Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Working with school? What to ask for???

I don't think the "enrichment packets" that DD's teacher had them do went well at all. She basically expected them to do it on their own, and if they finally handed it in with a wrong answer, she would write NO, TRY AGAIN (or something along those lines). There were some actual concepts in there that DD had never been actually taught, like converting units of measurement, leading to extreme frustration because there was no instruction on these advanced concepts. The teacher gave them each a calculator to solve the problem of them not knowing how to do long division with decimals (or whatever). I think it was good she did not make them sit through every single class lesson, and had them do these packets instead, but at a certain point DD just gave up and stopped working on them. She spent ridiculous amounts of time trying to figure out the answers to things, and if she had gotten some help, she could have whipped through it in a fraction of the amount of time. I had volunteered to go in and pull out these kids once per week but was basically ignored. Frustrating. I don't know how DS's teacher normally does it...whether she meets with the "enriched" group as a group and actually instructs/help. If so, then it may work a lot better. The problem was that DD's teacher had all of the low-level kids in that class as well, and guess who the priority was.

Check and see if your district has a policy about subject acceleration. DS scored 98-99th percent accurate on the district tests for second grade math, meeting their policy, but I don't really see it as a decent long-term solution because the pace will still be slow. But I will do that if the teacher is unable to differentiate apppriately for him. I'm not sure if our district has a reading acceleration policy. I know they used to but if a child meets the criteria for both reading and math acceleration they prefer the child do a whole grade skip. That's what I was told when DD was grade accelerated (I would have preferred she stayed in the same grade, and went to the next higher grade for reading and math only--but they did not like that idea). In terms of scheduling, it can be a nightmare to do subject accelerations. Even if they get it to work one year, it might not work the next year. DS's principal told me he would align the schedules of second and third grade math for next year, so that there is at least one third grade teacher that can take him for math if we opt to go that route. Usually they want to plan this out ahead of time, so if you think that's something you want to do, get on the phone with the principal as soon as you can.

In terms of whole grade acceleration, I wouldn't rule it out. There are definite negatives/risks but DD adjusted very well and I can't imagine how bored/miserable she would have been if we hadn't accelerated her.