for asking about one of my favorite topics! Christine |