Report Card and our summer homework

As you can see, our report cards came.  All the kids have poor organizational skills. Sadly, I am not surprised. You just have to look at our walkway or their bedrooms. :-/ We have been working on that. I need to work on it a bit harder. It doesn't help that even the adults have clutter spots. Although we have been decreasing those.



Our school uses a 1-5 grading scale. 5 is not the best. The child above is Clark. For those who do not know, Clark has Autism.  I know he has a higher reading level and comprehension level than that. He just doesn't want to take the tests. Clark loves to read (when he isn't being told to). He also doesn't like any sort of structured writing. Clark can do it, but he will get mad and work himself up into a meltdown. Any guesses on what we are working on this summer? 

Math. This is another struggle for Clark. Clark does not do well memorizing times tables. He has never done well in math. I believe his earliest IEP that involved math had Clark's goals set to doing 5 math problems on his own. Then someone would encourage him to do more and "help" him by writing out what he told them. This last year we wanted him to do half a page on his own. I wish I could remember what this next years goal was. I want to say it is a whole page. It is better to set the goal high than leave in low expectations. We want Clark to succeed to the best of his ability in life, not "just get by". We will never be able to do that if we don't push the envelope with him. This summer we will be using our Kindle Fire as a tool. Clark loves electronics. Normally they are a reward. We will be (as of later today) using them to do math. Our school uses Moby Max. Continuing to use something that is familiar to him will increase out chances of success.

Clark is the only child that receives something like this with his report card.We have behavioral goals as well. Goals are set and we work on them both at home and at school. Some we can't work on at home, like the going to his Specials/Enrichment Classes. However, we can reward him for meeting his weekly goal with those and add a tracker bar into his planner.

We have worked so hard to get Clark to see the classroom as "his room" with "his people" that he doesn't think he needs to ask to take or play with items. This has become a big problem at home too. He is normally not meaning to do something wrong, Clark's brain just works a little differently than most kids and so he perceives things differently. For example, we put the coloring stuff in the spare room to keep it away from the little girls. Clark has asked if he could use it before and has been told yes. So Clark feels it is ok to go into the spare room and get them when he wants. Every time he asks, it registers as a "It is ok to use it when I want". I know that we need to work on consistent wording addressing that this is one time permission every time he asks. Sometimes we are rushed with 5 other kids asking for soemthing and simply say "yes". Instead we need to say something like "You may use it this once. You need to put it back when you are done."