hi there. I found these boards while searching online for information to help my son.
He's 8, in 3rd grade. He has always "hated" school, and has a history of minor behavioral issues. He doesn't always follow instructions well, often complains of boredom or has a bit of an attitude, and will not always do classroom work. I know he is very very bright and he reads well at home, so I was surprised last year when the school sent him to their summer camp program for at-risk readers. When I asked him what happened, he said he got bored with the test so he just kept saying "I don't know" in response to the questions.
We've already had one call home this year from a teacher complaining about his visible boredom and bad attitude in class. The first report card came home yesterday. He got mostly 3s for academics (so, on track for grade level) and 2s for behavior (needs improvement).
We also got his statewide 3rd grade standardized testing results back yesterday. His Lexile score indicates a reading level of 11-12th grade. His math scores are 8-9th grade. Both were 99th percentile.
I have several questions.
1) does the discrepancy between his achievement level and his grade level explain the behavior stuff? I'm trying to figure out if fixing the educational issue will also fix the behavior, or if there's more going on.
2) would this level of achievement plus the behavior stuff suggest that he needs to be in the district's differentiated gifted program? I feel like a kid this far ahead should not have been sent to reading camp for at-risk readers and since he was, there's a huge disconnect between what's possible and what's happening...
And 3) we have a gifted program in our district, beginning in 4th - will the school actually look at his recent testing results and flag him for further testing, or do I need to be proactive here? I will be, but I'd like to know they're already working on this instead of me having to force them to pay attention to scores etc.
Any suggestions? Information? Commiseration?
Thanks!
