Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Peer mentoring successes

Yes. The reason why this is okay for my DD is twofold:

a) clearly defined role and boundaries exist on the peer tutoring environment. My DD is "available" for just four hours a week, and the students come to her.

b) they have NO IDEA that she is mostly very many years younger than any of them-- thank you, virtual environment.

I'd argue for some really clear boundaries so that "school" isn't synonymous with "unpaid teacher's aide" for your child. BTDT as a middle schooler, and boyyyyyy, did I not like that.

Sorry, Ultra, I sometimes get mixed up about whose kid is doing how.

Is a gradeskip an option? Would he get any appropriate work in the K-1 split? Is there another local school that would be better suited? Is there an amazing teacher who can do serious, sustained differentiation? Can he become a first grader in a 1-2 split instead, giving him access to the 2nd grade work while still being with peers close to his size/age?

You might not need to bring in any big guns to solve this; what is your district's acceleration policy? It ought to help that the school people know your DD?

(And you have probably answered all those before elsewhere; but the search function doesn't get me there very fast.)

I think HK's perspective on being the teacher helper is a good one.

DeeDee

I had previously heard that the school is open to skipping. However, we attended a school event recently and the principal (newish) said she is NOT open to it. So...bleh. I have no idea about the district.

The tricky thing about skipping him in any case is that we do plan for him to go into the magnet at grade 2, and I'm not confident he could handle the workload/written work expectations in the magnet with a skip in place.

Our other school options at this point are only private (not possible w/o a scholarship and I don't know how much it would help, but I may inquire about one school I know of) and charter. I'm not optimistic about the charters, as I know the landscape pretty well.

I asked his preschool teacher what she thought about a full skip. She said he was completely ready academically and physically, but was a little concerned about his perfectionism and occasional tendency to cry easily. I'm not thinking these things are going to go away with another year, but it's true that they exist, although to me they don't seem terribly major.

The principal pretty much has to articulate this as a policy to keep folks from beating down the door. Skips are not routinely offered in our district, nobody says they exist; yet there IS a policy in place that permits it, and a clear process. And it happens, more routinely than anyone knows until they're in the process.

That is not to say you should absolutely skip him. Only that you might find it useful to schedule a conversation between the pre-K teacher who thinks your DS needs so much more, the principal at the new school, and you. Sort of a "get to know ya" deal. Do you have any evidence of work he's done to show?

Sometimes if it's just a mom they think "all moms think their kid is brilliant," but if it's the dad and/or another teacher saying so they believe it.


That makes sense. Is it clear to you that a subject acceleration would make a difference, or is there an area where differentiation would be fairly straightforward for this particular kid? If so, you could suggest those options. I will say (have said it before here) that it's really, really hard to get this kind of thing done in K-- they are trying to bring all kids up to the minimum, not really advance anyone past the baseline.


Doesn't sound major to me either.

Would there be any merit to putting him into 1 now, letting him do 2, and then undoing the skip in the transition to the gifted magnet? Does the curriculum work in such a way that this is possible?

DeeDee

Will your DS be going to the elementary school which houses the gifted magnet? It might not be that bad in a K/1st split classroom. I presume there might be siblings like him.

I have only one hopeful expectation as far as academics go next year. And, that is that I really hope the school make some effort to help DD feel secure about her level of reading--that it is good, ok, normal, not something she needs to hide. Otherwise, the curriculum seems really fun, explorative, and open-ended, even the literacy stuff. Maybe this is a perk of an independent school.

I think peer mentoring should be utilized in all classrooms. Like someone said, it is great for development of Theory of MInd stuff. But, it won't help in a poor school fit. And, it should not be relied upon to ameliorate that.

I have always thought that your DS would be a good candidate for a skip. You know him best. Maybe explore a skip in a private school setting until second grade.

It's worth noting that his writing is not where everything else is. It's probably 1st grade, but not high 1st grade. Frankly, I don't see that reading and math are realistically going to be accommodated. Let me be clear that *I* don't care that much if he doesn't learn a lot in these areas, because I agree with you that school is about a lot more than this, and honestly I am a realist and don't expect a kindergarten teacher to be able to teach a child working significantly above level. The problem is that HE does really seem to care, a lot. This was such a surprise, because he has always seemed to be my less driven child. Maybe there is something else going on in his current environment that is not good (I don't know what--it really seems fine) and next year will be really different.

I am increasingly thinking that boys in general tend to express their dissatisfaction with learning environment fit more directly than girls do in general (ie more likely to get school refusal "because it's boring", "we never learn anything", etc. while girls seem in general more likely to complain less directly but develop other (often more self destructive rather than disruptive) manifestations of discontent - procrastination, extreme negative perfectionism, etc. maybe crying at home because "they hate school" or "there's no one like me" "I have no friends" etc. Doesn't mean the root cause is not the same, or that boys or girls are more or less driven... Note that I am generalizing and there will be plenty of exceptions.

That's an interesting thought. Maybe so. DD did express dissatisfaction, but we never came anywhere close to school refusal--she still wanted to go, I guess for the social aspect-- whereas we are pretty much toeing that line with DS. Yet he IS very social.

The variability in first grade written product is pretty stunning. There are kids whose letters are legible but can't spell well enough that you can make out the words; kids who run everything together with no spaces but write gorgeous prose; kids who are still working on making their letters face the right way. All kinds.

If your kid is ambitious (sounds like), he may rise to the level of what's around him quickly. Or not. But I am not sure I'd want handwriting alone to determine placement. It's a factor, it matters to the teachers, but it's not the only factor. If he were in a place where he was behind in HW, but getting math and reading that were closer to his level, do you think he would thrive?

Have you gone to look at K and first grade classes? I find that really helps me get a handle on what I'm signing up for.


Could be. Have you looked at the Iowa Acceleration Scale? (We got a copy of the manual through ILL.) That has criteria that help you think through whether a skip is a reasonable idea.

My feeling is that you shold not worry about the eventual placement in the magnet (be that repeating 2nd or moving ahead); your goal should be to put him in a good learning environment for the coming year, knowing that you'll figure out the next step next.

DeeDee

With regard to DeeDee's comments on handwriting - my DD skipped two thirds of what you would call K, into first. Into a 1/2 composite in fact. If her handwriting AND her writing was not the worst in her class, it was certainly close to it. One year later, despite a diagnosable handwriting disability, both her handwriting AND her writing are well above grade level (spelling, paragraphing, punctuation, handwriting, beginning-middle-end, etc). I worked 10 mins a day (school days) on handwriting with her at home instead of doing reading homework, given reading was clearly taking care of itself. The writing development came purely from whatever they discussed in the classroom (and reading of course), I gave absolutely no writing instruction of any kind at home.

I see handwriting and writing as something that you can totally "hothouse" (fairly minimally) and make massive strides with at this age (assuming there is no reason to believe he has an actual problem in this area).