Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy help please!

So we are asking for DS6 to go from 1st to 3rd grade math now. DS was given 2nd grade assessment and 3rd grade assessment. He did well on the 3rd grade, not the 2nd grade. The school wants to send him to 2nd grade, not 3rd grade math now. Any suggestions on how to get them to understand how counterproductive this is?

DS has been tested, is PG. He has scored within the average range on the MAP test for a 4th grader. I have shared the results of all tests with the school and thought that they understood. Clearly they don't. Help!

Maybe they're confused about his abilities because he didn't do well on the 2nd grade assessment. Do you know why he would have done poorly on that assessment, but well on the 3rd grade assessment? (maybe was there a subject on the 2nd grade test he hadn't seen yet, but would be able to learn quickly??)

Did the testing for giftedness have a math component that you could also use to support your point?

Sorry you're having trouble with this.

Yes the second grade stuff is stuff he hasn't seen. Simple stuff that he will learn when someone shows it to him. He hit the ceiling on the spatial parts of his IQ test...so it is evident.

my guess is they don't understand that a PG kid can fill in the gaps in very little time and think it is necessary for him to go through the 2nd grade to learn the bits and pieces he may not know?

I am sure that's what it is. I did my little presentation of PG gifted children at our meeting a few weeks ago. They said that they understood...that there may be gaps and he will fill them. But it's like-poof- they forgot our meeting! It is incredibly frustrating!

Teacher: Ready to learn division?
PG Kid: Yep
Teacher: OK, division is reverse multiplication.
PG Kid: Ah, then fractions are incomplete division. Cool.

(2 semesters of math compressed into 12 seconds)

hee - we just had this exact conversation! with the final kicker...

Kid: WHY would you leave them like that when you can just convert to decimal and be done with it?
Me: have a think on that.
Kid: oh, i guess some decimals are really long. this would be faster to write.

literally every day i am more and more grateful to have found all of you...

Doubtful, I feel the same way! My son can solve multiple equations with 2 variables in an instant, but because he doesn't know how to draw out an array to match a number story (and solved the darn problem in his head and didn't show work), they would like to hold him back. I do like his school, but I don't like how they don't get it!

I would definitely advocate for an accelerated course in the 2nd grade stuff and then moving on. We have had similar problems with teachers either not understanding how he learns or focusing on him proving HOW he knows what he knows. My son is not PG, but MG/HG (still some confusion about that), but his math-related ability and achievement scores are much higher than his verbal. This year he skipped from 2nd to third and is excelling in the math at the 3rd grade level (even though he was only in 2nd grade math for two months and therefore missed most of it), which of course is too easy for him. His achievement tests placed him at an average of 7th grade, 9th month for what he already knows. He has a lot of trouble with "show your work" or "explain how you figured this out" questions. He just knows. For example, he had homework this week which consisted of taking square tiles and experimenting with them to create shapes with certain perimeters. He was supposed to draw the final shape and explain how he came up with one with a perimeter of 10, using 4 square tiles. Well, he didn't use the tiles. He literally read the problem, sat down on the floor, and immediately drew a shape which encompassed four squares and had a perimeter of 10. What I don't like is that they have gotten on his case about explaining his thought process, and he really CAN'T sometimes, so he lied on his homework. He said he experimented to see how to make the shape, which is patently false. Ugh. Going to have a talk with the teacher to see if this can be sorted out. I don't want my kid lying about anything just because adults don't understand his abilities.

the lock-step stuff is so hard on these kids - what they "can't do" is so often simply what they haven't met yet.

while i get that dealing with a kid with gaps in their skill set seems like so much work for a teacher, it kills me that they can't see past the wrongheaded notion that kids only learn in school, and can only absorb material in one specific order at a proscribed pace - as arbitrarily dictated by the school district.

i mean, what on earth do they do with kids who move to their territory mid-year? do they not bother accommodating their gaps?

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!

Puffin, I feel your pain. We have hit a few more roadblocks that I would like to discuss here, but apparently "many" families from our school consult this site as they all believe that their children are highly gifted + and should be receiving accommodations. (We are in one of THOSE towns.) Yet the gifted coordinator tells me that they have never actually had a PG kid in their school. So now I am understanding a bit, how the teachers see things. We are probably the umpteenth family to declare that our child is gifted and needs accommodations....but we ACTUALLY need the accommodations.

I have spoken a bit with DS regarding the plan to accelerate him. He is just so thrilled at even the prospect, it's well worth it to have shared this with him. It's also good because he is now completely motivated to get through the "boring" things he needs to do in order to really be ready to move to 4th grade in the fall (finish the times tables once and for all). This kid can understand virtually any mathematical concept presented to him (DH is math prof....so there is a lot of fun math talk), but DS is slow with computation.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Eastcoast, that's great news that you brought a spark of hope to your kiddo by sharing the acceleration plans. We found that in addition to providing some hope, our son learned that his parents would try their best to help his school situation. Even if things didn't work out, DS knows we are going to bat for him. (and we were always clear to tell him that we would try but didn't know what the school would agree to).

We went through a similar experience with math. Our DS had been given the 2nd grade curriculum in spring of kindy. He then skipped 1st grade and was given the exact same 2nd grade curriculum he had just finished. We asked for him to be given 2rd grade math, and we were told that they didn't have records that he had done all of it the previous year, and also he wasn't getting everything correct on pretests. (Note: if you can, get all acceleration decisions noted in writing, and a plan to continue the next year.) I looked at something he didn't get correct, and it was all because he didn't remember the terminology. I think it was "perimeter". I said that if it's a matter if reminding him versus teaching him a new concept, that was no reason to hold him back. If he gets a concept in 5 minutes, he shouldn't be punished by having to go through a whole unit. (The pullout teacher argue that if she told him what perimeter meant, that would be giving him the answer. Ugh.)

They also had scheduling difficulties with getting DS in 3rd grades math, and they said he couldn't keep up with the writing. Many meetings later, the school agreed to pretest, and if DS got 95%, he went to a pullout for new math.

Good luck with your advocacy!

Yes, add us to the list of parents who have found that just talking to our DD13 and letting her know that we are working hard to make things better for her helps her emotionally.

I also feel your pain, eastcoast-- we, too, live in one of "those" towns. It's the main reason why we continue to pursue virtual schooling rather than homeschooling our DD (you see, it ISN'T just us saying so... other people see it, too).

It was eye-opening to discuss academics with the local high school counselor (one of perhaps the best 10 high schools in our state). They've had one other kid like my DD. In the counselor's 18 years there, I mean. This from looking at her transcripts, and talking to her for twenty minutes when she was 12.

One other thing to bear in mind, though, is what st pauli girl touches upon-- logistics. It may be one thing for them to recognize and admit that your child is really HG+/PG and needs, well, something off the menu, so to speak. But it can be quite another to actually craft something which is feasible.

Sometimes it does actually help to come in with ideas of your own; it's all in the timing of offering them, basically. I always wait until the counselor reaches the end of his/her rope and looks/sounds helpless or confused. Then I gently offer a few "can we TRY this?" suggestions.