Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School 2nd/3rd Grade 2011-2012

Frannieandejsmom,

That's great news!

Unfortunately, the reality isn't quite so good. From what DD has said, it seems like the kids who are below grade level are in small groups. All the kids who are at or above grade level seem to be in one big group. For the past few weeks, they've been working on single and double digit addition. Not surprisingly, DD is rather bored, so we've been working at home. Hopefully once all the assessments are done, they'll be able to let the kids who are ready move ahead.

Well, things seem...okay? Reading is meh, though they are starting a lot of individualized stuff on the computer. I got back her reading assessment today (state mandated) which has very little useful info but does report that her "probability of reading success" is 99%. Ha! Guess we had to leave that last 1% in there juuuust in case.

She has really enjoyed this special research project they've been doing and we continue to get one math homework a week that truly challenges her. Today it made her cry because she was freaked that she didn't know how to do it right away. This sounds horrible, but I was vaguely thrilled--not that she was crying, but that she was being pushed outside her ding-ding-ding-everything-is-easy zone. She figured it out eventually and was triumphant.

She is still loving chess and science.

She did get a first progress report recently and it's straight As across the board. I guess that's good--I mean, it would be weird to be disappointed in that. Right?

Pessimist alert: Call me weird then, but disappointed is how I felt when our DS was getting all the highest scores on his reports at our last school. I think our kids need to get a couple "needs work" or "almost there" type reports, so we know that they have something to learn. How can you learn how to learn if you already know the materials?

As for 3rd grade for our DS7, I think things are going well so far (he's at a school for HG kids). It seems like they're getting down to business this year. There's a lot more writing, and the spelling words are crazy hard (requiring studying, which we're still trying to figure out how to do best). The teacher sends home everything they do in class, which is great fun. DS is writing a lot of funny stories, and they get to do really cool activities (like comparisons of Egyptian and Chinese math systems). And DS has only forgotten his lunchbox once this year (compared to nearly every day last year). Yeah! I still don't think I'll ever have a kid who looks forward to school, but I think he likes it OK.

An interesting tidbit: They took the MAP tests again, and I told DS that his scores went up a bit since the spring, which was great since we didn't really do anything academic all summer. He said that he hoped his scores were still the highest in the class. He knew that his scores were the highest last year before we moved him to the HG school; we told him to show him that he needed something more challenging. I didn't really think he cared about that, but apparently he does. I told him that it was unlikely that he still had the highest scores in every subject at the new school, where he's the youngest kid, even among the grade skippers, and that it's great that he's in a group of kids that are learning near the same levels. It was interesting to me that he wanted to have the top scores.

I do feel just slightly... don't know...meh about the straight Es. Her teacher is seeming excessively wowed by her. I know there are worse problems to have, but I am tired of excessive wow syndrome and thought we would be getting away from it here. Her IQ is supposedly 133, putting her only 3 points over the cutoff for this gifted school. I know she is extremely motivated and that it helps, a lot, but.

Just looked up that wcpm thing--yeah, wow, that is fast for a second-grader. I wonder how she would do with it on a text more at the 5th-6th grade level, which is about where she chooses to read for pleasure. I'm sure the 190 was a second-grade text.

I think the IQ score is missing something.

I think the score is probably a slight understimate, but not crazy low. I wish she had taken a longer test or an achievement test. The school seems to only be working about a grade ahead, which isn't enough for DD--I wouldn't expect it to be enough for MOST kids over 130. I'm hoping there will continue to be curriculum adjustments.

I think I mentioned that ds8 was reading the "Lightening Thief" in class (while the other kids do math). His teacher also got a copy, and is reading along with him so she can come up with work for him to go alongside it. She e-mailed yesterday to tell me that they took turns reading out loud to each other for the first time - and had a laugh at some of the name pronunciations they were coming up with. She also said that she didn't think she'd enjoy the book - not her thing - but she liked it. Glad to hear she's getting a kick out of working with ds

Hi! I'm a newbie here, tiptoeing in.

My DD7 is in second grade. She is currently in a gifted pull-out program one day a week, which is an enrichment program for all the kids in the district who tested in the top 2.5-3% on the district's giftedness assessment tests. She is bused to another school for the program.

That is all that the district offers for 2nd grade. In 3rd grade, she will have the option of attending a full-time program that accelerates the normal grade-level curriculum.

So far, DD loves 2nd grade -- both in her regular classroom and in her gifted pull-out class. Even when the class assignments are not challenging enough, DD is generally able to modify them to work for her (by writing or reading more than the minimum required, for example).

Welcome!

I'm SOOOOOOOOOOO very excited to report that I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad we decided to keep DC at their current school instead of going to the charter (remember that decision - it's been so long, and I have been ghost due to work).

Anyway, long story short, DC's school is a Title I school. This year they opted to take the funds and add a math lab, add additional staff and teachers (to reduce classroom size) AND to ensure that at least two teachers at every grade are gifted certified!! DS7.5 & DD5.5 BOTH have a gifted certified teacher! The school already clustered the kids (which I love for DS).

Anywho, I just thought I'd update. DS7.5 is still loving 3rd grade and his ALP pullout. And DD5.5 (6 on the 11th) is AMAZING us in K. She has seriously gone from not reading/writing to wow!!! Maybe she really is on the scale herself.