I'll pile in too - surround everything I say with a YMMV.
1. How do you think it's best to address level and pace problems for a kid who's completed grade requirements in math, where the school seems to prefer not to pull children out of the classroom? We may suggest computer work like EPGY in-classroom, which we will offer to pay for. We also want to bring up the idea of curriculum compacting-- but are afraid this will derail plans to have him work with other kids in the room.
BTDT, it's tricky. (You might like to have a look at
the thread I started about our experience if you didn't see it at the time - DS was 6 and about to go into the equivalent of 2nd grade already knowing a lot more maths than they'd plan to teach, so it wasn't that dissimilar a situation, although we didn't have the grade skip element.)
FWIW I wish DS had more experience working with other children at maths; that's the one thing I feel we really haven't got right so far. It's tricky, though; there's really no way he could collaborate with (as opposed to attempt to teach!) his age peers, and the age gap between him and the children he might be able to work with would be large. We're hoping he'll have a chance (via school-wide team maths challenge) next year, but I'll believe it when I see it working, really. If you think there's really a chance your DS could realistically get that next year, I'd grab it - it'll get harder before it gets easier if he continues to accelerate away!
Our school was more receptive to our sending in work for DS on paper than to our suggesting computer work for him. We didn't push it so I'm not sure, but I think the issues are practical: there's only one computer in his classroom and it's not convenient to have it occupied (e.g. the teacher may need it to do things on the smartboard with the others) and even if we sent in a netbook for him or something, it might be more disruptive than paper because computer use is generally seen as a privilege and might provoke envy from the other children in a way which harder work on paper doesn't!
2. We expect the level problems to only intensify over the summer, and his MAP scores to increase, especially if he feels better about taking the test next time. He really enjoys learning math, especially, our biggest area of concern over level. As a fall-back position, should we sink hooks in now that we expect the plan to be re-evaluated if he really blows the doors off next fall's MAP? (Is it realistic to expect them to really address options like subject pull-outs for the first time mid-fall?)
I think I'd try to be more general than that: I'd emphasise that the situation can change fast with him and that you'll need to review the situation frequently and not necessarily on a predictable schedule. Certainly, don't agree now on the exact material he'll be doing in the autumn unless you're sure it's currently a long way ahead of him! We had a meeting in the summer in which we discussed generalities, and agreed to have a meeting to discuss details at the beginning of the following year. That worked well. Dunno about the practicalities of arranging pullouts; that depends a lot on the school.
3. My wife has had the idea of asking him to work with a math specialist outside the classroom. I don't like the idea because they pretty obviously want to keep him in a classroom with kids, preferably his classroom (and so do we if possible), and because I don't see it as logistically workable. They have no math specialist here, though they have a reading one. My wife thinks we should ask for a teacher to do it in her spare time. Is that as strange as it sounds to me?
I certainly wouldn't put it like that - it would be work for the teacher who probably doesn't feel as though s/he has much spare time! You might be lucky in that there might happen to be someone unknown to you who has a maths background and is itching to
experiment with support a really talented child.
Are you and DW happy to do the actual teaching and planning of his maths? If so, then doing teaching at home and "homework" at school may be the way to go, practically speaking. Don't overestimate the stage at which many elementary school teachers start to feel insecure with maths themselves, by the way.
4. He spells at roughly a 4th-5th grade level right now. I can't think of anything to ask for on this except for him to be let out of spelling in-class. If that's done, what is the best option? Let him read quietly on something he chooses, work on his homework, or what? I really don't think he needs to learn spelling at all. He just picks it up, and if necessary he's shown that he can learn a year's worth of normal spelling lists in an hour or so (partly because he gets many of them right without practice, so that pace might slow down as he got to higher-level words where he might need to learn vocabulary). Would you ask for him to be let out of it, or for higher-level spelling, in-class or out? I view it as just so much do-work for him, and there's only so much time in the day for us to spend together, so I'd rather not have him loaded down with spelling homework.
Why would he be loaded down if learning spellings is quick for him? Is it that they expect spelling homework that involves writing? DS's school recommends a writing-based method, but all they insist on is that the children learn their assigned words (they all have different ones, I think, and part of it is words that were mis-spelled in their own work which by definition they don't already know well!). DS learns his on the bus, tested by reciting them spelling-bee style. Works for us, takes only a few minutes per week. I suppose I see it as memory training; I rather agree that it's not obvious that it's necessary from the POV of actually learning to spell.
5. How can we make a genuine offer of help, that will be seen as such? Obviously we would offer to pay for extra computer services, though we're already stretched a little thin. What else can we do? This school has no gifted program for us to help out on. We will offer to take part in normal volunteer opportunities for parents. Is there anything else?
You can offer to take on any part of the work involved in setting and marking special work for your DS that you feel happy to do and they feel happy to give up. (This depends on the teacher - last year we didn't do much, this year we've arranged DS's maths in toto.)
6. Should we hold back on letting him learn math over the summer? Or would it be better to teach him wrong math, so that he has something to (un)learn next year? I'm trying to think outside of the box here, having recently watched "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist". My idea is that he could be the Wimp Lo of second-grade math, except it would be for his own emotional well-being and to help him integrate with his peers, not for a joke.
Lol, but no.
