Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Reading Group Determined By Writing Ability?

Last year (2nd grade ) DD tested on Winter map in reading at 99% but because of a lack of challenging instruction and a bad testing environment ended the year at 92% with no growth.

This year (3rd grade) she tested in the fall at 96% (after reading over the summer and making full growth for last year) but in class was placed in the lowest reading group with a text several hundred Lexile below her NWEA assessed level because of "writing issues".

She is in a group with children who are barely fluent in English and most of the time is spent decoding text for them and explaining basic grammar. She feels she is learning nothing in the group and it's basically a repeat of work done in earlier grades.

The level is below her DRA from last year, below NWEA's recommendations, yet the teacher insists she is placed correctly.

Compared to her friends in her classroom she is a horrible writer. I have seen it myself. But at this stage in her development, she is not able to provide full analysis to the teacher's liking (and on the level of her friends) in order for the teacher to allow her to read at a higher level (even though they all read the same high level of books outside of school). DD is not a writer. And when she writes, she is a slow writer as well.

She is supposed to be in high ability reading this year but has not read anything in her class even at a 4th grade level due to the writing issues.

My impression of guided reading is that students are there to focus on the text and comprehension strategies of text and not focusing on writing. I see the 2 as completely different skillsets. Why should one's reading level be dependent upon writing skill? MAP does not test for this correlation.

Her teacher insists that DD's lower writing skills will not allow her to participate in the higher reading groups in a meaningful way. She refers to the students in the higher group as being able to complete the work at a "faster pace" than my DD could.

I would like advice on how to tackle this problem. DD has stated that she feels she is not "ready" to write. I feel this as well. She can hobble along but she generally detests writing. I feel it will take her some time to develop just as her father (he did not write well until 7th grade).

If there is no way out, I see basically another year wasted in class with no reading instruction taking place (DD helping out the Japanese kids who "can't read" according to her) a subsequent fall in MAP scores and another summer of playing catchup.

I would appreciate any advice on how to handle this problem as the teacher seems reticent to DD changing to a higher group until she is writing accordingly which I don't see happening for some time.