Raeann and Langauge Arts in 8th grade

Just emailed this to few folks; thought I post it here for posterity's sake.


I’m not sure what the solution is here, so I’m looking for any advice. As you know, Raeann requires support at home to get through 95% of her homework. That’s a given and we accept that. For math, science, social studies and other classes that’s generally not too big of a deal. Between the two of us, Andrea and I either know the material or can quickly review a couple of pages in a book and be up to speed enough to provide Rae with the support she needs to get through her homework.

The real problem surfaces in language arts, where she’s required to read several books and then take notes and write summaries, tasks which both absolutely require our assistance. In the last few months she has had to read The Diary of Anne Frank, The Red Kayak, and now Lily’s Ghosts. For Anne Frank, we were provided section summaries that did a very good job of summarizing chapters of the book. Those summaries almost made it possible to help Raeann without reading the whole book.

Basically we’ve had the following choice: either A) one of us reads her books also, or B) we don’t and she’s left with no one to support from home (in which case she would be unable to produce an adequate summary). For Lily’s Ghosts, they didn’t do any summary work at school – it was all homework. Thus far we’ve read the books, but it hasn’t been easy. Good grief! Like we don’t have enough to do already as the parents of a kid with disabilities, not to mention full time jobs and two other kids! We’ve got to cover her entire reading list, too???

So, what’s the solution here? Are we just screwed as the parents of a kid that needs this level of support? Is there something else we can demand or expect the school to do to help us support her at home?