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Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898
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BUT.. fwiw, I'd take Sweetie's advice - sign up for the free 2-week trial verson of Aleks and have your ds take the assessments for as many grade levels as you can. The VERY USEFUL thing about the Aleks assessments is they will give you a detailed report that ties your child's knowledge to YOUR specific state curriculum standards (for all 50 states). It's also very easy to reset a grade level so that if your ds for instance, aces the grade level X assessment, you can switch him up to grade level X+1 and have him take that assessment (just be sure to save all the reports from the grade level X before making the switch).
The one gotcha with Aleks might be starting grade level - we used Aleks for after-schooling but it was several years ago, and at the time we used it, I think it started at grade 3.... but I also think they were adding in lower grade levels, or at least that was in their plan. It still only starts at 3rd grade, *but* it splits things up into tiny topics and many of them are things that are taught before 3rd grade, e.g. "single digit addition with carry" is one topic there. So it still might be a good idea to try it out. My DS-then-5 did this straight from "write me a sheet of sums Mummy" and there was no bump. Doesn't help you document where he is against 1st or 2nd grade standards, but if he's likely to know (or very quickly learn) a non-trivial amount of the 3rd grade material that might do! Unfortunately I don't think two-week free trials are easy to come by; the standard one only allows three hours of use, or something, and although longer trials specific to homeschoolers come round, you would have to claim to be homeschooling. One other gotcha: if you sign up for the free trial, and then purchase a subscription, the child gets the initial assessment again. I remember this upsetting my DS-then-5, for whom the 25-30 question initial assessment was a lot of concentration, and a lot of computer use given limited fine motor skills, at that time. If there's a decent chance you might actually use it, and if $19.95 doesn't stretch the budget too much, consider signing up for a month-by-month subscription instead, if you can't find a two week trial.
Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
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Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 137
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Gosh--your letter could have been a transcription of conversations that I and others have had with our principal, both about math and language arts. I think that they're really anti-acceleration at this point in education, perhaps owing to the new core standards. But that whole "going deeper" comment is one I've heard many times, and I have to say, as the mom of a very bright kid and as an educator, I'm "calling bull#@$%" on it. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Sigh.
Stacey. Former high school teacher, back in the corporate world, mom to 2 bright girls: DD12 & DD7.
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Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 132
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Posts: 132 |
Sorry, I had to run my DD to a Dr.s appt so I'll respond to everyone now.  Polarbear - I don't know whether they actually have end of year assessments or not. I know they have one for K so I just assumed that there would be one for the other grades. What do I know? I would think that if they didn't have one they could have just said that though. I will looks into Aleks. If nothing else it would reassure me that I'm right about where DS is. I think he has a shot at doing decently on 3rd grade so we'll see. As for explaining his work it is hit or miss for DS often depending on mood. I do worry that this could end up being held against him.  syoblrig - "How much deeper do they expect your son to understand 2 + 2, or to explain his thinking? What are the multiple ways of understanding this? Apples and apples vs. oranges and oranges?" - I love this and feel this way soooooo often. They want him to show his knowledge but if they ask what 2+2 is or to group items in 10s what exactly is he suppose to give them except for the right answer? nicoledad - it is public school and after the principal I guess the next step would be the district GT office or superintendent. I hope it doesn't have to come to that. I thought I had gone high enough! I also don't understand the whole "deeper" thing. It is definitely a word they like to use around here. The problem is that they won't stop to listen if you try and explain that maybe your child does understand the concept and not just the trick. Lat night DS and DH were going through one of the Murderous Math books and came across this problem: There's a positive whole number that you can add to 1,000,000 and you get an answer that's *bigger* than if you multiply it by 1,000,000. it took DS about 2 seconds to come up with the right answer and he could explain it thoroughly or "deeply" as they might put it.
Last edited by Eibbed; 02/01/13 12:05 PM.
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Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 3,363
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Joined: Sep 2011
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As for explaining his work it is hit or miss for DS often depending on mood. I do worry that this could end up being held against him. This is why I suggested having you ask him to explain his work to you at home, and you scribe his answers. You'll have a chance to get examples over a window of time, when he's actually feeling like answering - and you can use those as examples of his level of comprehension and understanding at your meeting. We've had to advocate quite a bit from a slightly different perspective (2e), and we often found ourselves at meetings where the school staff would use one random example of something ds did in class as "proof" of his ability/level of work/etc.... those examples were all carefully selected to prop up the school's position re where to place ds. I found the same strategy worked very well for countering the school's argument, by having my own set of examples of ds' level of work polarbear
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Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 132
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polarbear -I'll give that a try. The GT teacher had said that scribing was OK for when he was answering questions or recording thoughts in his journal so I would think it should be OK for this.
p.s. I'm not sure what you mean by searching the district's website to see if they thought a program was credible. Do they keep a list of such things? Where would I begin?
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Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 417
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Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 417 |
Glad you got a response! Sorry it was such a pitiful and ridiculous one.
I don't have advice other than we have been using IXL.com as suggested above and offering prizes to complete the standards for each grade. We started with second and did 25% of that in 2wks before it just got so tedious that we moved in to third. I like the pretty charts they provide online and that it is totally standards based. He likes uncovering the prize board and all his certificates for accomplishing things.
It has also helped me find gaps of information that he needed an explanation about and helped me pin down his level better. You can easily move between all of the grade levels and it makes very clear the huge amount of overlap between grades. You can also view samples and try the modules yourself on the parent log in.
I plan to use IXL to demonstrate the level that is appropriate for him. It also should be a free to the school option (using our log in) in the class to let him work on his standards at any grade-level. If you get a problem wrong, they explain why. If nothing else works for this year, advocating to let him use IXL in class is my final plan. I also think showing he has completed thousands of problems covering the whole of the 3rd grade math standards in our state ought to get us some appropriate acceleration for next year. (They even record time spent on each section and every problem answered incorrectly and what his answer was. It's extremely detailed.) I thought it was a bargain for these purposes.
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Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 393
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HappilyMom- I have been thinking about using Time4Learning in a similar way for Math and Language Arts- hoping this will help me advocate for next year. (Ds school using the sister computer program, Compass Learning), so I thought the format would be familiar for him. Hope the school won't just see it as hothousing.
Eibbed- So sorry you are going through this. Wish I had advice to offer. Hang in there. Btw, the wording used "deeper" multiple way to explain answer is the same things we're told. I think it's a way to say that everyone can "learn" a new way to explain something.
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Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 1,694
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Well... I had to giggle at this (painfully!) lol... because this was such a frustration for us in early elementary with the curriculum that was in vogue in our school at the time. DS had soooo so many worksheets that asked him to show understanding - not just in one way but usually in THREE different ways... for very very very VERY simple concepts. It was enough to make me want to throw a brick through a classroom window in frustration!
The reason I came back and commented was, it reminded me of something else that might be useful to consider going into this meeting. Our school had a number of parents who weren't too pleased with the curriculum, as well as, um, plummeting state test scores.... so there were quite a few meetings at school where the school staff tried to explain to the parents why this was such a great teaching method and curriculum etc. The emphasis was always on teaching math in a way that kids who aren't naturally "mathy" could get it and apply it to the real world so it would sink in. I finally realized that what was happening was the *ADULTS* who had chosen the curriculum weren't at all "mathy" and they'd never really understood math in early elementary. SO... not that that will change how you need to approach your meeting but it might be helpful just to keep it in mind - you might know more and be more naturally adept at understanding math than the teachers at the meeting. Din ding ding!! We are facing this problem right now with the mind numbingly stupid approach my kids school have taken to math, I am sure designed to "help" the kids that aren't naturally mathy - which serves only to confuse and annoy those that are.
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Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 669
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Every time an educator throws out the deep thing...it is all I can do not to sing...
Deep and wide, deep and wide there's a fountain flowing deep and wide. Deep and wide, deep and wide there's a fountain flowing deep and wide.
Hmmm and wide, hmmm and wide there a fountain...(you slowly replace an additional word with "hmmm" each verse until you are singing all Hmmmm's.
Last edited by Sweetie; 02/01/13 07:28 PM.
...reading is pleasure, not just something teachers make you do in school.~B. Cleary
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 1,032
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It doesn't sound very promising, but I'm interested in the fact that they say "we will not be giving him the full 1st grade or *even 2nd grade* assessment..."
If they said "not be giving him the full 2nd grade, or even 1st grade..." that would indicate to me that they felt he should be working the K or 1st grade level. But "the full 1st grade or even 2nd" sounds to me like they think he is beyond both.
It may be an error of phrasing that means nothing -- that wouldn't be the first time. But it is something to think about. It's possible they think he's working beyond both levels.
To second what's been said earlier, I haven't even been able to get an actual end-of-year assessment out of our school, which is a good school for working with our DS and his accelerations, and that's up to the 6th grade level that I've been asking for most recently. It's possible they just don't have such an animal.
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