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As usual, I've been swamped during the spring and fall, so I haven't posted in a while. Apologies. But now I really need some help. Here's what's happening.

DS5 is completing kindergarten now and preparing to enter first grade. We are trying to set up accommodations for next year. We are frustrated.

The situation has some unique aspects. Probably the most prominent of them is that the language of the school is French, even though we are English speakers ourselves. DS has been attending since he was 3, and speaks at the level of a native French 5 year old, but his French is not as good as his English. He reads well in English (Harry Potter is his level, except he stopped reading it because it was too scary). He reads in French, though less well. Math is a strength. Probably not as strong as some of those here, but a strength. He has known how to multiply since he was 4, though nobody has ever shown him how to multiply multi-digit numbers; he has a good sense for division though no formal instruction; yesterday he figured out 2^8 in his head. A strength.

Here's the problem. There is a new gifted school opening up next year that we thought about enrolling him in. It was very appealing. They planned to start him with an individualized 4th grade math curriculum and go from there. Accommodations in all the other subjects as well. It was a risk, though. It's a new school and there was no telling how things would shake out. We talked with the director of the French school during the winter, and she promised accommodations if appropriate. In the end we decided to stay with the French school because the exposure to the language is so valuable and because the director seemed open to lots of differentiation schemes.

I brought him in for assessment last week, and he seemed to do great. They assessed his reading in English and his math in French. He has never done any math in French, but he still managed to do addition and subtraction problems with carrying and borrowing, multiplication problems, and some others. ("They have some word in French that means times," he told me afterwards. "It sounded something like "fois".") It all looked like it would be a success. We met with the director today, though, and the judgment was: "His English reading skills are advanced, and we will have a pull-out reading group for him. He has a high math aptitude as well. But in math we feel he will be sufficiently challenged by the French first grade curriculum. We'll certainly keep an eye on it, but that's where he belongs for now."

DW and I were stunned. What was so crazy was that they seemed to recognize his aptitude in math, but somehow seemed to think nevertheless that no accommodations were necessary. We really want to work with the school because he has been happy there and because we do feel the language exposure is invaluable. But this felt like deception at best.

So a question to the wise among you: What is our next move?

BB

Hi Baseball Dad,

My son went to a French school from age 4/Moyenne Section through age 8/CM1. Like you, we had some frustrations with the school.

FWIW, the French are more open to grade skips than Americans. My husband worked for a French company for a while and some of his co-workers talked about grade skipping themselves. They eventually offered him our son grade skip from 2nd to 4th.

One of the things my son's school did was to give him a 3rd grade French math book. I think they expected him to need more help than he did with it. In the end, he just worked through it easily without any help. They were surprised --- mainly, I think, because the French have a somewhat different way of teaching mathematics. I figured they didn't think he'd be able to do things the French way so easily.

Perhaps you could ask them to give him a CE1 math book to work through independently. If he goes through it easily, they'll be more likely to suggest a grade skip.

HTH; let me know if you have more questions.

Oh, your son was right. "Fois" means "times." So, "deux fois deux" is four. And if you do something three times, you did it "trois fois." Similarly, "Once upon a time" is "Il etait une fois."
Val

Why did the gifted school suggest starting him with the fourth grade curriculum? Honestly, that seems more odd to me than the French school wanting to start him with first grade math in French.

I recently worked through several of our state EOG math exams with my kids. Yes, they learned it really fast, but they still needed exposure to some of the stuff. Obviously your son has a facility for math to understand division intuitively and to do the doubling required to figure out 2^8 (did he just do the calculation or does he understand raising numbers to a power?). In my (kinda backwards) state fourth graders know how to work with fractions, reduce fractions, add fractions, understand decimals, convert fractions to decimals and vice versa, derive diameter from radius and vice versa, calculate the area and perimeter of a rectangle and two joined rectangles, find the missing measurement when given area and length of one side, find the measurement of the third angle of a triangle when given the other two, do basic algebra, understad how to convert from cups to gallons, quarts, etc., and even some probability. Well, actually most of the kids can't because I figured out that "meeting state stnadards" meant getting about 50%, but it's part of the curriculum.

I would be interested to hear how the gifted school determined what would be appropriate placement for you son. Maybe it is obvious that he requires that level of instruction, but going only on what your've written it sounds a little extreme to me.

Because he had finished EPGY grade 3 at 98%.

Ah. I don't think you mentioned that in your original post. Just that he had a facility for math and had not yet attempted to multiply multi-digit numbers. I can understand your concern.

Thanks for everyone's response. I think I understand better what was going on, and am significantly less worried about the situation now. The assessment in French covered only math. That led us to believe his math abilities were being assessed. In fact, what they cared about mostly was his level of French. That's pretty high, especially for a non-native speaker, but not so high that they thought he needed to be in an enriched French environment. When they said that he would feel adequately challenged in first grade what they meant was that there are things he can improve language-wise, at least at the start, that will keep him busy. They do have a plan for pull-out math, are open to putting him up a grade in math if appropriate, and have a pull-out plan for English reading as well.

We had the whole conversation in English, and like us the director is a native speaker. It just goes to show that communication is difficult even if everyone is speaking the same language.

LOL, so true. I often wonder if I am speaking a different language than others around me. Glad that you worked it out. I was going to suggest you showing them some examples of what he was doing at home and expressing concern about him working at a first grade level. Then asking to view and/or go over the results of his assessment to see what lead to them feeling first grade math would be appropriate for him. Looks like it's not an issue any more, but if it becomes one later or if anyone else has an issue...that could possibly be helpful. : )