Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional DD4 at school

I went this morning to watch DD4 at her Montessori School for a couple of hours. Let me describe what happened and then please tell me what do you think it is wrong.

So we enter her classroom and she goes to pick up a mat to play something on the floor. She thinked for a little and then chosed an activity where you have to arrange color tablets from darkest to lightest. She started to arrange the purple ones, but not in the right order. The teacher comes and asks her to put them in order and help her a bit with the purple one. Then she goes away and DD then proceeds to arrange the blue ones out of order. I ask her 'are they arranged from darkest to lightest?' and she tells me 'yes' even though I can see in her face she knows perfectly well that they are not. She knows the colors (in Spanish) since she was 2 yr old and I am pretty certain she can arrange them by hues (sp?). Yet she pretended not to be able. She took almost all the tablets out of the box but still show no interest to do the activity as required. I thought that there was very little point in doing something she does not want and that does not teach her anything new so I asked her 'do you really want to do it or not?'. She tells me no and that she wants to sit at the table where the cutting and pasting is done.
She had to wait a little because there can be only 6 children at the same time. In the meantime she started to climb the tables and jump and being quite restless.
While doing the color activity she was quite distracted, looking at what other kids were doing.

Once she was able to sit at the 'manualitys' (is this english?) table she was a much happy camper, but not an enthousiastic one. There was the teacher's aide helping the kids and directing them to do a 'schwartze Pete' ('black Peter' the helper of Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) - kind of Dutch Santa. She tried to engage the help of the teacher's aide, asking her to do part of the cutting, etc.

In the meantime I just look around the classroom. Most of the activities are 'concrete' and hands-on. However, in reading and maths they can go quite 'deep' if they choose so. At the end of this two years (when they are 6) they should for example be able to count until 10 and do basic addition and substraction. However, there are activities to count until 100 and of course they could do larger addition and substraction.
The same goes with reading: they sould know letters and phonemas, but if they learn faster and want to actually read book, there are in the classroom.


I have the feeling that her problem is that in many aspects she has the knowledge of a 4-5 yr old but her mind operates like a 7ish yr old one.
If she knew how to read and count I would consider puting her in the next group, together with children aged 6 to 9.
But she does not and I wonder how the activities could be modified to appeal DD4.

When I usually pick her up she looks like a candle that is going off. There is no enthousiasm.

By the way, legally speaking I am only obliged to put her in school at age 5. This year I could still 'homeschool' her. But I do not know if this would be more confusing, first try school 3 months, then stoping and then going back 9 months later.

What do you think?

Good Job Isa!

How did you feel?
Accepting of the "Montessori - We Will Guide You!" in action, or furious? Accepting of the "please help me, I'm so weak" act, or furious?

Did you get a chance to look at her during reading and writing? Did the other children read the books or is that considered "social suicide" as my DS likes to say?

Can you put her in the old kid room for a trial?

Is she learning anything that you want her to learn, I mean besides "I have to be sneaking to have myself."

For the record. I think pulling her to homeschool could be confusing, but that would probably be worth it is she isn't getting a darn thing out of school. Does she enjoy the other children?

At this age, it's all about enjoyment. If they aren't having fun learning or socializing, I think that's a preety clear sign that it isn't a good fit.

Do they read aloud to the class? If so, is the level of book that they choose anywhere near appropriate? One big advantage of homeschooling in my eyes would be to read to her books that she wants to hear, and your old favorites. I read "Wrinkle in Time" to my DS at age 4 and he just loved it. I believe that's a safe way of "pushing" her in the reading direction. You certainly want her in that older class when she 'has' to be in school at 5.

Do they have Steiner/Waldorf schools in your area?

Regards,
Trinity

Confused.


Two of the kids were actually reading, and it was not at all 'social suicide'.
But DD4 does not even know the alphabet! She is learning it in two languages though...



I do not know, I would have to talk to the principal, but without knowing at least the letters and to count until 10 I do not think the principal is going to agree,

I just wanted to add that in the classroom she does not look bright or extra-intelligent.

I wish her to learn Dutch,not just the language but the culture as well. And of course numbers and letters at least.

I think that the problem is not so much lack of new things to learn, but that she thinks very different from typical 4 yrs old kids.


yes and no... she does enjoy the company of the other girls and has been invited to their house a couple of times and she has invited two of them to our house. So this is ok. BUT, I can see how the pretend play of the other kids is much simpler than the one of DD. For example, she takes up to 50 little figures (warriors, princeses, animals, horses...) and organize them in a set up like a theather, with quite a story and several sub-stories and interactions btw the differents characters. I honestly do not see her classmates doing this. So at the end of the visit DD is still missing something. When she plays with the friend she simplifies her game.


The problem is that I read her in Spanish. And lately I do not have many oportunities to read because DS comes to 'play' and to 'read' ... And no, he does not sleep either. And when she leaves DD and me in peace, then he is trying to get to some interesting places like inside the chimeny or on top of the bookshelf.

Argh! I miss my mom to give me a hand.



No that I know of. What is their philosophy?

What I like of the Montessori is the mixed age groups and that you can learn at your own pace. In theory as well...


Ditto!

I just wanted to add that the activity DD chosed, she did it once with the teacher.
I think she choosed it because either she hope that she would have again interaction with the teacher or because she thinks that this is what is expected of her.

The teacher says that she wants DD to make the activity (or any other) on her own at least once, but DD always refused and pretends she cannot.

Isa,
If you can say without revealing too much, I'm going to need a scorecard here.
Your Daughter speakes Dutch in school, and they read stories in Spanish. Do they use Spanish throughout the day? Are the stories "Chapter Books" or "See Dick run?" Can you get ahold of "audiobooks" in your Primary Language? Then you and DD and DS could snuggle during reading time.

What do you and other adults speak at home?

Do she know any letters in either languge (which ones?)
Does the school notice the depth of her play? Is it worth making a video of one of her productions to show them, or at least keep as a keepsake.

Has it already been suggested to check her vision, both acuity and muscle control? Does she seem to be learning the letters when the teachers teach them? Does she do better when you do it verbally? "Dear, what makes the "ffff" sound?" I have heard that for Bilingual kids they start slower and catch up all at once.

This is a tough one. How does she feel about going to school? If you keep her home, could you hire a tutor to be her friend and help with the letters?

Sincerely,
Trinity

Hi,

I am Spanish, my husband is German and we live in The Netherlands. At home, I speak Spanish to DD and DS and DH speaks to them in German.
DH and me speak English. Well, I do espeak espanglish

DD's school is all in dutch.

more later, now I have to go

((Off Topic Alert))

Hola Isa!
I espeak espanglish tambien. ((grande smile))
Are there any favorita writers about gifted who are primo-ly writing in Spanish?

I'm a native english speaker, but my Mother was very into using Latin based words instead of the Anglo-Saxon words. When I started my current job, where espanglish is the main language, I felt so 'at home' because I could stop translating my mental "Latin-based English" into "Angle-Saxon-based English" and just shift my prononciation a bit. I could stop worrying that if I used the first word that came to mind I would sound pretensious. What a treat! I guess this belongs under "Gifted Baggage."

Ok, back to Topic, DD4.
golly! She is not bilingual - She is Trilingual. She is talking Dutch to her friends? (I'll bet she knows some English words also - make that Quatralingual, no?) Good for her! What does she think about all the talking? Does she have words for how each groups talks? I know nothing about this, but there must be an internet group of "raising multilingual children" out there, some experts would be nice also!

Perhaps if she isn't talking about it, you could get her talking about the whole thing by asking about this in relation to her little brother. What "taling" does he understand best? Which of his words belong to which "talking" - does she think he will learn more Spanish first or more Dutch?

I would ask to sit down with the school and request that she be allowed to spend some time with the older kids and see if that helps. An alternative is to keep her home longer, but tell me, are you trying to teach her to read in Dutch? Is that her strongest language?

Smiles,
Trinity

Hi Isa,
My dd is in a two-way immersion program in the US. One thing that I have learned having my child in that program is that children learn the process of how to read once. After that they simply apply the process to a different language. If your daughter is stronger in Spanish, you may want to consider homeschooling her for a few months to focus on learning to read in Spanish. My dd could already read in English before beginning her education in Spanish. This made learning Spanish easier especially since Spanish is a more phonetically consistent language. Spanish is probably one of the easiest languages to learn to read in because of the consistency. I am not familiar with German or Dutch, but English is a difficult language in which to teach reading because there are so many exceptions to the rules and it includes so many words from other languages.

Summer

Now that boths DD and DS are sleeping (fingers crossed) I can type a litte

I do not think that the teacher realises at all how intelligent DD is. I think she thinks DD is bright, but she obviously lacks experience with HG kids. She is very well meaning and speaks in terms of 'understanding DD' not in 'fitting in' so I am hopeful that I can educate her. The problem is that I do not know either how and why DDs mind works.

About the deepness of her pretend play, they cannot see it because they do not have so many toys and none of these figures.
(http://www.papo-france.com/Collection.asp)
Besides, when she is with other kids she lowers the complexity, or she plays one her own and everything happens in her head.

About reading: all the literature in bilingual education and all the bilingual people I know point to sequential learning to read. First in one language and then apply the process to the next. However, both DH have the gut feeling that this would not apply to DD and that she would learn all four languages at the same time. As times passes this is being confirmed. For example I have her full attention when I explain to her that each language uses the same letters but the names and the sound they make are different from one language to the other.

She does by the way have very poor eye tracking, and I start to think that this is interfering with the reading.

But maybe Texas, you are right and I should push a little with the eSpanish.
At least there I do not have accent and my grammar is impecable

Isa,
What language does she speak "best?" Has her Dutch caught up to her Spanish and German? Can you tell if she thinks in a particular language? Are the books they read in class in Dutch, and what level are they? Deep enough to be interesting?

At our daycare, when DS was 3 or 4, there was a big deal made of "Dr. Suess Week" - and every day the parents came and read a story. Of course I let DS choose, and he chose "Horton Hears a Who." Every verse I read, he sat on my lap and then "translated" the hard words for his classmates. He used the same tone of voice I used when translating for him. I felt exposed and mortified. I though my son was being bossy and innapropriate. I looked for the teachers for cues, thinking to guide my DS to "shut up." The teachers though it was wonderful that DS was "kind enough" to translate for his friends. The other kids sat quietly, without a glimmer behind the eyes of any kind. ((shake)) I was still in denial about his GT, my GT, and my internal alarm system was going off at full blast. If this keeps up - we are going to be discovered as different and hated! Nothing seemed to change, but I was sweating! Afterwards the teacher thanked me, and it slipped out in conversation that the other parents had read, "Hop on Pop" "One Fish, Two Fish." It just didn't make sense to me that a parent would "waste" time reading such a simple book to a child.

Now I understand that the other parents were naturally responding to who their child is, just as I was responding to who my child was.

Hope that helps,
Trinity

The best by far is Spanish, followed by German and then Dutch which is catching up but has still to improve. She understands a lot but lacks 'active' vocabulary when speaking.


She thinks in all three languages but the most common is Spanish.

The books that I saw in her class look to me deep enough. That DD likes them, that I do not know. I think I will ask the teacher for a list of books that her private Dutch teacher can read at home with her. If they are too simple, I can always use them for D(16months) .



I just went to amazon to see an excerpt of these books ... ehem... One fish two fish is the kind of book I read DD when she was 1ish!

When she was two I read to her the stories of Frog and Toad of Arnold Lobel (translated in Spanish of course) and "La visita de Osito" (http://www.amazon.com/Visita-Osito-...mp;s=books&qid=1196873798&sr=1-2).
She really loved them.

Now I do not read her (almost) at all



Oh yes!

Thanks!

Isa

Isa,
I had an idea. I reccomend you try to set up some playdates with girls from the school who are in the older class. Then you can see if she will "play up" with the older girls, and maybe she will feel inspired to learn her Dutch letters so she can be like those girls.

As for home efforts, follow up on the vision issues is important. Does she know the "Alfabet Song?" I'm wondering if some "Sesame Street" videos in Spanish to learn the letters are availible. I like the idea of teaching her to read in Spanish at home, yourself or a tutor. Sounds like your baby is a handful. Of course at this age I think most are. I remember that when things got very quiet, and I could only hear heavy breathing from the next room, that was a sure sign of trouble - what I remember most is seeing every one of my shoes piled up on the closet floor. Not very sinister, but the sound of consentration was remarkable!

Smiles,
Trinity

Trinity,

actually I was thinking to ask the teacher to introduce DD to a couple of girls from the next group that share similar interests than DD (crafts and prentend play). You are reading my mind LOL!

I think that for the letters the main barrier is her poor vision skills, but to address this problem I first have to convince her that eye exercises are not intended to 'change' her at all. She has an obvious interest in learning the letters but becames easily tired when we play with them.

Hopefully, when we are in Spain this Christmas, the psycologist will be able to help on that.

I will also look for Sesame Street (Barrio Sesamo in Spanish) in Spain as well and see if DD likes them. There are certainly SS videos (well DVDs) in Spanish, but I do not know if they have the letters. But worth to check it defititively.

If you think that DD is a handful... wait and see DS LOL!
He is certainly more independent but then I have to go after him to see where is he climbing, or which cabinet is he emptying ... When he is doing something he know he should not he is VERY silent LOL.

Coming back to DD: I asked her yesterday once more about the school and she told me that the activities she had to do were very easy when she was with the teacher, but when she had to do them alone, then she did not like them.
I think that she is given very simple things to do that do not teach anything new so she has no incentive to do them alone. Why on earth should she do something that is boring, does not give her a sense of accomplisement and on top of that she has to do it alone?
I wonder, if she would be given a task/activity which were quite difficult for her and for which she needed the help of the teacher for at least 2 or 3 times before attempting it on her own.
I am almost certain than when she starts to get it she will be willing to work alone or with a minimal interaction.

The only problems with my beautiful solution are, on one hand that this requires extra attention from the teacher (even though at least it will be not a lost of time for both) and that DD is underachieving and may resist anything that requires any effort.

Any comments on this?

Hard to do could certianly mean - "difficult to force myself to do." At 4 one isn't ususally expected to have this kind of fortitude.

I strongly reccomend the book "Why Bright Kids get Poor Grades." by Sylvia Rimm. she talks about this in detail.

Best wishes with the Christmas trip.

As for eye exercises - is she bribe-able? It seems a shame that she has to do them with you at home - isn't there a therapist who is trained at making it fun.

A different idea is to make yourself to them in some obvious way, and complain, "My eyes, my eyes, "They are so tired." "
Do the excersizes and say, "My eyes, they feel better and stronger now."
"But I don't want to sit by myself and do these, can you sit with me and do them with me?"
Then, when you are playing catch, "I'm so proud of my eyes, look how good they are since I practiced!"

She may see right through it, but I'll bet she will appreciate the effort! Who wouldn't? And she probably has an amazing sence of pride, that may have her stuck in a corner she can't get out of, so seeing you clown may be enough to gently move her out of that corner.

Of course you don't have time, and it might take months and months, ((shrug)) but what choice do you have?

Trinity

Perhaps a little bit of Theatre is called for?

Hi,

I saw the teacher today (I mean, spoke) and I told her what I thought about giving DD more challenging tasks and she seemed to understand and to see my point. She told me that she will see what she can do.

About the 'theater play' on the eye exercises... I have to be very careful on that one because I think that DD was getting into a depresion 'thanks' to the behavioral optometrist that we were seeing. But once she is sure that I love her no matter what, I think it is a good idea actually.

Opps Isa -
I forgot about that horrible unprofessional experience! Sorry! Did that bad lady ever send a written appology? There needs to be some closure here so your family can move on! Your dd needs that kind of help, but not from such a person!

Yo no se,
Trinity

I hope the teacher comes through - that would be excellent!
and the playdates with the older girls might work well too.
T

Hi Trinity,

I never told the bad lady why exactly we did stop the therapy. I was (well, still am) so angry that I though I would loose control.


I am toying with the idea of going to France to get the eye therapy. The problem is that I would have to stay there for about 6 weeks with the two kids, but without DH

that sounds fun! Another language to soak up!

I still want you to tell the bad lady, and "tell on" the bad lady. Write it if you can't say it civilly, but do ask for that written appology. I think your daughter deserves a written appology. Maybe it will inspire her to learn to read - ((wink))

Smiles,
Trinity

Trinity,

If my hubby could stay with us I would not hesitate one moment. I have been living in Paris for 5 years and I would love to visit back once more.
The problem is that 6 weeks without DH would be too much for me and for the kids, espcially the kids. He is travelling a lot, and when not, he arrives late, when they are already in bed and DD is less than happy with seeing so little of her dad.

About the 'bad lady' I guess one day I will have to confront her, but I have no intention of letting her write or talk to DD at all. She has done enough damage.

Isa,
dud! you have her write a letter and you read it before you give it to dd to make sure it's appropriate. Get moving on this. I bet you anything that if you wrote the letter telling the truth, dd would do her eye excersizes. You don't have to say a word, these kids can read us like books. Just assume dd can read your mind.

As for DH, can you come home on weekends?
Trinity