Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Help! Kindergarten woes

Bouncing a bunch of different ideas in a bunch of different places.

Long and short: my Kindergarten daughter hasn't been tested yet, but school and she are not getting along. They've assessed her *far* below her capacity using really crappy tools (she missed one word in one book, so is assessed at early first grade level; AIG teacher did "informal assessment" first day of school at the playground and said she would look into it further, but never did). Teacher makes a lot of promises. We're not seeing a lot of that at home. DD is getting REALLY frustrated (tears every day since break ended a week ago).

Asked AIG teacher for official identification. Can't happen; she did poorly on that first assessment and there's no point. We can force her to at least look into it by getting testing privately, but those scores don't count, but will make it so AIG teacher will have to reassess using her own tools.

Asked teacher for extra work, offering to help out. Can't do it, it's not possible.

We are VERY much "those parents" right now, and honestly haven't even done anything!! I feel like my hands are tied. We have a PTC scheduled (or, rather, teacher says she'll look at her schedule and see about something in the next couple of weeks), but I'm not even sure why we're bothering to do so at this point.

From here, I see my options as:
1) Test externally and try for the nomination
2) Suck it up for this year and count it as a wash, afterschooling where we can
3) Pull her out and homeschool
4) Keep smacking our heads against the wall that is her teacher to get more differentiation, at least for homework that's sent home

I can't see any other options, and honestly don't like any of those. I see too many "cons" and nowhere near enough "pros" for any of them,but maybe I'm missing something, or maybe there's some hidden benefits to some of these that I'm not seeing.

I can't offer much advice, because I'm in a similar situation with my ds in kindergarten. His teacher does recognize that he is ahead and is doing some differentiation, but it's not enough. One thought about the homework is (our school policy is to do homework without frustration) is I spoke to the teacher and she gave him some different homework and has allowed us to stop some of the class homework. So, school homework gets done on Monday, and I provide other work the rest of the week.
Please keep us posted on how things unfold. Sorry this is happening to your dd.

Hi, mick,
Sorry I don't have much useful to say, but wanted to say we were where you are last year (3rd grade) and know how frustrating it can be--I'm sorry you're having these problems. DD's teacher last year did much of the same stuff--promising differentiation and not following through (even though it would have been another staff member doing the actual work) and a bunch of other really unhelpful things to the point where we honestly think she really should not be a teacher. Anyway, we were at a private school but did do testing just to counteract all the negative stuff the teacher was saying about DD and to show that she really was academically gifted and *should* be getting differentiation. But the teacher (and the school) were really a lost cause, even though we tried hard to make it work. We ended up after-schooling for math and other things, which DD loves, and she's learned a ton outside of school. Her teacher this year is great, so maybe that will happen too for your DD. If it were me, I think I would consider #1 (to maybe help get something better in place next year, if you get a better teacher) and #2, just because that's what worked for us. But if your DD is getting frustrated with school and upset on a regular basis and you can homeschool at least for the rest of this year, I would give it serious consideration--I wish we had been able to do that last year for our DD, because I think school was doing more harm than good. Our DD bounced back pretty quickly after being out of that situation, but I've seen a number of posts on this site about kids being traumatized by a bad teacher/classroom situation and if your kid is sensitive to that it might be really good for them to be away from it. Good luck!

What extras would you get if she made it into the program?

Our experience with kindergarten is that schools view it as bringing all the kids up to the minimum standard-- opportunities for differentiation are minimal. Here, it gets better in 2nd grade, but not really sooner than that. If there's no real programming, it may not be worth the fuss to test into it; is there another round of testing later, or was that "it"?

DeeDee

Does the school use Accelerated Reader? That helped a ton for us in K last year to quickly get DS to the right level. Exact word reading has consistently been a pain.

Is there an alternate K teacher?

Have you looked for state & district specific policies on gifted to make sure teacher/school are following them?

We have faced this in kindergarten, first grade, and somewhat in second grade with my younger son.
I really don't think kindergarten or even alot of first grade is academic. It's mainly social- raise your hand to go to the bathroom, sit quietly in the circle, etc.
For us, I have my kids do a little (20 minutes or so) of workbooks after school, plus reading. It's easy to do and they are both probably 2 grade levels ahead. My younger one never seems to notice or care that he "learns" things he already knows!
Our gifted program starts in 4th grade, so we are just waiting for that for him, although now they are talking about changing it to differentiation only in the classroom.
My son could read chapter books in kindergarten- the teacher, who was super nice and experienced, would smile and never really seemed to care. She would keep sending home books like Hop on Pop that were way beneath him, we wouldn't read them, etc.

If your child is frustrated, it is time to be those parents. Kindergarten should be fun! She should have wonderful memories of going there to take with her throughout her life.

Do what you have to do to get your child into a happy place. If the school won't change, get her out of there!

Thanks

Basically, we wanted AG identification to assure something gets done. Teacher makes a lot of promises and no follow through.

She does do AR (had been the only K'er in the program, but now a classmate is, too). Teacher fails to have time for it, and my attempts to figure out a way to put the onus on us didn't work...she has done TWO AR quizzes since September, both first grade level books, got 100% on both. She says she just picks an AR book, whatever she wants, and takes the quiz when she returns it, but that teacher doesn't have enough time. She's brought home 6 AR books but only quizzed on 2. Last one, SHE chose not to because "it isn't worth the hassle".

She's also allegedly in a junior AG program. It's supposed to extend what the other kids do, not jump grade levels. 5 K classes, they do this as a pull out with a parent volunteer with all the top performing kids in the class a couple of times a week. DD's class? She has sent home 3 worksheets since September for us to do at home. We do them, turn them back in, never get more. They're meant to work as a unit, building on themselves, but we don't get the whole unit, only 1/8 parts of it.

Teacher smiles happily and tells me how smart the kid is, and offers all these ideas for what to do. Then nothing happens.

They *do* academics there. Tons of worksheets. Literacy stuff for 2 hours a day (primarily spent learning letter sounds, to hear DD report, but we don't really know; she also sometimes reads to kids who don't know how).

When she's been assessed, she underperforms in situations where, frankly, I don't know how she could perform on level...assessment done at the playground on first day of school. Misses one word in a book and that's her level (didn't even miss it; just pronounced it differently, and consistent with her own pronunciation of it) after starting at "what letter is this?" while other kids were at recess.

School is great, with lots of gifted kids, so there's a lot of good academics being done, but she's frustrated and crying over how low level the work is. We just want follow through, but have no idea how to get 'er done.

I thought AR was designed to raise levels as she proves mastery, thus providing access to higher AR books. Kinda a springboarding effect. Maybe there is a part that is moderated I'm not aware of, or if the class/teacher has limited above level books in school. Perhaps you could find higher level books for your daughter to read at home and test on.

That's all I got, cause it sounds quite surreal.

I feel some of your frustration about AR. Ds teacher had him leveled and does let him check out more books and go by himself; but it is my responsibility to get him to the library to take the AR tests. Why can't he do that during independent reading?? Also, I have been asking since beginning November to retake the leveling test, because his level has increased; yet she has still not followed through. (Btw, ds is the only kindergartener doing AR at our school.)
I would believe your dd telling you they are learning letters. That's what they are doing in ds class. I have continually asked why he needs to do this, but the teacher tells me that he is learning vocabulary from it- not.
Having a p/t conference Tuesday....
One other thought, can your dd bring books from home? My ds brings 5-8 books a day and is allowed to read them when he is done. (He is also using them to make friends with older kids on the bus- by reading outloud to them- lol.)