This was our situation last year. DS has the same verbal. They did a pull out enrichment once a week but it had quite a lot of kids as that makes the most parents happy, so the level wasn't that high. The particular school also was title 1 and some kids in his class were truly struggling to learn to read. It was not an experience that was of benefit to him, and the particular teacher was a brick wall.
If you have a open minded teacher, I would go over all the aspects of "reading" with them to get a clear picture of how much time is devoted to exactly what, whether kids are rotating groups, stations, seated, etc. Then see where differentiation might be possible. It's getting more bits working than not that adds up to a positive overall experience so you don't need it all to be perfect, just something in there has to be more at level.
One wants a bin of books in the classroom that contain appropriate level books, plus a few a little above that. A teacher may think it's appropriate simply because they have a bin that is "above level" but it is worth actually looking through the bin. In a title 1 school 3rd or 4th grade books may be at the bare minimum for reading ability for that grade.
A different rate or mix of spelling words. For example at DSs previous school it was 10 words a week and the administration felt they were meeting each child at their level because each received a test to set their start point (yes better than nothing). The problem lay more in the monotony of the words, and the methods used to teach them (cut them out, glue them, write them over and over in a row, etc). DS was going nuts with that amount of repetition. If the words of the week are sight light night fight etc, then for him it would be better to do 3 with the most common rule and then also throw in petite and height and rite, rather than all ten the same rule.
Spelling is a clear and easy area to differentiate, especially for good spellers, because there is almost nothing easier for a teacher than a different set of words, and kids are hopefully already getting a variety of sets of words. And the words themselves lead to deeper knowledge, assigning a child a word like heuristic means they have to look up the meaning.
As an alternative to a cutting/pasting or whatever the usual teaching technique is, a more creative/open ended activity is attempting to use them all in only 3 sentences, something along those lines. Or trying to think of synonyms and then looking them up in an adult thesaurus, etc. If it's all set up ahead so that each day's activity is the same each week, it won't be that much trouble for the teacher. (ie Monday is always cutting/pasting the words so for DS it's thesaurus day).
One has to be realistic, sending them a few grades up with an aide is not realistic in a title 1 school. Similarly, asking for differentiation that requires much teaching or explanation by the teacher will not be sustainable (An assignment such as writing a paragraph on foreshadowing in Harry Potter would be awesome, but is probably not something the teacher can support with their time in class).
I'd focus on the areas the teacher easily could accomodate/differentiate with the goal not being deep growth, but just getting through the year without going crazy. That would be the bin of books, changing assignments to be more open ended/creative, and altering the spelling words/method to teach them.
If there's any way to get more creative outlet/personal expression put into reading/language arts, do it... it helps the whole day, it's not only practice but also a tension or stress outlet.
In the end we moved.
