Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional DRA Question

The school that I was talking about earlier which told me they like to hold back kids and not let them progress too far with levels, told me that they assess in the fall and assess in Jan. or Feb. The principal was very proud of this new guided reading program they just started, like it is doing such a big service to kids. Assess a kid and then assess again 4 months later? Are they assuming a kid will stay at one level for FOUR WHOLE MONTHS? It would be better to drop the whole thing and let kids choose what they are comfortable reading rather than keep them at a level until they finally get around to assessing again.

Another district that I talked to said they had leveled reading, but they assess kids every two weeks or so. It's a different program, Read Well or something like that.

This is terrible. I think part of it is logistics -- maybe a class just can't support an advanced reader by having a reading group all to themselves (or a tiny percentage of the class) ? At my child's school, reading is tied to reading comprehension and writing (outlines/main ideas etc), so he gets dinged on writing (does the bare minimum) while he is actually very good at reading (reading + comprehension+ retelling)

By the 3rd or 4th term of kindergarten, I started sending 'my own materials' for him (DS now 8) to read in class and with the teacher. For the first two terms, I think he got most of his materials from the year 2 classrooms, choosing for himself.

In terms of 'my own materials', they were books from the school library (I went and personally checked them out), public library, my home library (I have another son 3+ years older) and bookstores. At the end of the year, the teacher brought in a huge bag of books for him to borrow over the summer which belonged to her son (who was 5 years older than mine)! What a lovely teacher :-) I just started year 1 using this approach and have not looked back.

At times I have been frustrated with needing to do this myself. The private school, I am paying big money for should be meeting his needs but we all know that regularly doesn't happen. Rather than the spend my time advocating and arguing with them, I've found it much easier to just help my son myself.