Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Acceleration vs in class differentiation for math?

Can you talk to current first grade parents and see what it is that the most advanced kids actually do? If you don't know which parents to ask, then actually ask the teachers to show you? That would probably give you a better idea of whether it will work. Personally I haven't seen a teacher yet who has been able to make in class differentiation for math work out. The best anyone could offer was to give him independent worksheets that no one else was doing, and put him on the computer to do programs like ixl or Khan Academy. It was better than nothing but the acceleration has worked a lot better. So in second grade started to go to a 5th grade classroom for math. Now in third he is going to 6th grade. The problem is now what? Everyone in his 6th grade math class is going onto middle school. Someone will now need to figure out how to do in class differentiation, but at least he got 2 good years out of an acceleration (luckily he is about to enter a class where all the kids are highly gifted so my hope is that there are other kids close to his level). I would do an acceleration if possible and you can always switch it to differentiation in class later if there is no where for him to go.

I initially sent my kids to the biggest (about 500) school in town assuming that would allow for ability grouping as there were several classes at each level. I found they deliberately split the bright kids over the classes because having bright kids made it easier for the teacher. I bave moved my younger to a smaller school where they placed him in a mixed class as the youngest and are really helping him with learning to manage his emotions. Big should be more flexible but doesn't seem to be.

I wanted to provide an update since so many of you took the time to weigh in last week. The lead first grade math teacher met with my son a couple of times last week to assess his math skills to determine if she recommends an acceleration or in-class differentiation. Here, in part, is what she concluded me:

“ From what I am able to tell, he seems to be a strong math student with a genuine grasp of the concepts for which he expresses interest.

He has a solid understanding of place value, subtraction, adding large numbers, multiplication, and elapsed time in five minute increments. He showed a preference for mental calculation.

The possible areas of growth within them are; speed, differentiating hundreds and thousands places (when dealing with money), flipping of numbers (50 vs 05), attention to detail of operation (+ vs -), and accuracy in calculation. He will also benefit from strategies to organize his work, as well as developing his ability to show his thinking in a written (non-verbal) format.”

I agree that my son needs support in writing and organizing his answers. He has a forty point spread between his highest index scores and processing speed (where he got a 100). The psychologist who administered the exam wasn’t worried about the average speed; she said my son is careful and needed to work on fine motor skills but it probably wouldn’t be an issue. BUT I suspect that reducing his work to writing and developing any kind of speed will be an area that he struggles with. I note, for example, that while my son has quickly learned to read above grade level, his writing output, while average for his class, isn’t advanced in the way his other work is. He hated writing and drawing until recently and never voluntarily did it until kindergarten. This has not been an issue for my son in math because the work is very hands-on and project based.

For example, his kindergarten was studying money last week. They set up stores and had real money and customers came and bought things and the store clerks had to add the totals and make change. The stores were run by teams and the “high” kids were on my son’s team so I’m guessing they had more difficult sums/change problems to work on. I think this is a really nice way to work on math and keep it interesting and I can see how it lends itself to differentiation. I also know that while it increases fluency with math, it doesn’t translate to doing well on written tests. The school has started doing “mad minutes” in math (starting in first grade) so the kids will become familiar with testing and doing work on paper. Because my son isn’t in first grade yet, he hasn’t had any experience with doing a worksheet so when the first grade teacher assessed him, I suspect this slowed him down. I am guessing that some practice will remedy this.

We haven’t met with the team to figure out what they recommend for math next year. I suspect the first grade teacher will recommend keeping him in her class and scaffolding areas of “potential growth” while differentiating in an attempt to provide some challenge. The teacher has a background in learning disabilities so she may have a good understanding of how to scaffold the skills my son needs to work on. On the other hand, I’ve read that kids who are gifted in math often struggle with basic computation and writing math down but excel in higher level, abstract thinking. This perfectly describes my son. I wouldn’t say that he has a problem with basic computation but he can often do advanced, complex math problems more quickly than adding sums. The kid spontaneously figured out multiplication at the age of three and is currently obsessed with factorials, combinatorics, exponents (and plexing) and square roots. Most of what he knows he learned through conversation with my husband, who is a mathematician, or reading books, not through any kind of practice at home. I know that if we did practice at home, my son’s computation skills and writing would probably improve but we don’t want to turn him off. My husband prioritizes fostering wonder and love for math instead of building skills. We really want to follow my son’s lead.

The day after the teacher met with my son, he said that during math he did a “mad math minute” at school with two other students. I am guessing she gave the kindergarten teachers the “math minute” so my son can practice on this skill. My son loved it.

I know this is very long but I’m struggling with the question of whether we settle for differentiation in class next year with a teacher who seems to have a good understanding of my son’s challenges and will scaffold skills he needs or whether we should push to have him accelerated so he can actually learn new content next year and engage in the higher level math concepts that he loves.

Admittedly I'm one of those with strong math ability who tends to ignore relatively simplistic work showing and only ok processing speed, but I think that early elementary tends to over value mad minute type work. Not that it isn't important, but higher level math just doesn't require that sort of skill. There are computers for that sort of thing.

Those all seem like good things to work on, but I would also ask about growth beyond his strengths as well as the listed growth within those. I would want to be sure that what they are offering is what he needs rather than just being what they have available to offer, if that makes sense.

One of the strengths of the kindergarten setup was the pretend play involved, like the store you used as an example in your post. This is fun, interesting and involves some roles for the students that may be more difficult and allows for a bit of differentiation.

What we found is that in 1st grade those elements go away. So even though Kinder didn't match for pace of instruction needed, it was bearable and still fun for the child. In 1st was where the boredom and suffering from poor fit began.

What I would suggest is making a decision the best you can tell now, with the idea in mind that after 6 weeks or so of school in the fall you will call another meetings to discuss if it is working.

Hope that helps!

We have a son with similar issues...
Given the level of your son's interests, I highly doubt that a teacher will be able differentiate sufficiently (does a first grade teacher even know factorials?) Then again, having looked at some elementary school textbooks (albeit European) - have you thought about how many grades ahead your son would have to work at? Second/third grade likely won't make a big difference (especially as I would expect your son to learn any gaps quite quickly). Would there be issues in him having to explain his strategy in words, which might be a concern with kids many years older than him? Could you homeschool him just in math?

Like Malraux, I'd be a bit concerned that all these are processing skills, not conceptual challenge. These skills will almost certainly improve with age; they may or may not improve a worthwhile amount with excessive practice while he is still this young.

From my own experience, I can say that nothing will teach a math-loving child to hate math faster than forcing them to spend all their time on basic computation, processing skills and writing. (Multiply exponentially when the kid has challenges with fine motor, writing, processing speed, attention, etc). These may be challenge areas, and addressing them is important, but doing so as a primary focus can be detrimental. We've found it really important to allow our math monster to explore and be challenged with new concepts and more complex problem solving. When school focused only on the kinds of skills you list above, he became anxious and withdrawn. Eventually, he decided that not only did he hate math, he was also no good at it: it demanded only his weaknesses, and made no use of his conceptual math strengths.

So long way of saying - yes, of course it's important to work on the processing bits. But not to the exclusion of growth on the conceptual side. For us, those skills were far more readily improved when they were practiced in the context of a motivated kid engaged in challenging problem solving. (Thank god for AoPS! He learned to love math again.) So personally, I would look at which option will more likely be able to provide conceptual challenge, and scaffold the other parts as needed while he builds up skill in the mechanics.

It seems like you may be in one of those rare situations where differentiation would actually, really happen, so the common concerns of implementation, in what ways and how often, and whether actual different instruction would be involved seem less concerning. The other big consideration may also not apply here: that is, if he gets differentiation instead of skipping, what is the likelihood next year's teacher may not recognize that work, and make him repeat the same stuff in the next grade?

@ Platypus, you articulated my feelings/fears precisely.

I met with my son’s teachers today. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. They said that at this point they recommend that he stay in first grade math next year. During assessments he was able to do everything the first graders are currently doing but he made lots of errors. For example, I saw a “mad minute” quiz that my son had taken. It was his first worksheet/quiz that he had ever done. The sheet was covered with subtraction problems but my son added every time. His addition was flawless but, of course, he got every problem wrong. He declined to do a second row of problems because he hated “all the writing” but was happy to give verbal answers. He correctly identified the times on a clock worksheet but wrote “3:50” on one instead of “3:05”.

The math teacher tried to reassure us that the first grade teacher is currently working a couple of years ahead with some students and that she would be able to differentiate enough to meet my son’s needs. I feel conflicted. On one hand, I agree that he would struggle with second graders if he makes basic mistakes like this. But I also know that he was doing basic addition like the problems on the mad minute quiz when he was three and getting them right. He also spent choice time today computing medians and making sets of prime numbers.

On a more troubling note, the math teacher reported that they are giving my son more challenging work and that he often refuses to do it, saying it’s a waste of his time. Today he refused to do some problems with money, saying “I’m doing a private study of fractals.” (He was, indeed, covering pages with fractals and math trees.) The teacher is frustrated because she is trying to provide challenging material and, from her perspective, my son is rejecting it. I suspect that what she considers “challenging” is still so easy that my son has decided that he’s going to challenge himself. Is this the start of “checking out” and misbehaving that all the books about gifted refer to?

Apparently my son has also had a bad attitude since he started to meet with the first grade math teacher for assessment. He has decided that he doesn’t need to participate in activities that others are doing and has announced (in front of classmates) that he is the best mathematician in his grade and doesn’t want to waste his time doing the same stuff they are doing.

We talked to my son and said that the teachers are trying to provide challenging material, that he must demonstrate mastery instead of bragging about it and that if he wants to move on to more interesting material, he must first show the teachers that he can do the work they are providing. We also explained that while some concepts don’t seem particularly advanced/sexy, there is plenty to learn about those concepts if he goes deeper into them.

I think I’m open to keeping him in math with the other first graders next year and seeing how things go. I’m also trying to figure out if we can work on these issues over the summer in a way that challenges my son conceptually but gives him some practice that will help to remediate some of the basic issues he is experiencing. The first grade teacher will reassess him in the fall and I suspect that if he shows improvement on some of the basic/processing stuff then she will reconsider her recommendation to keep him with his grade. Does anybody have recommendations for addressing these challenges? I got the Primary Challenge book and thought about working on that over the summer. Any other ideas?