Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Lower grades related to writing-advocacy

I'd love to hear how others have advocated for more in a program when the lower grades he has are based on writing ability. DS8 is in a full time gifted program and is asking (pleading)for more math and science. He is at a one grade level skip now and the psychologist who tested him indicated that it may not be enough. The writing I see actually does not look that bad and his thoughts are very clear, it just takes him longer than anyone in his class to write.

Our DD4's teacher is allowing and encouraging her to use Dragon Naturally Speaking (software speech to text program) to dictate all her writing assignments. There was not a huge amount of writing in her 1st grade class, but they are accelerating her to the 3rd grade next month, and she will have quite a bit more writing then.

She dictates her assignment into a word document and then prints out her rough draft and edits with pencil and then I go in and make her changes to the document. The teacher then has all the stages of her work, and DD gets the full impact of edits and rewrites without the frustration that 4 year old handwritting can bring to the task. She has great thoughts and can write great poems and stories, but her little hands cannot keep up with her fast moving thoughts.

It maybe something your son could use too.

Clear thoughts are a wonderful thing. I'm wondering if they can just give him more time. He will probably still need less time in other areas, so perhaps he can shift it over?

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Wow - that program must have come a long way since I tried it 5 years ago, but haven't we all!

Which edition of the software are you using, and how powerful is your computer? How many mistakes per sentence does it introduce? Is she mostly editing her own mistakes or the ones introduced by the software?

Thanks JewelsJC!

Thank you everyone! His teacher says it's both. She can see him flying around with ideas and then taking longer to complete the pencil to paper portion. She has been giving him longer to complete assignments and when he does assignments at home, he and I talk about everything and then he makes bullet points and then writes. Hopefully, the practice will help increase his speed. We're also awaiting the mail for a keyboarding program.

His teacher seemed reluctant to discuss math advancement when he was behind in writing (Everyday Math), but he's been upset that he was told 'you have to wait for the rest of the class' when he's flying past them in computations. Any suggestions?

Everyday Math is KILLING ME!!!! If anyone is familiar with it the main concepts are based on repetition (learning and then going back to those previously learned concepts) and also explaining orally and and in writing how you get the answer! My son (4th grade) just knows the answers but has been penalized and put down by the teacher for not being able to orally or in writing express his answer (however, he gets 100% on all his tests and this includes an open ended question at the end). She keeps saying to me, even at his conference that he still can not do this???? So Everyday Math and writing assignments have definitely caused a dilemma when advocating for him (don't they think they should be perfect at everything?). I haven't been able to make an impact on the school and I've been fighting like crazy for the past year or more. It has actually gotten worse over the last year as they have taken away the G&T program and replaced it with an academically talented program which consists of all Language Arts (writing etc)enrichment - I was told that the future leaders of our country are going to be left brained (am I correct that that is not the math and science side??) WHERE IS THE MATH AND SCIENCE FOR ALL OF THESE CHILDREN WHO NEED AND ARE BEGGING FOR IT? I just don't understand. Our school would NEVER accommodate the way JewelsJC's school is. You are very lucky and I am very proud of your school for wanting to foster the strengths in your child. I would love to hear of other success stories. Unfortunately, my fight is beginning wane (well I say that now but I know I won't give up ;)).

Grinity - Version 10.1 is out now, and I think it has grown leaps and bounds over the last 8 years. She does edit her own mistakes as well as some introduced by the software, however, those introduced by the software have been great teaching moments on identifying homophones. LOL. The more the software is used, the more it learns her style and reduces the amount of software mistakes.

She has been using the software on my fully loaded laptop, however, we are going to purchase a fully upgraded pc2go (love the touch/tablet and waterproof keyboard feature) for her to start using and DH has assured me that the software will run just fine on it too. We shall see. :-)

Jules726 - we too are very proud of our school and the teachers in it. We have actually had to be persuaded by the teachers to accelerate our DD, we have been dragging our feet, and not wanting a 4 year old in 3rd grade. They have been patient with us and have been politly explaining DD's frustration with their own math curriculum (K12 & Sadlier Oxford) as her being bored and already knowing the grade level material. After enrolling DD in the EPGY program, it has given me the paranoid mom the evidence I needed to belive her teachers, and allow them to move her ahead.

Do not give up the fight, the right fit is out there.