Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy This is an issue or just a period of adjustment?

Hi Grinity - sorry, that was probably a lack of clear communication on my part - I had asked her to take what she sees of dd with a grain of salt as the kid is a master of disguise. She said to me that dd's reading comprehension was variable depending on the time of day and therefore she wasn't going to try her with anything more difficult. Dd's reading The Magic Faraway Tree - she reads just before bed and can tell me everything that has happened in the chapters she has read, so the kid can comprehend as well as decode. So I suggested to the teacher that perhaps her willingness to communicate what happened in the book might vary through out the day rather than her ability to comprehend. However, later it occurred to me that dd was in all likelihood doing what I do when I am reading something that requires no thought - not absorbing it. I remember reading whole books of those Rainbow Fairies books to dd when she was small, which are more boring than watching paint dry, and I would have read the story word for word but could not tell you a single thing that happened in it (well... that's not entirely true... all 90+ books basically have the same story line, so I could take a fair guess!). So I have sent another e-mail to the teacher (when talking to her face to face she is very evasive and doesn't stop to listen), explaining this possibility to her, asking for her to try dd on something harder and letting us know how it goes and asking for a face to face meeting with myself and DH in the new school term (holidays start here in a week or so), where we will expect her to let us know her plans for dd.

I am not terribly hopeful - as you say, if there are no other kids working at her readiness level then there isn't much the teacher can be expected to do. I am kind of approaching this as a last ditch effort - maybe there is a kid dd can work with (though I have just picked her up a grade 4 extension maths book and have no doubt she could do much of it with little effort - so perhaps it's a big if!)? Maybe if nothing else we'll give the teacher some evidence that kids shouldn't always be taken on face value. Maybe nothing will change, in which case we will speak with the (to date) very helpful principal and explain what we've seen and done and see if there are any other options (maybe there is a class or teacher better equipped to work with dd) and if not, we'll pull the plug. I am reluctant to do that right off the back as dd has got some connections there, and really likes some kids in other classes (perhaps we can find a place in one of those?) - so I am keen to give the situation a chance to avoid my sensitive dd having to start over somewhere new, having just got over the shock of starting school. And, as you mentioned on the other post Grinity, I pay for her education with my taxes, so I would like them to try and accommodate her!

As long as there are kids that your quiet, private sweetiepie likes somewhere in the building, I would fight to get her sitting next to them. As you say, you can always pull the plug, but why wouldn't a Principal want to give a kid an appropriate education? Of course meet with the teacher so that you can appropriately move up the chain, and document all you emails cc the Princ at this point.

If you daughter likes these kids, there is a good chance that they are 'close enough' to her learning readiness level.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Hi Giftodd,
I think you're right that it's an issue with the teacher, but hopefully not the school. I thought I'd share our recent experience starting kindergarten (also in Australia) which has been a more positive experience probably because of the preparedness of the teacher to provide extension work.

My DS who is also 5.25 has WPPSI scores including FSIQ all > 99.9%ile with the exception of processing speed. We were incredibly worried about what starting starting school might bring as behavioral problems due to boredom in child care were the reason we had him tested. The playbased pre-school at our local public school was okay but he was very socially isolated. My observation was that he was completely alien to the other kids. We are very lucky to have a public school with a highly regarded gifted stream starting in 1st grade reasonably close to us (an extra 15 minute journey each way) and I cried the day we found out he had a place it was such a relief even though we have a year of kindy which is not ability grouped.

Within the first 2 weeks of school starting, reading assessments by the literacy teacher had been done for all the kindy kids with DS assessed as reading up to the 6th grade level and comfortably at 4th grade. The readers he's been bringing home are generally 50 page short chapter books however the teacher advised us that she'd be happy for him to read other books that interested him and have us record those in his reading journal - the focus should be on him enjoying reading and not becoming frustrated by it. Best of all his teacher told us of another boy in his class who had been assessed at around the same level and they work together on reading. That's certainly made my son less inclined to hide his reading ability.

I've also been really impressed with the approach on maths. I'd never thought of my son as mathy, an area he really had no interest in, but put in a classroom environment with a couple of other kids who are very good at it he's made huge leaps. The teacher provides the kids with extension work she calls math challenges so now after 6 weeks at school he's mastered his 1 through to 5 times tables and the application of them. He now can't stop talking about maths.

He has typical young boy asynchrony with his handwriting but that's also improving as we suggested to his teacher, who happily took the suggestion up, that rather than doing individual letters he'd get far more out of doing something with a purpose. So she'll set him and some others in the class a task of writing a story with each sentence needing to have x number of words with the letter g in it for example.

Socially he's also thriving with a core group of close friends who get him. And while he sometimes complains that somethings are a little boring on the whole it's been so much better than we expected. Though I live in fear of it going pear shaped - how he's traveling at the 6 month mark will be a true indicator of the fit.

The differences in our experience jump out - the refusal of your DDs teacher to give her extension work to extend her and the lack of peers for her. While the school may have agreed to the acceleration it doesn't mean much if they're not prepared to provide extension work. She's obviously well beyond grade 1 level work and the acceleration is just a concession to finding her a better peer fit. It's through extension work she'll really be challenged. Hopefully that can be fixed. The peer issue is a much harder one to fix. The change in our son that having someone fairly close in ability to work and play with has been so marked. He's so much happier and easy to manage. If there are some children in other classes she has a strong rapport with it makes so much sense to see if she can be moved.

It might also be worthwhile finding out if one of the k - 2 grade teachers has taught in the senior school recently. Our wonderful teacher usually teaches grades 3 - 6 (4th grade last year) and I think that's made all the difference in her approach to DS. She deals with what she sees rather than what she expects a 5 year old to do.

Best of luck talking to the principal.

Thanks so much for your story Freya. Sometimes seeing the contrast makes all the difference and makes you see what is actually possible!

We had small win after a long and heart felt e-mail where I responded to the teacher's assertion that she wasn't going to change dd's reading group because she didn't 'want her to stand out'. I mentioned that dd was never NOT going to stand out, that she needed to know that that was ok and that not giving her the right work was sending a message about what she 'should' be doing rather than what she was capable of doing. I went on about gifted girls hiding themselves to fit in, referenced Miraca Gross, went the 'right to learn and to a developmentally appropriate education' line, said we were expecting an appointment to sit down with her early in the new term so she could tell us her plans for dd.

The win? She gave dd a reader from the next level up - grade equivalent 1.2 AGGHHHH

What I did in a similar situation when my son was in K (and I am not saying you should do this, mind you, but it did *finally* result in a positive change in the teacher's perceptions of my son's abilities), was to simply pack one of the chapter books my son was reading to himself at home into his backpack, and tell him that when the class was working on reading, he was to take that book out and use it instead.

The rest of the class was using The Bob Books. The teacher had been informed repeatedly that DS could read. I still kept getting reports from her months into the school year that said things like "DS knows all of his letters and letter sounds!"(He'd known them since he was 2.), or "DS has great word-attack skills!" (Duh. He can read.) It took him whipping out Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.H.M. during reading time and reading a random page of it aloud to her (at her request, since she thought he might have memorized it (?!?)) for her to even sort of grasp what we were saying.