Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Why does this have to be so difficult? (vent)

Excellent news! We'll done! Go Gal Girl!
Please keep us posted
Trin

I'm so happy for you and your daughter. A good teacher is such a blessing.

Another update: Seeing DD do the Grade 4 reading homework has been fascinating! It gives me a glimpse of how quickly she processes new information.

The first night she said the new homework sheet was "maybe a little too hard." On the first attempt, she struggled with 20 out of 80 words. (These were words like: wavered, evidence, spectators, encyclopedia, suspicious.) She was very impatient when I asked her to slow down, go back and sound out a word. I would cover up the unknown word, showing one syllable at a time for her to sound out, and also took time to explain what the word meant. She was impatient with this, too, but grudgingly put up with it.

A few hours later she read the sheet again. This time she only missed 10 out of the 80 words.

The next day after school, I asked her if she had read the sheet to her teacher and if she had told her teacher the words were a little too hard. (That was DD's plan the night before.) She said, "No, I knew almost all of them today. I told her they were easy-ish."

This morning before school, I asked what she wanted for breakfast. She said, "I'll have cereal... no, maybe I'll have eggs... oh but I really like cereal... except eggs have more protein... yeah, but I had eggs yesterday... so I guess I should have cereal...."

Then she smiled and said, "Did you hear that, mom? I was WAVERING."

:-)

Galaxy,

Thanks for sharing!

It really does help to be on the same page with their homeroom teacher. So keep open those lines of communication! I cornered my 1st grader's teacher on open house even before formal classes started, so she was already aware of Lyle's file prior to 1st day of classes. When they began with the book baggy for home reading, she was already sending out level 28-30 books which I gather were mid-grade school level books already (books about volcanoes, caves, etc).

Here's to a great school year for us all...

Another update on DD5:

The Grade 4 reading homework didn't last long, maybe about a week, before the teacher jumped it up to Grade 5. It is definitely challenging for DD! (Sometimes I even have to look twice at some of the words on the reading sheet--like "aquanaut," "contralto," etc.)

Last week the teacher showed me exactly how she does the reading homework so I can help with it when I volunteer. Every child in the class has differentiated reading homework. They each get a page at their level to take home and practice reading, then bring it back the next day and she (or a parent volunteer) sits with them one at a time and listens to them read their page. If they struggle with the words, they take the same page home again for more practice. If they read it fluently, they get a new page(the next lesson in that level). After every fifth lessons, they get a "challenge" page which is another five lessons further ahead. If they can do the challenge page, they start from that new point with the lessons.

I think it's a great system. Much better than the whole class reading the same thing at the same time. This teacher does several different levels of in-class reading groups, too.

With the reading pages, out of 17 kids in the class there were a couple kids reading at K level, the majority at Grade 1, one or two kids at Grade 2... and then there's DD5, a year younger than everyone else, reading Grade 5 lessons. I am thankful for how the teacher has things set up, so DD can do this. It's wonderful to see her actually learning something. And because every child is doing something slightly different, nobody makes a big deal about her working so far ahead.

The day I watched the kids doing their reading homework, after DD read her page and then skipped away, I looked at the teacher and said, "Can you imagine her sitting through a year of traditional first grade level reading?" She said, "No, I really can't!" She also said she's never had a child start first grade reading at this level. So, I do feel that this teacher gets it, and is trying to do whatever she can, within the system, to accommodate DD. We have conferences in a week; I can't wait.

I am new here but I completely understand what you were going through. I would like to find something like that too. I currently homeschool my 6 year old daughter after sending her to first grade for one month and getting completely frustrated. I actually cried after the Open House. I have not had any formal testing for her and I have to get on the ball with that.

My problem was that I went to the school, spoke to the principal and the teachers who deal with gifted children. I showed a second grade teacher what she was doing and she admitted she was advanced. I also spoke to the one in charge of the gifted program for the school system in the county to no avail. They all assured me she would be assessed but when school started, I felt as if no one had communicated. Sure enough, I was right. The teacher had no idea about my daughter being advanced and I thought she did. When I asked if she could read her own books for free reading, I was told "no because she might lose her book." She was reading her 5th Harry Potter book since July. I don't think it would get lost in a first grade classroom. That was my first indication. I also asked the teacher about Accelerated Reader. After one month, the highest they let her go was Amelia Bedelia which she was reading over 2 years ago. They never filled me in on anything that was going on and I grew increasingly frustrated. I will be looking for a school situation similar to the one you found probably next year or for third grade. I am glad you found something like this for you and your child.

Hi Aimeebella,
Welcome!
In some ways you were lucky to reach your frustration point so quickly. Some gifted children are "gifted" in ways that let them figure out what the norms are, and mold their behavior to fit it - scary! Are you in a state with mandated gifted services? Are you active with the local homeschoolers? Have you talked to the local "tutoring and enrichment" centers? Is there a possibility of joining/starting a homeschool co-op in your area?

If you are interested in a gradeskip, have you read the Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual?

You mentioned testing. I'm not sure about the value of testing, since at home you can modify your curricula so easily, and the school only believe their own tests anyway. But if you decide to pursue it, I reccomend two ideas:
1) If you are going the IQ test route: Start with Deb Ruf's book: Losing our Minds, Gifted Children Left Behind. This will give you a rough idea of how picky you should be when looking for an independent IQ tester.
2) If you just want to see where she is in depth, for the purposes of homeschooling more effectivly, I reccomend contacting http://www.nwea.org/assessments/map.asp and looking for a place where you can have your daughter take the MAP. Although this is an emerging test, not widely recognised, I like the idea of it, and the results are so much more useable than something like the Woodcok Johnson Achievment, which is the standard, but of very limited use.

Best Wishes,
Trinity