Free Parent/Guardian IEP October Class

We hope you all have had a wonderful summer and school is off to a terrific start.  We would love to help you prepare for any meetings or communication with your child’s school through understanding the components of your child’s IEP.  Our next free parent/guardian class will be held on Wednesday, October 11th. Due to the needs of families, this class is more of a drop in time from 12:00-1:00. Please join us during this time at your convenience and bring any paperwork or questions you have. We are finding it to be most helpful for families to have the opportunity to ask individual questions about an IEP process or specific parts of an IEP rather than have a formal class. We still love to hear that you’re able to drop in! Please send  an e-mail to confidentsolutions7@gmail.com  Classes are held at 1905 JN Pease Pl, Suite 201, Charlotte, NC 28262. We look forward to seeing you!

With Appreciation,

Christina and Wendy

 

What Information Would You Like?

Happy Thursday everyone! We would love to hear from you on what kind of information you would like to have.  Send us an e-mail with your thoughts at confidentsolutions7@gmail.com, leave a comment here on our website, or on our Facebook page.

Would you like to know more about Orton-Gillingham tutoring or speech language therapy or evaluations?  Would information about paperwork or communicating with your child’s school be helpful? Maybe advocacy tips for navigating a meeting at your child’s school?  Tips for teaching social skills to your children?  Resources in a specific area?  Specific special education laws and resources?

We have a lot of information between the two of us and would love to hear from you on what would be most helpful!

With Appreciation,

Christina and Wendy

Middle School Group on 9/8/17-Get ready for some drama

Our next meeting for our middle school group is on Friday, September 8th at 6:30.  Details about our middle school group can be found here Middle School OTB Group-Fall Semester  We are integrating some fun ways to practice social skills within our group.  Please follow our website and “like” us on Facebook for updates on what we are adding.  There are some exciting things coming!

For September 8th, we will be having a licensed social worker who utilizes drama therapy in her work come play with our middle schoolers.  So what is Drama Therapy?  North American Drama Therapy Association describes it as the intentional use of drama and/or theatre processes to achieve therapeutic goals.  Our goals for our middle schoolers are to strengthen their social learning skills.  The focus of this interactive session will be on conversations with peers and how to integrate that into their school environment.  This technique includes improvisation, theater games, storytelling, and enactment.  This organic and fluid experience will be a ton of fun for us all!

Please e-mail us at confidentsolutions7@gmail.com to let us know you’ll be coming!

With Appreciation,

Christina and Wendy

 

A New School Year

A new school year already! This can bring feelings of excitement as well as anxiety.  One thing you can to do prepare for the new school year is to begin communicating with your child’s teacher.  Who else knows him or her like you do? Communication is a critical piece in your partnership with your child’s school. We recommend writing an e-mail or a letter to your child’s new teacher telling them all about your child.  We previously wrote a post about this but feel it’s important to share again. You can find the past post here Communicating with Your Child’s Teacher which also includes a link for a template on how to write a letter and communicate.

As the year progresses, keep that communication line open.  Here is a  link to the Wrightslaw website on how to write an effective letter to your child’s school pertaining to any EC needs or concerns http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/letters.draft.htm

If you would like help on how to begin or tools for communicating with your child’s school, please reach out to us at confidentsolutions7@gmail.com.

Cheers to the start of a fantastic year!

With Appreciation,

Christina and Wendy

 

Confident Solutions Accepts Medicaid!

Wendy Britt is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist who currently sees patients from pediatrics through adults with a variety of Speech and Language Impairments.  Therapy can take place in your home or in our office at 1905 JN Pease Place, Suite 201 Charlotte, NC 28262.

Areas of Speech & Language Services:

                • Articulation: accurate production of speech sounds

                • Language: word meanings and relationships, sentence structure and grammatical markings

                    and social skills during communication

                • Phonological Awareness: awareness of sounds and ways to manipulate them

                • Auditory Processing: The mental processing of language and auditory stimuli

                • Stuttering: Smooth, Fluid Speech

                • Augmentative Communication: alternative forms of communication for those who cannot

                     achieve speech

                • Voice Disorders: techniques to treat strained, breathy, hoarse, soft, loud, or nasal voices 

We accept:

Medicaid or private pay

Call us to set up an initial appointment or have your physician fax a doctor’s order to 980-225-0229.

Telephone: Wendy Britt 704-995-6896

Email confidentsolutions7@gmail.com

 

Teaching Social Skills Cognitively

Typically, we learn social skills in an intuitive way around 3 to 4 years old. When these skills are not learned naturally, it’s important to teach them cognitively in a nonjudgmental way. What does “listen” actually mean? What are the expectations of “listen”? We are excited to help your child learn new skills and tools that he/she can use at home and at school. We look forward to seeing you in a few weeks! E-mail us with any questions. We love connecting with you! confidentsolutions7@gmail.com You can also find useful information under our Upcoming Events tab on our home page.

Helpful Links:

Registration for School Age Social Skills Classes August 20th-October 1st

Middle School OTB Group-Fall Semester

Differences Between Social Skills Group and Middle School Group

Who Benefits From Social Skills Classes?

 

 

With Appreciation,

Wendy and Christina

Homeschool Classes: Orton-Gillingham Plus

Orton-Gillingham Reading Plus

Beginning on Wednesday, August 23rd, weekly homeschool classes lasting an hour and 15 minutes  will begin with Orton-Gillingham tutoring and moving into language acquisition of skills.  Students will be explicitly taught reading through a multi-sensory approach teaching phonemic awareness, decoding skills, encoding skills, blending, memory techniques, and handwriting.  The students will then make a smooth transition into language acquisition focusing on fluency which includes prosody, rate and accuracy of reading as well as comprehension skills.  Other specific areas targeted based on your child’s needs could be sequencing, categorizing, answering “wh” questions, and recalling details.

Orton-Gillingham (OG) is a language based, multi-sensory approach to reading. This will help your child if he/she is struggling with reading and spelling.  This enriches your homeschool reading curriculum.  When paired with language skills, your child will have a dynamic support of tools with direct teaching that benefits him/her in several areas of their life such as reading, writing, spelling, and communicating.

Confident Solutions, LLC is unique because we offer a combined approach in OG and language skills. This approach will not only focus on  finding your child’s strengths but will specifically address the areas that need improvement in the acquisition of language and literacy. Spoken language provides the foundation for the development of reading and writing. Spoken and written language build on each other which creates language and literacy competency. When language acquisition is paired with Orton-Gillingham tutoring we can help prevent written language problems by fostering language acquisition and emergent literacy.

75 minute classes are $75.00 per week and are grouped K-2, 3rd-5th, and 6th-8th.  If you currently have a high schooler that would benefit from these classes, please contact us.   All classes are held at University Ridge Office Center, 1905 JN Pease Place, Suite 201, Charlotte, NC 28262.  We need one registration form per family.  You may pay for one class at a time or for a full month.  Groups will consist of no more than 5 children.  Registration will stay open each week unless a group becomes full.

Groups run every Wednesday, beginning on August 23rd. The full list of dates can be found on the registration form.

K-2 meets from 10:00-11:15

3rd-5th grades meets from 11:30-12:45

6th-8th graders meet from 1:00-2:15

To register your child, please fill out this form Registration for Homeschooling Classes-Fall semester and e-mail it to us at confidentsolutions7@gmail.com.

If you would like more information about our homeschool classes, please send us an e-mail.  We would love to schedule a time to talk with you!

With Appreciation,

Christina and Wendy

Differences Between Social Skills Group and Middle School Group

Good morning! We have made a lot of posts this week with our fall schedule and registrations.  We wanted to let you know the differences between the two groups that we recently posted.

The social skills groups are for elementary aged children.  They are working and building upon specific social skills.  The children meet as a group while the parents meet as a separate group.  This session runs for six weeks and registration is due by August 19th.  Please click here for the full details Registration for School Age Social Skills Classes August 20th-October 1st

 

Our middle school group typically meets two Friday evenings a month and you can register for all the open Fridays or you can register the week the group meets.  This group consists of no more than 10 students with grades ranging from 6th-9th.  This is more of a relaxed group than our elementary aged group because it’s more of an organic environment where the students hang out, we play games, and we teach mini-lessons during the group.  Please click here for the full details Middle School OTB Group-Fall Semester

 

If you have any questions about our groups, please contact us at confidentsolutions7@gmail.com.

We will be posting details about a homeschool fall schedule as well as our upcoming free IEP classes for parents and guardians soon.

With Gratitude,

Christina and Wendy

Middle School OTB Group-Fall Semester

Please click here for the registration form Registration for Middle School Group-Fall semester 2017

We hope you all have had a wonderful and relaxing summer vacation! We are excited for our middle schoolers to meet back up.  We have a lot of fun!

Middle school can be a challenging time socially. It can be especially challenging understanding the “hidden” social rules, nonverbal language and all of the “grey” areas that exist. Beginning in September, we will host a middle school hang out for teaching, learning, and practicing all of those grey areas in a fun environment. The classes will be the second and fourth Friday of every month from 6:30-8:00 p.m. Each class, of no more than ten, will be a diverse group of students. The mixture of 6th-8th graders will be students who need to strengthen their overall social skills with kids who have strong social skills. We feel it is important to be able to support this age range in more of a natural environment with peers so they can have help in bringing awareness and strengthen self-monitoring skills to “grey” area situations. For example, grey areas may consist of times such as losing a game, having someone being perceived as “cheating”, or knowing how to start and hold a conversation socially with a peer or group of peers.

The cost for each class is $25.00 and we welcome you to drop your middle schooler off and pick him/her back up at 8:00 p.m.  Upcoming dates are listed below. Registration will remain open unless a class becomes full. Any full classes will be listed on our website. You may register ahead of time to reserve your child’s spot. You also have the option of registering the week of the class (as long as it is not full).   Please reach out to us at confidentsolutions7@gmail.com with any questions.

To register, please fill out at least one registration form found in the link above and e-mail it to us at confidentsolutions7@gmail.com. We will send you a PayPal link to complete your registration. All classes are held at University Ridge Office Center, 1905 JN Pease Place, Suite 201, Charlotte, NC 28262

All classes meet from 6:30-8:00. Upcoming Dates:

August 25th

September 8th

September 22nd

October 13th

October 27th

November 17th

December 8th

December 15th-Holiday Party

 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us a note at confidentsolutions7@hotmail.com. We look forward to seeing you!

With Appreciation,

Wendy and Christina

Accountability

We get a lot of calls asking who can be held accountable for parts of the IEP or 504. After asking a few questions, we realize parents are typically talking about the modifications/accommodations on their child’s IEP or 504. We have seen that a lot of IEPs or 504s have very vague descriptions written of these.  A good modification/accommodation will answer these questions “who” will do “what”, “when”, “where” and “how”.  For example, an accommodation of “modified assignments” would be written something like this:  ” the regular education teacher will provide (student’s name) with a math assignment with 20% of the math problems. These math problems will determine understanding of the math concept taught. The number of the math problems that (student’s name) should complete will be circled. The regular education teacher will ensure that Student understands which problems to complete.”

Another example is “modified seating” or “preferential seating”. This accommodation is on many IEPs. An example of a good accommodation would be “the regular education teacher will provide (student’s name) with a seat close to the front of the class during instruction so teacher can check for understanding”. Or instead of “check for understanding” it could be “to help student maintain attention/focus”. This could also be changed from “close to the front of the class” to “an area with minimal distractions”. Each accommodation on your child’s IEP should be specific to your child. There should be an adult responsible for providing this accommodation or modification. When we sit as advocates we commonly see that schools want to make the child the “who” in these accommodations. For example, if the child is allowed to have frequent breaks during assignments, we are seeing “student will request a break when he is feeling overwhelmed”. If this is an accommodation that is allowed, then the “who” needs to be an adult helping to facilitate these. If this is something the child is working to learn, then this needs to be a self-advocacy goal. A better way to write this accommodation would be “the teacher will allow (student’s name) to have a break when he is overwhelmed. Signs that “student” is overwhelmed include flapping, spinning, talking louder. If “student” does not initiate a break, the regular education teacher should discreetly ask/determine if “student” should have a break. “student” can be overwhelmed during assemblies, before a test, or when there is a change in his schedule.”

Take a look at your child’s IEP or 504 to see how his or her modifications/accommodations are stated.  They should be clearly written with answering all of the who,what, when, where, and how questions.  If you have missing pieces, we recommend asking for a meeting before school starts to clarify them.  This will help set your child up for success this coming school year.

We also offer a paperwork review in which we read through your paperwork thoroughly, and will write specific notes for you to ask your school to clarify.  We are always happy to answer any questions you have over the phone or through e-mail as well.  We have free IEP classes to empower you in how to better understand your child’s paperwork.  Please enter your e-mail on the home page to receive the latest updates!

With Gratitude,

Wendy and Christina