Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Is there something I'm missing?

My dd is in 2nd grade and gifted.

I just walked out of her teacher conference and I'm sort of stunned. Basically it summed up to her comprehension and reading levels did not match (she was only tested to 6th grade) and on the reading she got 100 percent and on the decoding she passed at 5th grade with a 70 percent. So her teacher said she is lacking in reading comprehension. I asked her if she talked to dd about the books she reads in her free time and was told that it wasn't a form of acceptable evaluation and she didn't have time (she teaches 15 children).

But the nuts and bolts of the conversation is that d dis not a go-getter, she finishes her work late (I inquired if it was late or average and she hesitated and said average). She is not motivated to complete the work quickly for more work (aka enrichment work).

It turns out that it doesn't matter what level she is reading, she would still need to follow the curriculum. eventually there will be reading groups and she will be paired with a boy who finishes his work quickly who is almost at the same level but she doesn't think dd will work faster (almost said as though she will hold him back).

I guess I'm wondering if something is wrong with dd. She knows the answers but doesn't perform enough for the teacher to really care.

Should I even bother encouraging her to work faster?

I guess I'm disheartened. She loves learning at home and reading and discussing her books with me. Why does there seem to be such a disconnect at school?

I certainly don't think that you should encourage your daughter to work faster in that setting. Do you have any idea of your daughter's Level of Giftedness (LOG) ? That might shed some light on what is going on at school - but what you describe is normal and expected in a child that is attending classes that are quite a bit below her 'readiness level.'

I do think that you should insist that your daughter be tested beyond the 6th grade level in both 'reading' and 'decoding.' I don't understand how decoding at 70% is a 'comprehension' problem, and I'll bet that's a little mistake on the teacher's part.

I would send a letter in writting that you are concerned that your daughter may have a learning disability that is causing her to 'finish her work late' and request an evaluation. The evaluation should find out your daughters actual strengths so that you can see if there is something wrong. Do I think that there actually is something wrong with your daughter? NO. But in most schools this is the 'way in.'

Is this a private school? 15 class size is really small for a public school.

Best Wishes and keep us posted,
grinity

Yes, it's a private school. I was unclear. The test was both a reading and comprehension test. She read perfectly on both but score 70 on the 5th grade test in comprehension and only got one answer correct on the 6th grade. I think the teacher gave her the booklet, had her read it aloud, and then took the booklet and asked her the questions orally and removed the text from dd.

The stories were on the longish side, maybe 5-6 pages long with a smaller font. I think she was so afraid of making a mistake when reading it aloud she was just processing the words, she was probably very anxious about reading for a new teacher.

I do think that reading aloud is harder to comprehend. Still, 6th grade level in 2nd grade is very good. I'm guessing she is bored out of her gourd 99% of the time at school. Can you get in there and observe?
Can you also request to sit in on a 3rd grade class, so you can get an idea of how far above the rest of the crowd your DD is?

How much info do you have about your daughter's giftedness?

Smiles,
Grinity

Is she maybe bored with the reading that she has to do at school?

I have always found that I can read aloud quite fluently and expressively while thinking about something completely different. My DS6 recently commented independently that he has noticed this about himself as well. I think that this is not an uncommon phenomenon, so the first thing I would wonder (and ask about) is whether your DD's teacher has also tested her comprehension on passages that she has been allowed to read silently. Also, was your daughter allowed to read (i.e. see) the test questions herself or were they asked of her orally? For some people, it's much easier to process what they've seen than it is to process what they've only heard, and this would obviously confound the comprehension test results for your dd.

There have been a couple of threads here in the past few months that discussed processing speed and slowness. If you run a search on processing speed, you'll pull up some threads that might be relevant.