Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Bring it up to the teacher?

DS5 is in K, which is relatively academically "advanced" for our area.

He can add and subtract three-digit numbers (and probably beyond). He understands the concept of multiplication, but he doesn’t have the multiplication table memorized.

He has asked me multiple times why the school math homework is so easy. His math homework is mostly number printing, pick out the largest/smallest number from a bunch of numbers, etc.

How important is it to mention to his teacher his ability?

Here maths homework is usually below their instructional level. There are, however unlikely to be many kids adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers. Is homework compulsory or could you just do something else.

His HW is compulsory.

Not sure what, if anything, the teacher could/would do after knowing his ability.

One advice I heard from last year teacher was -- stop teaching your kid advanced topics.

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Well you could stop teaching advanced topics but it wouldn't really solve the problem because you probably only teach the topics to stop him dying of boredom.

There's no reason not to. Just communicate with the teacher straightforwardly with the goal of getting them to get it.

An easy start would be to encouraging your DS to ask his teacher why his homework is so easy.

Also, I find compulsory HW for a 5 year old somewhat amusing... what happens if you don't do it? Or turn in more difficult assignments instead?

If you miss so many HWs, the kid needs to stay after school and do HW then.

Never thought about turning in more difficult assignments. [Light bulb going off...]

Not without parental consent. I'd like to see their legal justification for kidnapping children!

The idea of 5 year olds doing homework is asinine.

5 year olds basically get an after school detention if they don't turn in hw?!

Wow

Is this a charter school, or private? It seems really extreme for a regular run of the mill public school. I would not be ok at all with their homework expectations/policy for such little kids. This school sounds toxic.

When my daughter was in 1st grade if a student had uncompleted homework or seat work the student would be kept in from afternoon recess. (She turns 20 soon, this kind of thing isn't new.) The teachers plan was that then the student could get the work done and get extra help. A bunch of us parents complained because the kids who were being kept in, where the ones who had ants in their pants and needed that recess the most. It was the younger kids, those not quite as mature or had ADHD. Keeping them in from recess made their attention worse not better.

Probably the theory behind the detention is it's not punishment, but extra help. But in your child's case it turns into punishment. I would try talking to the teacher about whether you can substitute alternative homework.

It happens in public schools. My daughter had an appendectomy a while back. Her roommate (same problem) was in kindergarten or first grade. My DD was out after three days/two nights, but this girl had a more serious case, and was stuck in the hospital for 5 or 6 nights. I barely saw her stand up the whole time we were there. Our nights 1 and 2 were nights 3 and 4 for her, so she was pretty ill. She was attached to an IV unit the whole time we were there.

She was doing homework in her hospital bed --- all three days we were there. That tiny little girl was expected to write a journal entry every day (at least one paragraph IIRC), do math worksheets, and so on. It was ridiculous, and her mother told me she went to a local public school. It was a "high achieving" public school, whatever that means.

And to add insult to injury surgery, we were all there during a school vacation.

Our is a private school. It's not a detention per se. The goal of staying after school is to "help" those kids with homework.

I stopped exposing DS to new math materials. Then over the weekend, I spent 5 minutes teaching him how to multiply 2 digits by 2 digits, and he was so excited about learning something new.

I felt like by me stopping to teach DS new materials, I was robbing him of the joy of learning.

How do I explain to a K teacher that my kid is doing 2 digits by 2 digits multiplication while being tactful?

Maybe he could do a problem or two on the back of the nightly homework for a few nights. (It would be interesting to see if the teacher comments on this.)

I think your framing this the wrong way. There's no point trying to inform the teacher unless you want something to change. And the way you keep phrasing things I'm not sure. Do you want acceleration / differentiation etc in school? If so what you really want to do is to start and explore what options already exist in the school and find out how to take advantage of them. Any discussion of your son's ability should be in the context of why he needs additional challenge. If not (which is fine - its only K) then I don't think you need to feel guilty in any way about enriching at home either.

HelloBaby, well, honestly, you can tell the teacher, but you run the risk of her not believing you. Your DS sounds a bit like my DS6, who is now in 1st grade. DS's teacher could tell he seemed pretty bright last year, and made comments to me about it. I also shared stories with her of what he was doing at home, but I usually wondered later whether she thought I was crazy/deluded . Finally, this summer, we went ahead and had him tested. He is now a DYS. The objective data is a bit easier to advocate with than my random observations.

I've decided that "high achieving" is a code phrase for "too much homework."

But isn't it a catch-22? If I don’t let the teacher know DS’ ability, nothing will change.

Given the size of the school (20 students per grade), there is no formal gifted program.

Sadly.

I would say: There is no need to withhold information unless it will hurt the cause.

The problem is, it can almost always hurt the cause, by burning your political capital and making you seem like That Parent.

Is the only realistic way to get any accommodations is via outside help (e.g. formal test, DYS)?

I think all kindergarten teachers like to know that the kids are happy. If the math being easy is making your kid unhappy, I think that is worth bringing up to the teacher. But like others have said, what is your goal? Is the grade level instruction too easy, or just the homework? Do you want to substitute harder homework? Do you want to see if he can go up a grade for math? First figure out what you want, and then go talk with the teacher. I don't think asking for something like the ability to learn new material, just like all the other kids get to do, should make you "That Mom". And who cares if it does? You can be That Mom if it works.

We did this. It only takes 5 minutes or less at this age to teach something that is cool. And the back of the paper is blank. I usually left one unsolved problem on there also. The hard part was getting him to put his name on the paper.