Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Please Help upset and confused

DS is in K. He has quite a high IQ and reads chapter books at home. We are planning to advocate for a grade skip at the end of the month, but last week the teacher started having a lot of behaviour issues. They have been continuing this week.

we had an independent reading comprehension test done this year, and he hit the ceiling on the test with reading accuracy at at least a year 4 level and comprehension at at least a year 2 level. His teacher says they have done their standard reading comprehension test, and while he has good accuracy, he only comprehends at mid year 1 level. I don't know what to think. Was the original test inaccurate and my son can read much more than he can comprehend, or is the measure the school is using inaccurate? Has anyone had any experience with anything like this.

They also say his handwriting is very poor, and the first grade kids are not wanting to work in his group because they cannot read what he is writing.

And he has been acting out and getting into trouble. One thing that he gets is a special pull out session on a Thursday, but that was taken away from him tomorrow because he took another kids hat a recess so he could play in the son as he had left his at home. It doesn't seem right to be that his academic extension should be taken away because he is misbehaving.

Also I asked is it possible he is bored in class, and the teacher said he is being given quite different work. And that he gets a lot of special concessions and he is not appreciating them. But he should not have to be grateful for being given an appropriate academic program should he?

I feel really disheartened. At the beginning of the year I felt okay, the school was going to be working on some things to accelerate him. but I don;t know what is actually happening, and I feel like they think I am overestimating his abilities. I worry that he is bored and will be underachieving, and that they are underestimating his abilities. But I don't know how to know for sure.

I did request they use the IOWA test in making the decision about acceleration, and his teacher said they will look into it, but that if she had to recommend now, she would not advocate a grade skip. He is too emotional and immature and he will be outcast if he moves up. I don't know. I feel like ringing up other schools and moving him, but that probably wouldn't really solve much.

Any réponse would be much appreciated as I am feeling pretty upset at the moment.

So I have been thinking some more. I think it is possible that DS has lower reading comprehension than our independent assessment. It's just strange that there was such a gap.

Maybe he is not ready for a grade skip. He is highly emotional. And he does have a lot of challenging behaviours. It is so hard to decide what is best for him since he doesn't fit any moulds.

He does go to year 1 for math. His teacher says she thinks that is a challenge for him, and that he is in the lowest group. I have done a bit of math with him at home this year, and he gets it quickly. And his placement test put him at year 2 for math reasoning. So I wonder if he is underachieving there. Maybe his attention and behaviour issues are affecting his performance.

It all seems do hard at the moment. I don't know what is best for him.

I can't tell from your post whether there have been behavior issues/attention issues all along or if they are sudden. If they have been there all along to some extent, you should maybe look into ADHD. If there is a school psych ask if there are rating scales that you and the teacher can fill out. If it is ADHD and you decided to medicate, that could potentially solve some of the attention/behavioral issues (if you go that route--I'm not pushing for medication).

It doesn't sound like a skip would be a good idea, and you should advocate for differentiated work in the classroom. Our school system requires kids be near the top of the NEXT grade before they will approve acceleration. The kid has to be practically perfect. They don't want kids to move up and then struggle. Being at the top seems kind of silly as the goal should be for the kids to be challenged, but I would say he should test at least 50th percentile for the next grade up in all areas (like writing, behavior, math, etc). Ask them what assessments have been done and how they determined his level. I don't know what independent test you had, but my experience is that the Woodcock Johnson grade level equivalents are pretty crude. For instance, for math it put DS at a 4th-5th grade level equivalent in early first grade. There was no way DS would have done well with the school's 4th or 5th grade level math curriculum at that point.

I might be wrong, but the phrases about not being grateful for all of the concessions, being given very different work ... those sound a lot like teacher fatigue. I think there is this process that happens each year. At the beginning of the year, the teacher thinks they can be the one to change and/or improve your kid. They agree to the accommodations, are patient with quirky behaviors, and try to nurture their growth. At the end of the year, they feel personally betrayed that all of their effort and belief in your kid didn't fix him. They feel like the extra effort should have been appreciated, and that the appreciation would be demonstrated by behaving better, not giving them trouble, improving in a straight line along their expected results.

I have no idea if he'd be better off with a grade skip, and either decision will create its own set of challenges. Leave him, and you'll deal with behaviors because he is bored and unhappy. Skip him, and you'll del with behaviors because he is overwhelmed. Leave him, and the teachers will express frustration that he should be doing better than the effort he is putting in. Skip him, and the teachers will resent him bringing the rest of the group down because of some areas that aren't as developed as the other students.

I'm not saying any of this to be negative. I just think if you look at the costs/benefits pragmatically, and if you don't think there is one right decision and one wrong decision, you'll be freer to make the best decision - and be ready to accept and cope with the challenges that it brings.

Hate me if you will but the above looks like bullying and schools rightly take a very dim view of it. I think that they are entirely justified in punishing your son in whatever way they feel will best get the message across that bullying is not acceptable.

In terms of the decline in behaviour over the past two weeks, a lot of kids especially very young ones get stir crazy towards the end of the year. It could also be that he is about to hit a growth spurt or reach another developmental milestone as acting up is quite common during these times.

Getting back to the skip - if the Iowa Acceleration Scale says skip, that is, he has the 'points' based on IQ and achievement etc even without the school's support points then you should push it with the school/school district, IMO.

What level is he reading at at home? This is usually a good place to begin when assessing reading level.

Bullying is systematic and continues over a period of time. If a child makes one bad choice, it's not yet bullying. It's an important distinction.

I'd say you need to have a meeting with all involved (teachers, admins) and hear them report. You can also share what you know. One hopes that a clear picture starts to emerge. If not, then pursuing further assessment is a good idea.

Reading assessments are also a tricky business. My kids do poorly on DRA and Fountas-Pinnell because they are retelling-based. If a child has trouble with sequencing ideas or discerning what the tester wants them to say, it throws off the comprehension results. You may want to look into what tests they use and check it with an alternative like Reading A-Z.

Appropriate challenges should not be presented as an award or something that can be taken away. What if it was: "Your kid was acting up; so, we stopped teaching him reading." Or "your child doesn't seem to appreciate math; so, we are going to make him sit out of math class."

Frustration can lead to a lot of out of character behaviors. Our face palm was vision; with handwriting and unexpected shifts in apparent reading comprehension; it makes me think a good developmental optometric check-up is not a bad idea.

Is your son aware of his behavior and offer any explanations?

"And he has been acting out and getting into trouble. One thing that he gets is a special pull out session on a Thursday, but that was taken away from him tomorrow because he took another kids hat a recess so he could play in the son as he had left his at home. It doesn't seem right to be that his academic extension should be taken away because he is misbehaving.

Also I asked is it possible he is bored in class, and the teacher said he is being given quite different work. And that he gets a lot of special concessions and he is not appreciating them. But he should not have to be grateful for being given an appropriate academic program should he?"

Yikes! I wonder if this was not the teacher for him this year. The teacher might have just had a gut reaction to the word, "bored," which some teachers take personally. However, I agree that your child should not have academic things taken away from them for misbehavior.

It is still an extremely bad choice that needs consequences so that it is not repeated.

I while I agree that one incident doesn't make a pattern, bad choices not nipped in the bud can become patterns of behaviour.

Also, I think if you asked the kid that had their hat stolen or forcibly borrowed I bet it felt like bullying to them because it also meant that they couldn't go out and play outside in the sunshine.