But both my friends, who I do respect a lot, were pretty insistent that parents shouldn�t attempt to tell a teacher, especially at the beginning of the school year, about their child, but should let the teacher draw their own conclusions.
I have a good friend, a kindergarten teacher, who gave me the same advice. I tried following her advice and found it wasted too much time. It can take a teacher a whole semester to realize that a child is advanced, especially if there is nothing in the curriculum or in the classroom to allow the child to demonstrate his/her ability. If you have an HG+ child, it is important to realize that most teachers have never had a child at that level of giftedness so they have little or no experience from which to work. At this point, I try to get a teacher conference as early as possible in the year to talk to my dd's teacher and regularly offer suggestions for differentiation.
