Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School update on off to a rough start

Well, it has been an interesting beginning to the year. DD5 hated school for the first couple of weeks, for lots of different reasons, but then she started going to phonics lab in the mornings to improve her reading (she could read butterfly but not boat sort of stuff). She was happy going for about 2 weeks, then she was bored and thought it too easy etc etc. She no longer wanted to go to school anymore - the whole nine yards. We talked to the teacher and she said she would be going to phonics lab for at least a few more months, to which I said "that's not going to happen - she will not make it that long without something changing. Well, the phonics teacher and her classroom teacher talked along with the principal. The next day I see the teacher when I went to pick her up and she expresses concern that DD is not only not ready to move ahead, but is struggling with classwork! I asked what indication she had of this, her response: she is no longer the first one finished and is asking questions about her work before she answers the questions! We discussed that speed is not necessarily an issue of not understanding, but is probably an issue of no longer wanting to be the teacher's helper everyday in everything. And the many questions is more than likely her perfectionism coming out. All of which the teacher immediately dismissed! She did say that if we really pushed she could be moved up, but it would be against her wishes. How can the stories of what is going on in class be so different between a child and a teacher?
Fast forward to the next week - I am told she will be tested again on her core knowledge the following week and that is when they will make a decision about her placement. By the end of the week DD is telling me that she has already had the test again and it was really easy?! (A week early?) When DH went to bring her to phonic's lab the next week they were told that she is no longer in phonics lab, but is in reading lab and will be going to 1st grade for reading now during the day.
I am happy with the end result here, so far, but am completely confused about how this school is working. (And I work here, so I should have a clue about what is going on.)
So, at the moment DD is happy again at school, loves going to 1st grade reading and is only concerned about the science that they are not doing in class.
Hopefully this upward trend continues.

How odd. I'm glad it's working out now and she's happy. Interesting (and disturbing) how teachers and parents can see the same kid and the kid's needs and abilities so differently.

Well I'm glad she is happy for now. And it is good they ate doing things. Is it possible that the teacher is at odds with whoever has to approve moves/changes etc. Some teachers seem to be offended at the suggestion that they can't cater for the child even though they are refusing to do so. They basically seem to think the child should take what they offer and be grateful.

It is amazing how a teacher can interpret "I am no longer able to pretend enthusiasm for this because I am too disillusioned" as not being able to do the work or in some cases as being an improvement ("they have settled down a lot - they no longer call out and they don't rush the work anymore - they are fine now").

Yes, I think it is partly this - she was put in this teacher's class because this teacher apparently worked with the gt kids at the school the last 2 years so the head of school thought it would be the best placement. Seeing how rigid she is with DD, I can't imagine how she was as a GT specialist teacher.
After a rough Monday morning, complete with DD in tears over not wanting to go to school until it was challenging, we talked with the 1st grade reading teacher about her dislike of school. This teacher was great - she talked to DD rather than to me asking her what it was about school she didn't like and even came up with a plan for DD to help her explain to us what the issues actually are at school, rather than just "its too easy". She gave DD a sticky note pad and told her to write down a little note every time something at school was too easy so we could have a conversation with her regular teacher about what is going on. So, for the last 2 days DD has been actually thinking about what specific things are bothering her and writing them down on these little pieces of paper. We are collecting them, getting some more details about the items on them so that Monday, which is coincidentally parent teacher conference day, we can talk about it with her teacher.
It is very interesting - she couldn't explain the issue when asked, but now that she has been given the idea of trying to remember specific things and writing them down, she is very detailed and specific about it all.
This 1st grade teacher also said she was open to DD going up to her class for math as well as reading, at least on a trial basis to see if that helped also. (We'll bring this up on Monday too.)

Well, conference was Monday and while it didn't go too badly, it was interesting to see how uncomfortable the teacher was during it. We got to see DD's CORE test results - both from the first time she took the test at the beginning of the year and when she took them a couple of weeks ago, but the teacher couldn't (wouldn't?) explain what they mean or their significance. Her score went from a 125 to a 171. The difference being that the second time she had gone through phonics lab and could pronounce more sounds and words than before. When we first asked her about this test we were told that there were 4 kids at DDs level, but they didn't have phonics holes. Now, apparently after the retest, her score is higher than everyone's by about 20 points. That is all we could find out from the teacher when we asked her to put the score into the context of what they expected out of kids in her class and the upper limit of the test.
The teacher asked how things were going for DD now that she was going to 1st grade for reading and when we said things were getting better, but she was still complaining about the math the teacher got really worried. We explained that the biggest issue seems to be that the teacher reads the directions aloud twice and makes the kids do all of the problems together to ensure they get them. This pace was sending DD over the edge. We got the agreement that DD could simply read the directions to herself and do the papers at her own pace and be given an enrichment page when she finished. She was reluctant to do this at first because she doesn't want DD to do a different topic than what the rest of the class is doing because she won't be able to help her with it if everyone else is doing something different from her. So, we decided that harder work within the same topic was fine, but was definitely needed.
Since then we have found out from DD that most of the really frustrating things have been taken away now that she goes to 1st grade for reading because she misses the main frustration activities and now that she can do math at her pace, she is happier as well.
So, it looks like we are moving in the right direction. We now have our fingers crossed that we stay on this path. (Knowing that this fix will only last for a short while, we'll take it while we've got it. )

Thanks for sharing.

We got an early Christmas present yesterday when I picked up DD5 from school. She has been asked if she would like to go to 1st grade full time after break!! Apparently her 1st grade reading teacher got tired of her kindergarten teacher not doing anything to find out her math level and when asked about it saying "I just don't think she needs any more because she makes some mistakes on her work." 1st grade teacher went over her head to the heads of school and told them that DD needed to be in her class so her needs are met!
DD is ecstatic, she was jumping up and down when she told me. She is happy to do the little math catch up we have to do over break to be ready for 1st grade math too.
We are so grateful for this 1st grade teacher to see that DD needed more and wasn't getting it.

Wonderful, Kerry. Merry Christmas, indeed. So glad you shared your good news. Hurrah for your DD, and for great teachers!

What a joy! This is great news. Thanks for sharing. So grateful for the excellent teachers who "get it"! Hopefully others will learn from them. Here's wishing more kids can get their needs met!

Congrats, Kerry! So happy for your dd. hope it is a smooth transition!