Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy help please!

So he's in 1st this year and the year is almost up. It sounds like they want him to finish the year in second and start third next year? What is your goal? (Is it to have him in 4th next year?)

Zen Scanner=so funny. BTDT many times. Sometimes it's frustrating because you as the parent get a message that it takes a year to teach kids something simple. You will likely be met with resistance when you offer to fill in the gaps.

Remain calm and open minded in that they likely do want to help but may have seen both successful and unsuccessful accelerations. They may want to start slow and just didn't communicate the entire forward plan in the interest of not getting too far ahead. Just keep requesting what you think is best and work with them.

I know it is difficult when they ask your child to explain something that is pretty basic. When I was lamenting this to a friend, she reminded me that we need to be able to explain ourselves at work. Putting pencil to paper to show work is a useful skill and it will be required all through school and in the workplace. It helps me to remember that when the teachers require explanations for things that seem basic. I just want to caution not to downplay the need to learn the writing/showing work process. Agreed that it is maddening to think that it takes an entire year to teach this.

My experience has been that the teachers believe what they see from the kid more than the parents talking. Maybe you can convince them of a trial in 4th grade next year. Make sure over the summer that he's ready to write out his work (book stores have some workbooks for story problems) and spot check 4th grade math online (ixl, aleks).

The goal was to put him in third grade now. I got a subsequent email stating that they can't even put him in second grade now because of a scheduling conflict. And they won't do third grade because he didn't "master" second grade! So now they won't do anything! I will keep plugging away, but DS needs some accommodation here. He has been pretty easy going until a few months ago when he started complaining about how easy his class is (that's when we got him tested). He has begun to refuse to do homework. Everything is unraveling pretty quickly. I guess that's normal with a PG kid?

Scheduling is often a real issue with subject acceleration in elementary unfortunately. We made it work but it was nice once we hit MS and left that behind.

1) ask them to tell you specifically what was missing.
2) potentially forget about this year but aim for next year and ask for a trial in 4th grade (assuming they know about the 3rd grade assessment). Tell them you will get a tutor for whatever 2nd grade concepts he's missing.
3) once you know what they think he's missing ask for a restest and brush him up on that (if it is a simple as exposure).

Since it sounds like they're digging their heels in
I think I would turn to afterschooling with an online program that makes
it easier on you (like EPGY or CTY or ALEKS) so your DS gets the math he
wants. This has satisfied our DD when the school was unwilling or unable
to help (she's not PG, though, except possibly in math, but still it might
be a solution that would also work for your DS). If you want to try to skip
him into 4th grade math next year, maybe you
could try prepping him for the evaluation by checking the curriculum
and making sure he's familiar with all of the topics so he doesn't get
burned on the test next time (like lilswee suggests).

I know this is not the ideal solution, but if you're on this site
for awhile you unfortunately see many of the same problems coming up over
and over and sometimes it seems more productive to just do it yourself
rather than keep fighting the school. Unfortunately. I hope you find
a solution that works for you and your son.

Well, he's mastered the few topics he missed on the test )in the past hour). They were all easy things. Do I tell her to retest him tomorrow?

The question I have is, if they won't move him up, what does he do doing the regular class time? He has now declared he won't do the homework anymore . He's really getting angry about all of this. This anger is significant because he is such an easy going kid...he is rarely explosive.

Wouldn't it be great if they would retest him tomorrow? That's awesome that he's already learned the stuff he missed. You are there and can see the teachers' and school's reactions, so maybe you could mention that he might do better now on the test. I tend to try to avoid confrontation partly because it has always backfired on me, and you do sometimes run into people who take a dislike for some reason or other and then are deliberately obstructionist, so I might not do that myself, but maybe it's worth a polite reiteration just in case.

As to regular classroom time, do you think he's capable of trying to 'change the system from within' as it were--that is, doing the regular math work (which he can probably do in just a few minutes) and then politely asking for another worksheet or the next topic as the other kids continue to work? Perhaps if he can be polite and persistent the teacher will come around and recognize that he needs to be advanced. But doing that without getting frustrated is a lot to expect of a 6-year-old, especially one who's already upset about the situation.

Another alternative I've seen people mention is making up your own worksheets for him to take into class, so he could do those after he finishes the regular work--and then he could earn a reward or whatever at home for doing them. If the teacher doesn't come up with something better and doesn't object (not that they should, of course).

It is not fair that you're having to work around this; I hope you can find a way for your son to be happy in school. Good luck!

Thanks everyone. This site is a godsend. Just a few months ago I wasn't even sure that I was going to have my son tested. Within that time, things have changed drastically. He is so disgusted, so quickly with many aspects of school. I am so glad that I was able to get him tested to see what we're dealing with intellectually and why he is unhappy.

He is really opening up to me lately. Tonight he asked if he could just take a peek at second grade math...to see if it's more interesting. (We actually haven't told him about the assessments that he's already taken. The teacher just asked him to do it and he did it no questions asked!) I finally"opened up" and told him that he already knows second grade math. He was shocked. Then he asked if he could see third grade math. I told him that I would talk to his teacher. He was so thrilled, like I haven't seen in a while, regarding school.

Should I tell him that we are working on accelerating him? I think it would really make him feel better. I told him to ask his teacher for harder work, but he said that he felt "embarrassed".

I know how you feel. My son is not PG but he is at the very top of HG. The teacher says he is making appopriate progess, is working on his addition facts to 20, and needs to work on his creative writing. He thinks he would like to do fractions next so we will do that at home.

You know your kid best, but this really helped our DD--with the caveat that we always emphasized that we supported the teacher (actually except at the end of last year when it was no longer possible because the teacher was so horrible to her and us--but that's a different story). Because with our DD she would sometimes try to exploit differences between us and the teacher for her own gain--not through any malevolence, but just in the way kids do say if they get different answers from mom vs. dad--and DD vigorously explores any possible advantage, so we learned early to present a united front. Same thing with parents vs. teacher. So we would tell DD that the teacher had a lot to do and a lot of kids but that if DD behaved nicely we were sure the teacher would try to do what they could to accommodate her, and that we were trying to help the teacher understand how much DD would like advanced math (which we were). It really helped her to know that we understood her and were trying to do what we could. Good luck!

I agree with Dbat. Telling our son about the prospective grade skip was the spark of hope he needed to get through a really rough first quarter this year. I promised him that if the skip did not happen, he WOULD be going to another school where his needs would be addressed. I did not want him to think that his current (awful) situation would continue unchecked. He was finally moved at the beginning of the second quarter and has done very well since. I have found during this process that my overall parenting philosophy of including the child in decisions and plans which involve the child is the way to go. He was asked what he would prefer each step of the way and was present at the meeting to formally determine placement so he could express his opinions and ask questions. I don't want him to see this process (or any other) as something that is done for or to him without his knowledge and input!