THIS is why I love this site so much! Nowhere else can I find parents who not only understand my DD's circumstances but who have also walked a mile in our shoes. Your question and the responses you have already received paint a very good picture of what we too have been dealing with.
When I first learned of DD's 2E situation last summer I read everything I could get my hands on and spoke with every expert I could reach. The advice was always that focusing on the strengths is the best way to work on the weaknesses. This has not always been possible for us, though.
As the year has gone on DD (first grade) has been having more and more services added to her IEP. She now receives 6 hours a week in pull out services (reading, OT, speech, math, anxiety) along with daily small group tutoring during what they call "tier time". I was concerned that all the emphasis was on her weaknesses with no attention being paid to her strengths. I realized, though, that DD really likes this special help. Her anxiety seems to decrease when she has one-on-one help in areas of weakness. We have decided to support this and try to get as much help in school as possible while we focus on the enrichment ourselves. Since the high level group is still below her comprehension level it just makes more sense for her to get the extra help when it is available and then provide the comprehension work separately.
At our last meeting I really stressed the need for differentiation. I realized that the school thought having her write 2 sentences instead of 5 was proper differentiation. I had to explain to them, with help from information I had gathered here, that reducing the quantity of written work wasn't sufficient. I asked that whenever possible she be allowed to give her answers orally. Her teacher had started doing some scribing on extra creative writing tasks in response to this request but it took serious effort to convince the team that this needed to be done on regular assignments too. The principal said "We don't have time to let every kid in the class tell their stories." I explained that they didn't have to allow every kid to answer orally but they did have to allow DD. The other kids are able to write their responses but DD HAS to answer the question orally in order to complete the assignment in the allotted time. I finally convinced them that writing for her is just not the same as it is for the other kids and it was unfair to put her in a position where she was providing only a small portion of her answer in writing when she should be able to answer completely and then use the time to practice her writing on a portion of her answer.
I gave her classroom teacher a copy of the book "101 School Success Tools for Smart Kids With Learning Difficulties" which explained it better than I ever could and gave her something tangible to work with. DD is THRILLED. She now comes home with long, detailed paragraphs mostly scribed by her teacher with 1 or 2 sentences written herself. Comparing this to the totally illegible sentence or 2 she was bringing home before - what a difference! No wonder she was experiencing crippling headaches on a daily basis before.
We are also doing a ton of enrichment with her on our own. She loves, loves, loves audio books and educational videos. We started with Greek mythology and American Tall Tales and Legends. She likes to "play the games" on the videos which are actually created for teachers in grades 4-8 to use as class assignments. We do lots of museums and performances of all types too. In the fall we listened to and read aloud everything we could on Pilgrims, watched videos, etc. Then we spent a weekend at Plymouth, attended a harvest dinner and toured the Mayflower II. Over the winter we did the same thing with revolutionary war and colonial history then visited Boston. A friend who is a teacher at DD's school said "you do realize that's 5th grade curriculum - right?" I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
We also use the summer for enrichment - spending time at camps focusing on things she loves like marine biology, ecology and acting. It's funny because so many people at school see her as "the special ed girl" while people at these camps and other programs see her as "the really, REALLY smart girl." Both are true and we have to learn to accept that...
