Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Questions I should ask DD's teacher.

Hi all,

I have an appointment with DD's teacher next thursday and I would like to have a list of questions to know exactly what is going on with DD.

I have made a list and I would like very much to have you opinion/comments/suggestions...

Here is the list:

1. Which activities has she done? And of these, which ones is she doing 'bad' or not according to instructions?
2. Has she tried any activity for which Mrs Teacher thinks she is not ready or is too difficult for her? In particular, I want to know about geography puzzels.
3. How is she doing with numbers and counting? (at home she has started to do simple addition of her head)
4. In activities like the pink tower, or the cilinders is the concept behind the activity verbally explained?
5. She reports very often that othr kids find her naughty. What is going on there? Are they bullying her already?


Is there any more questions I may ask to have a clear picture of DD's situation in the classroom? They have to be very specific so I can get real information, not just 'she is doing fine' bs.

About the geographic puzzels, I got her one with The Netherlands and DD's like it very much and has no difficulty whatsoever in doing it (is 12 pieces, one for each province). I ask her if she would like to have similar one for Spain and Germany and she was very interested and eager about them. Then I told her that she could do them at the school too. And she told me that the ones of the school were too difficult for her!!!

I just forgot to add TIA!
(I am trying to type and watch Malcom X at the same time, while I strech my ear in case DD or DS awake....)

Good luck Isa!
Your questions sound just right!

I guess just in general ask what DD is able to do, and what materials are not allowed because they are 'too hard' and what are the readiness signs, and repeat the question in every area.

How is the vision therapy going?
Grinity

This one kind of puts the teacher on the spot, but if you are trying to establish if DD should be accelerated, I like:

What is a child expected to know to move on to the next grade?
Does DD already know this information?

I

Grinity:

The vision therapy is going much better. DD has done quite some progress, and sundenly, she can count in several languages, starts doing simple adition in her head, starts to recognice more and more letters....

That's the up-side.

The down side is that the therapy is 'home-made' by me with no guidance of any behavioral optometrist. I use my own experience with eye exercises, plus things I have found in the web, plus lots of common sense. I took DD to a regular oftalmologist and she told me that DD's eyes are perfect and she does not need glasses, eye patches or exercises. However, I have the strong feeling that for regular oftalomologist, eye coordination and eye movement that is nominally ok = perfect ok, so I will continue doing more eye exercises for a few more months.

I just have to find a way to motivate DD... These last two months I used little surprises (mini-presents) but now this doe not seem to be enough...

Incogneato:
I already asked that question, although I think I should ask again at the end of the year. Right now, DD is not ready. With the vision problems, multilinngualism and quite some underachievement, DD is not ready, academically speaking, to go to next group. I reckon that she will be at the end of the school year.

Should I say that to the teacher, or should I wait that DD is ready before making any 'noise' about acceleration?

About underachievement, I suspect that Mrs Teacher is contributing to it and I want to find out. I suspect that DD is being told too often that things are too difficult for her, like for example puzzles.

Yes, we had that experience with the eye exam being perfect from one doctor and 'terrible' from the Behavior Optomitrist, still not sure who to trust, but it sounds to me that your homeade work is going well.

Finding motivators is tricky...and yes, they do lose their potency....ask DD what she would really really love - you might be suprised. Otherwise, start a journal and take notes as to which reinforcers really get her salivation....a trip to the library? live music show? TV program? time with a particular person?

good luck,
As for the teacher contributing to the underachievement - that worries me. Can you send her to a differnt school if this school insists on keeping her with the same teacher next year?

((hugs))
Grinity

Just want to pipe in about the vision issue - we had a similar experience with the pediatric opthamologist. I took all three of my older kids in for a general checkup, and he found nothing wrong with any of them (and he was irritated besides, that we were there without specific concerns). A few weeks later, coincidentally, we took DD6 to be tested at the Gifted Development Center. Her results indicate that she is 2E. The testers recommended, among other things, that her vision be checked by a behavioral optometrist, for two reasons: first, the way she did some of the block designs - when it got to the harder ones, the answers would have been correct if they had not been skewed, or turned to one side.

The second reason was that we did not indicate that DD is very good at puzzles (I think I indicated that she likes them, or is good but not very good, or something like that - I can't recall the exact language of the form), and they said that she is such a visual-spatial learner that she would likely be very good at them unless she has a vision issue. I'm not sure I buy that, but thought you might find that interesting, lsa, considering your DD's apparent difficulty with the puzzles in the classrom - could just be a vision thing (I apologise if I'm misreading anything, I haven't read this entire thread yet).

The behavioral optometrist indeed found a problem with our dd's eye tracking/teaming, and we have about 7 weeks to go of vision therapy (I cannot wait till it is over!!! It's so irritating to get her to do it, though it got so much easier after she finished OT - the OT had said it would help the ocular motor stuff, but I wasn't holding my breath, and it turned out to make a huge difference in her ability to do the vision exercises). She has shown great improvement with reading, finally.

I don't know about the puzzle thing - I haven't bought any new ones in quite a while. My other VSL likes puzzles well enough, though again I can't say he has some kind of vastly superior ability with them or super love of them, and he's already been checked by a behavioral optometrist (he was admittedly non-verbal at the appointment, and being younger the evaluation was different). I do plan to have him re-checked again this summer, but it doesn't seem like he has problems with his vision. I guess you never know...

Interestingly, both my brother and I have similar vision issues to dd - I suppress the vision from my right eye quite a bit when I read because, like it was for dd before therapy, they do not focus on the same point, or at least not close enough together - it's like they're looking at slightly different sections of the text. At least I know where dd gets it from. Her vision is now better than mine! I can't even do half the exercises she does - I'm just too old.

Good luck with the homemade therapy. I scanned in the first couple weeks of vision exercises so I'd have them for future reference, but never got around to doing that for the rest of them (we have a 24-week program).

And by the way, it's no secret that there is controversy about vision therapy, since most opthamologists don't "believe" in it, and the optometrists who do it are a bit defensive about it, arguing that opthamologists only think things can be fixed with surgery, or something like that. It seems like everything I do for myself and my family these days has an element of controversy...