I had a chat to dd's teacher this morning about her maths. Dd is 5 and skipped in to grade 1. We're near the end of our school year here.
DD has been complaining that she is finding maths boring. She does grade 4 maths books (teacher reference ones, not the ones from the supermarket) and grade 4 Mathletics at home for fun and with no instruction from us - getting at least 90% correct. I had organised to chat to her teacher about her maths today and had indicated that I wanted to speak about the possibility of her giving dd harder work. I took dd's work in to the meeting as an indication of what she is doing. I got there only to discover the teacher had recruited one of the vice principals to come along too, whose first words were "the teacher has told me about all your worries". Which seemed surprising because I hadn't actually raised any to that point... She turned out to be one of the most patronizing people I've ever met - one of those people who speak to you very calmly, like they're soothing a young, slightly dim child. Could have throttled her... fortunately I didn't!
I described what dd was doing in Mathletics (which the school uses) and showed them the maths books. They completely dismissed dd's work saying that because the books give explicit instructions on what to do (i.e. "Find the area of each of the following in cm2" etc), this doesn't count. They said in class she simply follows the instruction given and no more, where as some other children are expanding on what is asked.
DD is a kid who wants to do the right thing and she will follow instructions to the letter. The example they gave me was a word puzzle that said to come up with a way to do X. Because she had come up with one way to do X, not multiple ways they felt this was an indication that she was not ready for more challenging work. From my perspective, dd had done exactly what she was asked. They also said she works very slowly, which they felt was another indication of her lesser ability. In reality I think this is a two pronged issue - she works slowly because she is, well, 5 and most of the other kids are 7 which a couple of extra years of motor skill development, and also she's not a fast processor. I'm not sure how many times I can have the faster isn't better conversation...sigh...
This all came to a head because they have been doing division by equally sharing items between pieces of paper - dd is going mad with boredom.
I said to the teacher that unless it was clear to dd that they wanted her to expand on an instruction she was unlikely to do it. So the teacher has at least agreed to try this, but nothing more.
I guess ultimately I am having gifted doubt. DD's tester, who is very experienced with gifted kids, said explicitly and repeatedly in her report that dd will need advanced instruction in maths right from the get go. Dd's non-verbal scores were at the ceiling of the SBV, her NV fluid reasoning went beyond the measure of the test. Her first teacher this year put her straight in to grade 2 maths which she enjoyed and was doing fine in, but we discovered very late that the teacher who took over mid year (the current teacher) put her in a middling grade one maths grouping. Because she is slow with computation, no one seems to believe us that she is capable of more and it is driving me nuts. But then maybe the tester was wrong. Maybe what we see at home is not unusual?
I don't pretend for a minute that being able to do work from a book and online is the same as being able to maths in a range of contexts and I don't mean that I think she is ready for a grade 4 maths class, but I feel in my gut she is capable of more than they're asking. Am I though just being a proud mum? Has any one else experienced this?
Thanks - sorry it was long.
