I also don't have much to add - you've received lots of good advice above. I suspect this teacher will always be an issue - hopefully she'll become more understanding and willing to work with you as the year goes by - but even if she doesn't, try to remember that this is one year out of your dd's education. The important thing to focus on is long-term - is there something here you need to learn and/or understand to help with what happens not only now but in the future, after this year with this difficult teacher is over. Pursuing a private eval will most likely help tremendously in that direction.
Good question! In due time and in hindsight I am positive there will be lessons learned from all this.
She said she was concerned with the level books DD chooses (K) vs. what they know she can read (2+).
This is just a question out of curiosity because I am not sure I'm familiar with the reading levels your school uses - what is a K relative to a 2+ - is that referring to grade level, meaning your dd is choosing simple books to read when the teacher knows she's capable of higher level books, or does it mean she's choosing higher level books when the teacher thinks she isn't capable of comprehending them? If she's purposely choosing books that are easy.... two thoughts. First thought - why is that an issue? Seriously? If it is an issue, then yes, the teacher should limit what books she can choose from. Second thought - have you asked your dd why she chooses the books she does? Does she like picture books better? Is the font too small in the higher level books? There could be 100+ reasons she's choosing the books she is, and asking your dd why she chooses what she does can be very useful information in understanding what's up.
K meaning Kindergarten and 2+ meaning 2nd grade and above. I'm not sure why this is an issue. DD loves animals and particular subjects. But animals is her favorite. Wednesday she told us at library she wanted a non-fictional book on animals. When she came home she told me she got a fictional book because she didn't see any non-fiction on animals. So with that and the teachers issue about the lower leveled books, my guess is that DD is looking for something specific. When she doesn't find that on the classroom shelf for her level she goes to the closest thing like she did at library.
I'm not sure why this teacher appears to not want to help the situation and make suggestions as to what she feels is going.
This may not help, but have you thought about informally stopping in to see the teacher, maybe after school, as a follow-up to this meeting and letting her know you felt like she seemed unwilling to help or make suggestions and you just were wondering what was up. If things aren't too much of a battle with her already, I think you could do this in a caring manner rather than a helicopter-I'm-upset-mom manner and it *might* lend some insight into the situation. This is a reach, but I have been in situations advocating for my 2e ds where his teacher was basically not allowed to say the things she would have liked to say at team meetings. There can be a full host of reasons why a teacher might not offer up suggestions at a meeting like this - everything from a teacher simply doesn't care, to the school staff having a policy of not offering anything that isn't first suggested by the parent to worries about what will happen if the parent at some point in time later sues the school (and all types of situations in between).
Good point! I do want to arrange a classroom observation. Should I talk with her informally then or do it separately?
This sounds a lot like my two 2e children (both have different second "e"s).
Being that she has a lot of ear infections and a noise sensitivity some have mentioned APD. I have read a little about it and emailed DD3's ST to help with pointing me in the right direction. As well as whether this would have been ruled out during the auditory testing both girls have had and DD3's speech eval she had a few months ago. If not this is something I will get done and rule out.
Last thought - I hope I'm remembering correctly - but I think you posted wondering if your 3 year old who is in speech therapy might also be gifted? I'd throw the reverse question at you here - you have a 3 year old who seems to have some challenges, is it possible that your older dd has challenges (maybe related, maybe not) but she's flown under the radar because of her ability to compensate so far?
Absolutely. It's definitely possible. I spoke with SLP today a little about DD3. She said DD3 is very intelligent and picking up on things fairly quickly. We talked about doing another eval in the next few months to see how far she has come since June. We did discuss both DD's and whether DD7 could possibly have some auditory issues going on but it is masked by intelligence. Luckily, SLP is awesome and so helpful with suggestions. Another person in my corner to help guide me.
