She showed them previously how to start organizing their report into a very basic outline. The teacher has copies of materials the kids were allowed to highlight for information. GS9 had very appropriate highlighting, some kids highlighted everything. Most kids were pulling information just from the teacher supplied materials, GS has some additional information from the net & library books. His report looks like it will have quite a bit more depth than the others.
That's a perfect example of what I call "natural differentiation", and it gets more meaningful once most of the kids are reading fluently, and more "self work" is expected (say about 3rd/4th grade) It's even more helpful if there are other kids in the class at that higher level. I think that's in part how we've managed to get by. We really do have a large population landing in the 120+ range, and have quite often had teachers that will go that extra mile to help those kids at least collectively, if not individually. (In their defense, they have a LOT on their plates!!!)
I think the Explore is a fairly inexpensive way to guestimate "LOG", so best wishes there.
Dottie, I have a couple questions about in-class differentiation. Hopefully you, or others here, can help me out.
How do the teachers grade things like this writing project if one child is capable of working at the higher level? For example, I keep thinking the teacher would look at GS's 5-6 paragraphs and give it a 'B' while the typical 4th grader would get an 'A' for the same or less; GS would not perceive that as fair(I fear).
And judging by what I saw in the classroom yesterday, the teacher would not have time to teach GS at his level. I'm capable of teaching GS in the evenings, but it would require the teacher to work with me on his assignments. Also, if the school agrees to in-class differentiation, I want a committment from them for whole grade accelleration in 1-2 years. Otherwise we're just going to be widening the divide between what GS is doing and what his classmates are doing, and I'm already contributing to that by giving him math, science, & reading books to keep him occupied in his spare time at school.
In class math differentiation presents much of the same issue, and the same possible solution. Grading would be easier, I think, because he would be given different problems. But do the other kids ever comment on 1 child being given different things to do?
This year there are no other kids from his classroom that go to the gifted program. The school mixes the kids each year. Last year he had a friend from the gifted program in his classroom, that worked out well for both of them.
