Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Math Acceleration

I am feeling a little silly asking this question, so here it goes. DD5 started K this fall. DD is stronger in reading then in math, maybe a grade or so, and initially the recommendation was to do some sort of pull out for reading (program yet to be formed and determined). Then DD's teacher was contacted and she suggested grade acceleration in math and she remain in K for differentiation in LA. The teacher feels with more difficult books she can challenge DD in LA, but math is not something she can address as easily since DD is so far ahead already.

While I understand what the teacher is saying and I am willing to try her methods, I guess I never thought the school may try to accelerate in DD's relative weakest subject. I totally agree she needs acceleration in math as well as LA and we are working with the school for whole grade acceleration to first but this is the solution in the meantime. Is this common practice to accelerate math first when LA is a greater strength because LA is easier to differentiate?

It sounds like they are trying to get her to the right level of instruction and matching the best resources to the task. Relative strengths and weaknesses shouldn't matter as much as appropriate instructional level for each area.

Also, consider that math achievement scores can depend more strongly on specific exposure, whereas language arts can accelerate just in context of day to day living (presuming an inherently enriched home environment.) A sharp kid may need very little time in math to advance from say 1st grade to 5th grade because of how much of that curriculum is stuffed with repetition and inductive processes.

Our district does virtually no differentiation for math in the classroom (unless there are random teachers who do it). The district wants everyone to get the same lecture and the same worksheet everyday. So math has always been a much bigger problem. With reading, they can simply be given more challenging books, and for K-2, at least, there was ability grouping for reading. I think most classes will have a few kids who are advanced in reading (unless you count kindergarten which may not have ANY readers) and the spread is much bigger. But for math, very few kids will be working 1 or more grades ahead.
In DD's case it was clear she needed to be accelerated in both math and reading so they did a whole grade acceleration. If I had to choose one or the other, in kindergarten I would have chosen reading because the instruction there was so clearly ridiculous and took up so much time. After that I would have gone for math because in first grade most kids are able to read independently, and it seemed less ridiculous. In first grade the kids didn't spend nearly as much time sitting through silly lectures like "A says Ahhhh".

I would agree with ZS. You've mentioned that she's ahead in both, so it's not like she would be in over her head in math. LA is much easier to support, as long as there aren't a lot of specific curricular elements that need to be included. In K, the writing expectations are negligible, so that may be an advantage, since her reading/decoding and comprehension will most likely be advanced without commensurately difficult writing. In a first grade LA placement, not only will the comprehension and expression expectations be higher, but the fine motor expectations will be also. In 2nd grade, one of mine had ELA differentiated on the initiative of the teacher, using much higher reading level materials, and teacher-made comprehension activities, which worked out well, since they were not beyond the fine motor and written organizational skills then available, but were more suited to the reading and comprehension skills. This same teacher was completely unable to adapt to math instructional needs--a reflection, I think, of her own relative strengths and weaknesses. At the time, we were asking for differentiation in math, but not in reading, figuring that enough stimulation was naturally occurring in reading, in the form of self-selected leisure reading.

Thank you all so much. I had decided to homeschool this year until DD insisted on going to K to make more friends, so I hadn't given much thought to advocacy. DD is the quiet, incognito gifted type who absolutely will not advocate for herself. When the "how many ways you can count to 5" homework came through it became readily apparent to me I had to speak up to be sure she was getting a little challenge. DD completed EPGY 2nd grade math in the spring when I was testing the waters on what I wanted to use for homeschool curriculum so counting to 5 was a bit of a shock.

DD is currently reading at probably about a mid 3rd grade level but will happily read anything of any level that interests her. The teacher is planning on using texts (Magic Tree House has been suggested) that are quite a bit below DD's reading level, but the teacher thinks there may be another child in the adjoining classroom who may be capable of reading them so they can be a reading group together. I thought a reading group of 2 would be great since MTH has lots of things beyond the text to talk about, research etc.

AEH, thank you for bringing up the fine motor expectations of first grade. DD has shown significant progress in the past weeks in her writing expression. She has gone from "scribbling notes" to complete sentences with appropriate spacing and punctuation, but may not be able to meet the writing output expectations of higher level LA instructions at this time. I am thankful the teacher is willing to work with us and seems genuinely enthusiastic about the prospect of figuring out how to best support DD.

Thank you all again for helping me with my sanity check