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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 3
Junior Member
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OP
Junior Member
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 3 |
Hi,
I am new here, so please excuse me if I get this wrong right out of the gate. I am just so frustrated that I need to vent and hear from other parents out there.
I have been advocating for my now 8yo son since he was <2. He is EG/PG. He taught himself to read at 2 and was tested at 4 wherein we discovered his verbal abilities were not even the tip of the iceberg. Math is his thing.
He skipped Kindergarten and from 1-3rd grade he was pulled out daily for his own math class with another child in his class. They were one year ahead in EnVisions Math, with plenty of extensions, enrichment, etc. He was stuck spinning his wheels in all non-math areas, but at least he had math!
Now, we have moved to Italy and are enrolled in an American school. We arrived at the tail-end of 3rd grade. He is happy as a clam and really enjoying the bump in the quality of his language arts, history and other programs. But math! His 4th grade class is piloting EnVisions Math. Yes, that means he is sitting through the exact math program that he had at an advanced pace last year. With his near-photographic memory, this is torturous.
His principal is dragging his heels on a pull-out program because he does not believe in differentiation outside the classroom. But, with my constant pushing, he is now working to identify other students for a pull-out program (still undefined, but likely 1-2x/week) using MAP math scores and some other metric he still hasn't determined. (I know only that DS scored "over 230" - the official results and reports have not been released) The rest of the school is using Everyday Math.
His classroom teacher turned various shades of green when she came to understand that DS had completed the exact material she was presenting to him. She is so upset on his behalf, but is not sure how to help him herself because she has so many students who are struggling and she's out there piloting a new program with little help. As a stop-gap, we've discussed math packets with problem solvers etc for the math period.
SO! I am debating insisting that he be pulled out of 4th grade math and marched over to another grade for their Everyday Math (scheduling IS a problem, but I'll tackle that next). The question is: WHICH GRADE? MAP >230 suggests, to me, that we shouldn't waste time in 5-7th but push for 8th or higher. But Everyday Math concerns me. Am I setting him up for failure (especially with a principal who clearly does not understand giftedness)? I've been told time and time again in the past that EDM, by its structure, does not really allow kids to jump from one grade to another. They will be lost.
Please, please help!
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Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898
Member
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Member
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,898 |
I can't help you with EDM, but I have a DS-nearly-8 who is very mathy. How's your maths, or that of any other adult in the household? I ask because we and DS's school rejected the option of putting him with an older year group in similar circumstances to yours - he'd have needed to be with way older children, timetabling would have been tricky, and pace would still have been a big issue; the benefits didn't seem worth the risks. We've left him with his age-peers but he's had entirely his own maths since part way through the first year (with occasional joining in with maths games or whatever). It's worked well. Last year we really ran his maths entirely ourselves as his teacher wasn't in a position to do so (stuff she'd never taught and probably hadn't thought about for a long time!); the year before and this year his teachers set him work. Lots and lots of problem-solving, which is far more important than speeding through curriculum - but of course, going at his own pace he's far ahead with curriculum too. So it can work, if you're in a position to do the work when it doesn't work for school to...
Welcome!
Email: my username, followed by 2, at google's mail
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 701
Member
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Member
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 701 |
Both my DS and my DD have skipped a year of EDM without any problems whatsoever. The EDM curriculum is a spiral curriculum, meaning that they cover many of the same topics year after year after year (e.g., fractions), just in ever-increasing complexity. So, if your child is understanding things in a more complex way than students in his or her grade, she is essentially already working at a higher grade level with no instruction. So, for instance, multiplication begins to be covered in first grade with pictures, then in second grade with arrays, then in third grade with memorization and simple facts, and then in fourth grade with double-digit and triple-digit multiplication, and so on. So, from what I've seen, review is built in. Within each year there is a lot of jumping around between topics (angles, calculation, graphs, geometry, etc.), but comparing year to year it's mostly the same subjects in increasing complexity.
Gaps are often mentioned by educators of being of utmost concern, but if your child has high ability test scores and high math acievement scores, any gaps will provide some much needed challenge in the short term and will be easily overcome by the speed with which your child learns.
Last edited by mnmom23; 10/09/11 05:06 PM. Reason: spelling! shouldn't have posted in such a hurry!
She thought she could, so she did.
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