Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy so we had our meeting with the teacher last week

We were quite happy with the efforts the Mrs Teacher is putting on DD.... but I am a little worried that she seems a little bit lost on how to teach DD. The school got an outside counselor who is specialized in gifted children and who observed DD in the classroom and gave 'helpful' hints to Mrs Teacher. She said that the reading was difficult enough and to not increase the difficulty. But she did not said anything about how repetitive the method is. Apparently DD can read difficult words and explain them but gets lost in a simple sentence because she is still sounding out words. I have the feeling that this is rather boredom. As well, DD would like to read books like (simplified) Narnia, or Heidi and not the silly books that they are reading now (full of unrelated simple sentences). Apparently in the 20 minutes of quiet reading she tells herself a complete novel based on the pictures but does not try to read.

Well, at least Mrs Teacher agreed that DD could take whatever book she likes for the reading time, even if this is ahead of what DD can actually read, but she wants to see DD motivated to read.

And for maths, both Mrs Counselor and Mrs Teacher agreed that DD needs more advanced work. Mrs Teacher has done a special workbook for DD to work upon. I looked into it and it was all sums and subtractions, most below 10-12 and some up to 20....

I mentioned to her that maybe DD would love to have some more abstract maths, like geometry or set theory, etc. Again, the counselor did not suggested anything like that...

I asked if it was possible to put DD in next grade for mathematics but it is not really possible because the timetables for each grade are different so DD would miss some other lesson.

I was thinking to suggest that DD does Rainforest Maths since they have computers and internet at the classroom. The problem is that the site is in English, which is the weakest language and I do not want to push English reading yet...
Maybe I can do some exercises with her at home and then she can work independently in the classroom....

Anyway, would you seek other counselor privately? We would have to pay for that one.

Coming back to the reading, we are all at lost about how to teach/motivate her to read... any suggestions?

I hope this is not confusing, this looks like a lot of rambling...

Hi Isa,
I'm glad to see that they are trying! Yippee!

Math is just plain tough. I wonder if Decarte's cove has language settings?

Maybe they could bring the work from the higher grade down to her?

As for reading, here in the US our local library has a very extensive selection of audio works on cassette and CD. I would work on letting her listen to wonderful stories in her various languages to keep the love of reading alive. They even have some 'book and CD' packages where she can look at the pictures and words and listen at the same time. There is a small 'beep' telling her to turn the page. Perhaps she can do this at school during reading time, or at home with brother.

We also have a toy 'leap pad' that looks like a big book, but the harder words are 'activatable' with a stylus, for pronounciation, so that she can read interesting stuff more independently. Appologies, I don't know what other languages this comes in, but I would be suprised if there isn't Spanish.

For that matter, there is a pen shapped device that one can use to highlight a word and hear it aloud.

Maybe if DD does next year's math in her classroom this year, the school can plan for the year after that to have all the Math classes at once. Schools that do this often do it first thing in the morning, right after attendence is taken.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Somebody posted this last week some time....can't remember who or what thread, but it seems pretty cool. They recommended it and it seems to be in multiple languages:

http://www.mathletics.com/

Not entirely sure if it's a full curriculum or just supplement - I think it looked pretty full when I peeked last week.

I think you can do ALEKS math in Spanish.
ALEKS

Hi thanks,

I like 'mathletics' but neither this or Aleks says anything about other languages.

Apparently mathletics will have rainforestmaths for free.

I think I will talk to the teacher to see what she thinks anyway.

There is as well some kind of consultant that provides enrichment packages for gifted kids in elementary schools. The person in charge is the mom of three HG+ children, so she obviously has some first-hand experience.
Would you hire this kind of services? I think their bill will easily go up to 500 euros, so they are not exactly cheap.

from http://www.aleks.com/news#

04/29/2008 - ALEKS Course Products Now Bilingual for Grades 3-11
We are pleased to announce the completion of the ALEKS bilingual course library for grades 3-11. ALEKS bilingual course products allow students to toggle between English and Spanish mathematics content with the click of a mouse. To view the ALEKS course products with bilingual content, please log in to your ALEKS account or sign up for a 5-day free trial.

Does that help? It's not free, but it is not outrageously priced either. I think it is $100 for 6 monhts or $180 for 1 year.

Hi Squirt,

I am afraid this will not help because DD is in grade 1... I am looking for material for grade 1 and 2. Otherwise the jump is too high, even if I think DD would be perfectly capable of doing maths at grade 3 level.

As well, I remember when I was a child a loooooong time ago, I was taught set theory and we started at grade 1. I am sure DD would love it, as I did, but I cannot find anything appropriate. I find material that is for much older children or even adults.

I asked the teacher if DD could be put in grade 2 just for maths, but that cannot be because the timetables are completely different so DD would miss something else while she is in grade2-maths and still would have to listen to grade1-lessons.

Isa,
My DD8 is doing 4th grade math while in 3rd grade. She misses reading, so she makes up her 3rd grade reading while her teacher does the 3rd grade math lesson with the rest of the class. It's not ideal since DD8 loves reading and hates missing it (not to mention making her more of an outsider to her classmates), but she loves 4th grade math, so it's worth it to her. Have you considered trying such an arrangement? If you and she are OK with the downfalls, you may be able to talk the school into trying it at least for a test period.