Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Suggestions for enrichment?

My daughter is gifted in Language Arts. She should probably be accelerated in that subject, but because she's in elementary school (4th grade) and the different grades are on different schedules it's not possible for her to go to a 5th grade LA class during the 4th grade LA time. As soon as I get her teacher assignment I plan on scheduling a meeting with her to discuss enrichment possibilities. My concern is that "enrichment" will translate into "more work" which is not at all what I'm looking for.

Does anyone have any suggestions for things I can suggest to the teacher to get her going in the right direction? I really want my daughter to have a better year next year and to get to a point where school is actually enjoyable, so I want to get this right.

Thanks!

First, I'd want to know two things: 1) how much acceleration does she need in this area, and 2) what does the typical 4th grade curriculum for LA look like at her school?

I've never had a kid in a traditional classroom for LA in 4th grade, so I'm not positive what to expect from that curriculum, but I'm imagining that it would include some book reports, general writing practice (grammar, structure, spelling, etc.), and maybe groups of kids who are working on reading the same book (book group type of thing). If it is something like this, would it work to simply ask for harder books, more advanced writing prompts that ask the writer to utilize higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy, harder spelling lists, etc. Perhaps bringing in some of the materials from the 5th grade would work for some of this.

This brings me back to my first question. Would the standard 5th grade LA curriculum be adequate? If she needs high school level LA work (reading level, level of abstraction and depth), then that type of thing might not be adequate.

Another thought, are there any other kids in her class next year who have similar needs to your dd or is she far and away more advanced than the highest group? If there is a reasonable peer group, they might be more willing to have those kids all working together on 5th grade material, if that is appropriate.

I'd want to know those same two things also.

Like Cricket, the elementary schools my children went to didn't have a traditional "Language Arts" curriculum, and among my friends here and across the US what happens in language arts instruction can be very different depending upon the school - so that's my disclaimer re my own personal knowledge lol. Here are the things we've experienced grouped under "Language Arts" - and how it's sorta worked out for our kids:

1) Individual reading and book "reports" (the reports were very open-ended in format). This is so completely up to the child to choose that challenge was never an issue here - our kids read what they want to read and challenge themselves.

2) Group reading - whole class reads a book together. This was beyond boring (during the *reading* out loud part) for my ds - he hated the slowness of it. However - he didn't mind the level of books that were read because by the time he was in 4th/5th grades the books that were chosen were still interesting to him even though he was capable of reading at a much higher level - so he enjoyed the subject matter and the class discussions etc.

3) Grammar - this wasn't taught very much explicitly (from what I can tell) until my ds was in middle school. He was in what's the equivalent of an honors class, and he probably could have learned more quicker and yep, it was boring, but we didn't push for acceleration. He's much more of a science kid and by the time he was in middle school he hit a happy place with getting the appropriate acceleration he needed in math/science (note: we aren't totally there yet either - but it has been much easier at middle school because of the nature of classes being taught separately etc).

4) Writing - my ds has a learning disability that impacted writing in a huge way when he was younger, so we weren't looking for acceleration, we were looking for help! FWIW, his writing took off once he *was* appropriately challenged - so this is an area I'd really *really* advocate for assignments that are up to your child's intellectual level. My ds is never going to be a talented writer (at least I don't think so!) but so much of the frustration he had with early writing has been eased significantly now that he has subjects to write about that are discussed and analyzed at a deeper level of understanding.

More on writing - my older dd is MG, and her strength is creative writing/art/etc. She's not accelerated in language arts, and really doesn't need to be for things like grammar etc - but with her we encourage her to read read read at home (which she loves) and we keep a mom-dd journal where we write to each other back and forth and I use that to push her a bit in her writing - which she loves. We also give her art assignments for "homework". Basically we're informally supplementing at home just by feeding her creative side and having her practice. I think that it will serve her well in preparing her for middle school, where LA levels are grouped.

polarbear

Enrichment is language arts is so much trickier than in math, IMHO. I was facing the same question for DD8 DYS (based on her PG level VCI) for the upcoming year. DD did not want to grade skip and the school was very reluctant to subject accelerate her in LA due to logistics and the dreaded "We've never done that before." DD's school wanted her to have enrichment but without changing their program at all, so I had to design a plan for her myself.

After considering my options I got the school to agree to let her do two online classes during school time. Making up the lost class time will be no problem for her (just 2 hours/week).

DD will start a literature and grammar class through OnlineG3 at the end of this month. She will take the class in the library through her personal computer. I have no idea if it will work or how it will work but it's a start. She has already read half of the assigned books (Tom Sawyer, Swiss Family Robinson, All Creatures Great and Small) and they are much more on her level than the assigned third grade reading. Hope this helps.

I'd agree. While both of my dds have HG+ VCI scores, one is 2e and did okay with a GT Language Arts class that met daily for the last two years of elementary. My dd13, on the other hand, I can honestly say has only had about two years of her entire schooling career where she has learned anything at all in her language arts classes and she'll be a 10th grader in the fall.

We did get subject acceleration to a GT/accelerated LA class in third grade and that was one of the years where she learned. She wrote research papers on things like harmful algae blooms and their impact on marine mammals, read unabridged classics like the Call of the Wild, and learned how to develop and give presentations on research papers.

For the most part, we've not managed to get much more than basic reading, writing, and spelling outside of full-time GT LA classes, though until around 8th grade.

I had her evaluated last year for a possible math LD, and both the K-BIT 2 and Woodcock-Johnson tests she was given had her at the 94th percentile for Verbal/Brief Reading, with the WJ showing her age equivalent in reading being 12.5 (she was 8 at the time). And that was in a very noisy room with her having what I suspect is some level of sensory or auditory processing disorder (we finally have a Developmental Ped appointment coming in October). I have a feeling if she was tested appropriately, those numbers would be higher. She has constantly complained about everything being for "babies", so I think she would appreciate some challenge, but I'm not sure how far to push her at first.

As far as the fourth grade curriculum goes, I still haven't met with any of the teachers yet, so I don't know for certain. I can tell you that last year was pretty much as you described: whole class reading assignments, occasional projects, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, AR (am I the only one that hates this program?).

She's currently in their AAP (what was called "Honors" when I was growing up) program, but it just didn't seem like it was enough last year based on her complaints. I guess I was hoping y'all could tell me some ideas I could pass on to her teacher as the teachers she's had so far have been completely unreceptive to the idea of differentiating her at all. I guess I was hoping that if I told her just what to do it might actually happen for once. *Sigh*

When
DD 14 was in fourth grade, book report time came. The class was suppose to read Babe. Well DD had read it maybe 1st grade. I can't remember now. She was reading The Golden Compass. I asked the teacher if she could do her book report on the Golden Compass instead of Babe. The teacher said she could as long as she did not tell anyone else in the class. We decided that she was already having social difficulties that we did not need to increase that. It was also the impetus for changing schools. I would find things that interest her and find ways to incorporate those into the class at a level that is good for her. Mine was really into mythology in 4th grade and so at the new school she got to do her book reports from books at her level about mythology. There were other kids also interested in mythology and did book reports at their level.

I was thinking language arts was easier for self-directed enrichment as long as the school doesn't get in the way. As a kid I did a lot of what I thought of as "sideways" work, personal enrichment. DW and I had talked about an unschooling approach and ways to track things for DS6 when we weren't sure we'd get him into an accelerated program. Quite a bit depends on being self-directed/motivated.

Here's some ideas:
1) Set a goal for # new words to learn each week
2) Research etymologies for words in regular class
3) If there isn't one, try to start a spelling bee team
4) Choose alternate books that are thematically similar to the one in class, do comparison/contrast in book reports
5) Draw analogies to mythology, etc.
6) Start a book club
7) Start a literary magazine
8) Learn sentence diagramming
9) Get a manual of style and learn and apply the rules
10) Get state standards for the next X grades and mark off current ability and track progress to others
11) Write
12) Write
13) Write

For LA, DD has been using this site beestar for enrichment. It is curriculum-based from 1st grade to 8th grade. I like the simple presentation: text has nice simple fonts, the pictures and graphs are to the point not distracting and stories are interesting. DD supports this online way and learns quickly. Hope it helps!
Lisa

I searched beestar on this forum and found that yvonnemommy has recommended it 19 times over the past year and a half. Bostonian pointed out that she is also on other forums praising beestar. It may be a tremendous program but so many mentions by the same person leads me to question yvonnemommy's motives. Maybe she just loves, loves, loves posting about beestar over and over. Maybe.