🚀 go-pugleaf

Many thanks to the ten of you who answered my query about the two
students with possible learning disabilities.

In retrospect, I should have given more info.  My school is not
associated with any university or institution of higher learning.
Rather, it is a civic organization staffed mostly by volunteers and in
that regard is probably similar to many such city groups.  The staff has
no special ed appointees or counselors.  We rent space in the basement of
a church and beg/borrow/steal much of our equipment.  Classes meet four
times per week (Mon-Thurs), two hours each time.  Every Monday my 10-15
students and I push some tables together, fling some chairs around the
perimeter, set up some dividers for privacy from other classes, erect a
blackboard,  and Voila!, instant classroom!  Every Thursday we take
everything down, because the church uses the room on Sundays for various
activities.  Typically, the entire school has ca. 140 students and 20
volunteer teachers each semester.  Student placement testing for the five
levels of classes can be charitably described as "loose."

The two students I described are both Hispanic (from Mexico).  I'm not
sure if they had learning problems when they were in school in Mexico,
but I'll try to find out.  (Two of you suggested looking into that.)

About the only frequent response (four of the replies) was not to try to
administer any test for learning disability myself.  Examples of other
comments were that student A (who often puts the letters within a word in
almost random order, aside from the first letter) could well be dyslexic
and that both students may simply be slow learners.

I have searched, thus far unsuccessfully, to find a qualified person in
my city (Denver) for advice or for possible testing.

Susan Simon, archivist for TESL-L, posted a letter to all of us in which
she referred us to a manual on learning disabilities in the TESL-L
archives.  I have retrieved this manual but have not yet had time to wade
through it (it is very long).  I do appreciate her pointing it out to us.

And again, my thanks to all of you who responded.

Cordially,

Gar Williams
Denver
garnettw@JUNO.COM

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