Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments How much time do you give the teacher?

I met with the teacher last week and voiced our concerns about ds and how easy the work was for him. How long should I wait before seeing some evidence of differentiation? The completed work being sent home shows no evidence nor does the homework. At the very least I was hoping she would pull aside ds and assess his reading ability and substitute a better fit. But he still has the rhyming book from three weeks ago that was sent home. When I asked him about the library and if he checked a book out she told him not to go above a 1.5. Ds is more than happy to pick a 1.5 level because it means he can ace the AR test and please her. I told her that I wanted him to be challenged and to please be aware he will try to dumb himself down to gain acceptance and praise.

I am grasping for straws looking for any effort on her part to address ds's academic needs. Even a note sent home or email letting me know she was thankful for our meeting and is working on it. Am I asking too much since it was only a week ago? Part of me hopes I am, because dh wants a grade skip to be immediate if this isn't working out so I am feeling some pressure.

I think if you want the teacher to assess his reading level and assign him AR books from that level, you need to specifically ask her to do that. In my experience, just asking for your child to be challenged will not get results. You need to be very specific about what you are asking for. And somehow, you need to ask for it in a way that doesn't sound like you are dictating to the teacher. Advocacy is a tricky balancing act!

Re: the grade skip. Schools hardly ever do anything "immediately" so start working in this direction now. You are laying the groundwork by asking for differentiation and assessments. Hopefully, the school will conclude that the gradeskip is the easiest option for them.

Exactly. And while you are asking, try a "so, around when do you think that could be put into effect?"

At least you know what you'll be dealing with....

Gimity

I did bring up that he is reading chapter books and she assured me that she would find books in the AR program at his level. I guess I need to pop in and ask more specifically with a time line, like you all suggested.

I think I know the answer, but if I can't get her to do an easy differentation like finding the right reading level. I am most likely going to hit more brick walls. I was hoping to avoid pushing for a grade skip but knew in my gut this was the way things needed to go.

Could you ask the librarian for the list of AR books (some schools have their list on line) and then you and your DS can choose books he thinks sound interesting.

So are they assigning levels based on their grade level only? Our school always did the STAR testing first and used that to assign AR levels. Sometimes it took a while to get everyone registered and on the system, so there could be a hold up at the beginning of the year. But if the kids are already able to take AR tests, then it should be pretty easy to get the STAR test done. The STAR test is just a multiple choice vocabulary test, so it's not the be-all and end-all of reading tests, but it has still been an eye-opener for many of us.

Since you have 'pinged' the teacher once on this already, you might need to wait a couple weeks so as not to offend her...then if you don't see any changes, definitely go in with the more specific questions. I would not wait more than a couple of weeks, though...surely that should be enough time for the ship to change course at least a little!
I have asked about ds's spelling words already this year; just noted to the teacher that he knew the list when he got them and asked if assessing was continuing and whether he could get more challenging words (if results from this indicated a bump up).
I got a pretty specific answer about a couple areas he had a problem with on the 1st assessment, which was good info, but I felt ok about my original statement which was: he knows these words already.
There is more assessing going on, and the teacher sounded very flexible, so I am feeling ok with this for now.