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    Joined: Nov 2013
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    ndw Offline
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    If DD is tired then homeschooling is not a bad plan for a while. It will give you a chance to observe what is going on re fatigue and also academics. Before you do that though, can she have a week off so you can gauge better what is going on? I am not sure if you have enough information to know exactly where you are yet.
    She could be 'sick' for a week while you assess if she is just tired. A physical check up might not hurt either. Growth spurts can wipe my DD out as do minor viral infections. Iron deficiency can be an issue in growing children for example. Lots of reasons to be tired.

    Have a longer chat to the teacher too. Are the physical demands of the day a problem eg writing tasks? Is it the increase in EF demands? Or is she just developing normally but a bit wiped out by the daily routine? How is she placed relative to her peers?

    You mentioned academic struggles but is that because she is tired or the reason she is tired? Can be a bit hard to tease out. The additional psychoeducational testing will help but all the more reason to have a bit of time off before then so she is not fatigued for the assessment.

    If she is developing normally but exhausted by the day then keep her home for the rest of the year and let her grow and get stronger. Practise some writing and reading if desired and re-evaluate her progress later in the year with a view to K or first grade as appropriate.

    You can explain that she is very young and she is growing and that takes more energy for some kids than others so time at home is important so she can rest and grow. She can do academics if and when she is happy to do so and she will learn with you while her body catches up with her brain.

    It sounds like you have a good school to work with and I am sure they would be happy to keep helping you plan a strategy that works best.

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    I also wonder about a growth spurt or some other physical issue (allergies? around here the seasonal ones wipe my kids out if they are on meds for them).

    How did your DD do the first several weeks?

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    Dubsyd Offline OP
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    Originally Posted by ConnectingDots
    I also wonder about a growth spurt or some other physical issue (allergies? around here the seasonal ones wipe my kids out if they are on meds for them).

    How did your DD do the first several weeks?


    Apparently she has been struggling from day 1. We didn't really know until our first parent teacher meeting at the end of term 1. The teacher said the one thing she had going for her was that she was positive and always kept trying. She really struggles with handwriting. We have started OT for her. I asked her yesterday what she finds hardest about school, and she said reading and writing. She didn't really make any reading progress In term 1. I started working with her between terms and continued into the term, and she has finally moved up a couple of reading levels, but she is still in the remedial reading group, and struggling a lot with writing.

    The teacher was saying she is physically tired, but also that she seems to be giving up a bit. She is not raising her hand anymore, and just not engaging well in the classroom.

    I will definitely speak to the teacher more and hear her ideas. But if sending her was a mistake, no point in her continuing to suffer with it. I could take her outm, work with her at home, and as ndw suggested, the school could assess her level at the beginning of next year to find the right placement for her.

    The only thing I am not sure about is that they have a preferred class size for primary and I think they are strict with keeping that for the Kindy year, so I don't know how they handle holding kids back in K if they have a full incoming class. They did suggest giving her till the end of year 1 before holding her back at the meeting we had at end of term 1.

    Thanks for all the input. I will keep you updated on what we decide.

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    Dubsyd Offline OP
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    I had a chance to speak briefly to DD daughters teacher this morning. I told her I was considering and open to taking DD out of the rest of the year of K as I don't want her to be struggling for the next few years. She said DD is really struggling, but that she also sees a lot of potential in her, particularly in math, and that she would be flying if she had spent this year in preschool and then come to K next year. She said the potential she sees is what has her thinking we should try to get DD through. She said she will have a talk to the head of K-2 and we will discuss what to do going forward. As I have mentioned, I really like both the teacher and the school, and I put a lot of value in their opinions, so we will see what comes out of further discussions.

    It breaks my heart to see my lovely, kind, considerate, and bright little girl thinking she is no good at anything.

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    it sounds like your teacher is very genuine - you do need to temper everything you are advised by the school that they are first and foremost a financial organisation. Dropouts cost money - I don't know what their waitlist is like, but I would try to investigate if the school will benefit from your daughter staying if your gut is telling you no.

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    It is possible that she is gifted AND she is not developmentally ready to read and write yet. This was part of why I started homeschooling DD7. She is still not a fluent reader, but the literature/science/history I'm doing with her is (at a wild guess) 6th grade level or higher. (Some of it is what I teach to my undergraduates.)

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    ndw Offline
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    It is definitely very hard to see our children in a difficulty but there are loads of positives in your situation. You are right there for your DD trying to find a good path for her and you are receiving support and have good communication with the school. Between you, you will find a solution that works. You have options of homeschool or maybe preschool? for the rest of the year if you all decide K isn't the best option right at this moment.

    Give your daughter a cuddle and tell her you have heard what she is saying and you and the teacher are working it out. It's hard to learn when you are tired and because she is a bright girl she can learn at home or in preschool or at school and you just need to see where she is happiest learning. You have probably done that already I am sure.

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    Originally Posted by MegMeg
    It is possible that she is gifted AND she is not developmentally ready to read and write yet. This was part of why I started homeschooling DD7.


    Yes, exactly. DD15 is now among the best writers in her college cohort, but man, was that ever a white-knuckle ride. We'd hoped for a median outcome there, as little as four years ago, and when she took the ACT/SAT just 2y back, she was still on the up-going side of the arc, so her scores on the writing portion were not anything like as impressive as the rest of her profile. At your DD's age, she could barely manage to print a few words before it was just too much for her, and she avoided writing. She could reliably write her name, and not much else, because-- asynchronous development, see. So in the space of 11 years, she compressed about 16 years' worth of development, and even that isn't really an accurate look at what it looked like. Writing was her weakest link. It was a real struggle developmentally until she was nearly 14 years old, and then suddenly she WAS ready, and she spread her wings and it was almost as though the previous struggles had never existed. So she spent 3rd grade through 11th grade being "about average" for grade level, and that only reluctantly-- and then suddenly it happened within about 18 months-- she jumped from 50th-70th percentile to 95th and rising-- among her academic peers, I mean-- those seated next to her in classes.

    It was developmental-- and idiosyncratic.

    I agree wholeheartedly with MegMeg that you can 'tune' homeschooling in a way that allows for that kind of developmental arc, but it will require some fortitude to provide some "push" on skills that are non-preferred. DD was too stubborn, so that's why after 2y, we put her into a cyberschool. We retained some flexibility, but she also had to answer to someone besides me, and to meet minimum standards.






    One word about the "socialization" part of homeschooling-- this is generally something that people who have actually homeschooled tend to LAUGH at.

    Nowhere, in my own opinion, is this more true than with HG/HG+ children-- because when you compare the value of interaction with a fairly uniform(-ish, anyway) group of children in an artificial setting like a classroom.... which is tightly controlled, and reflects pretty much nothing resembling the entire rest of a person's life....

    versus interactions with a wide variety of people engaged in a wide variety of other pursuits--

    seems pretty easy to note which of those is MORE likely to give such children an opportunity to forge genuine connections with others, and to learn how to communicate with a range of people.

    Just remember this-- as a parent, it's really not your goal to help your child become The Most Well-adjusted Fifth Grade Student Ever.

    It is a long road, to be sure, but the goal is to produce an adult who is independent, capable of emotional self-regulation and genuine, caring relationships with other people in a variety of settings. Right?

    So consider the child that you have in front of you, and listen to your heart. smile Not all of them NEED peer interactions the way educators have been conditioned to think of them.


    Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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    Just a thought, as your daughter has expressed misery in both reading as well as writing. As best as I understand, there is a large portion of people (20-30%? It's incredibly high!) who will struggle to learn how to read without explicit phonemic teaching, even though they would not qualify as dyslexic per se. Unfortunately, most schools rely more on implicit, context and sight word approaches. Whether you homeschool or not, you might find it useful to try an Orton-Gillingham-based reading program at home with your DD, something that starts from scratch and teaches every new phonemic step clearly and explicitly.

    We are using All About Reading as remediation for a grade 3 dyslexic, but the program is set up to be a starter learn-to-read program for anybody. It's fully scripted and easy for a parent to use at home. A big benefit for DD was that by going back to absolute scratch and teaching every step explicitly, she was always working on reading activities *she was capable of doing*. This was a huge confidence boost, and in only a few months, changed four years of screaming refusal to read a word, into begging for a chance to read to me - from the program materials, where she knew she wouldn't deal with words she had not yet learned how to handle.

    Your DD is young, and it may well all kick into place soon without any help. However, a kid who's learned to hate reading and thinks they can't do it may need a lot of support and confidence boosting to get over that fear and negativity. For us, the change in confidence and attitude is extraordinary - the fact that she is starting to learn to read is almost incidental.

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    Dubsyd Offline OP
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    Thanks so much for all your responses and support. I am feeling much better today. I spoke to DD's teacher again, and we have decided DD will remain in K, but they will not focus too much on her benchmarks or push her too hard. Her opinion is that DD is not developmentally ready yet for demands of the K curriculum. She says much of what used to be done in K is now done in preschool, and the K curriculum is quite demanding. They will help her to enjoy the year, and be really positive about what she is getting done. If she makes a developmental leap and reading and writing click for her before the end of the year, great, she will go on to year 1 next year. But if not, she will repeat K where her teacher thinks she will be top of the class.

    I had misunderstood her teacher the other day, I had thought she was saying she wanted to push DD through to year 1 because she saw potential, she actually meant she DIDN'T want to push her through because she sees potential. She doesn't want DD's desire to learn to be crushed because she is struggling. She wants her to excel. She said they have plenty of ways to extend her next year if she does repeat and then becomes a very strong student, such as sessions with the gifted and talented teacher and working on above level material.

    This school is new for us this year. At the school my DS attended last year, I struggled to get the academic challenge that he needed, and I think that influenced my thinking on it being better for DD to be young for her year if she turns out to be a strong student. But this school seems much better at assessing students and ensuring appropriate academics ( in fairness to last years school, they didn't have nearly as many teachers and staff at their disposal), so she should be challenged no matter which year she ends up in.

    I know their are mixed views in repeating, but DD could have waited to start until next year, so I guess it would be more like undoing a mistake and starting her too young instead of making her struggle for years as a result of it.

    It will be helpful to have the results of next months testing too!

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