So I know that DS is the only one at white in his reading class (regular class). I assume therefore he must be the only one at DRA instructional level 34 (since you have to be at least that to be on white). So, I have been curious about how he is being instructed in his reading "group." Today he tells me he is reading and being instructed on "Ready Freddy - Don't Sit On my Lunch" in his reading group. I groan. He says, "I asked them what level it is and they said it is a 30-32." "Hmmm." I say. I look it up - it is level 28-30. They lied to him (of course, they always do). But, more importantly, he is to be instructed at level 34 and they are instructing him at level 28-30. SIGH. DO they get anything right ever? Should I say something? I feel like I should but I already said "no" to OT in math class. Then, I had to email about a teacher who refused to give DS his accommodations. They haven't even responded to those issues and now this. {SIGH} What should I do, wise people?

OK, I'm not terribly wise, but fwiw I'd let this one go. BUT - I'm the parent who let all the reading instruction go and never worried about it. I'm guessing if he's the only child "on white" level in his class, that means the kids he's reading Ready Freddy with are most likely the other more advanced readers in his class if they are at 28-30. I know it's frustrating to think he could be reading higher level books, but if he's enjoying what he's reading, just go with it. Our ds was never given any accelerated instruction in reading but he managed to stay way above grade level anyway, and reading comprehension and vocabulary were things that just seemed to "happen" without any help. OTOH, if you feel like your isn't making those huge leaps in progress from what you see at home and if you feel like he's stagnating re reading at school, then press on and be sure they instruct him at his level.

JMO, but I think that sometimes we have to pick the battles we fight, and with our 2e kiddos, it's probably more important at this age and grade to be fighting to ensure that the school is giving your child appropriate accommodations and remediation for his disability. If you can do that and get accelerated instruction in reading, that's great.. but if you have to choose which battles to pick, I'd let the reading go.

I can't remember which grade your ds is in (first or second?)... but fwiw by 3rd grade here, our schools were dropping leveled reading groups all together. There was still testing to make sure children were progressing on track but there were no longer restrictions on which books children were allowed to choose from for free reading, and the entire class was reading the same book together, integrated with social studies. The smaller reading groups that existed in kindergarten and first grade when kids were learning to read were gone by 3rd grade. Soooo.. it's possible that if you expend a lot of energy at this point on the level/group fight... you are fighting for something that isn't going to exist after this school year anyway. But the need for accommodations etc is something that your ds will need throughout his school years.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks Polarbear! I am relieved by your advice that I can let this one go IMy first thought was to let it go but then I thought I may be doing DS a disservice or something. Anyway thanks!

I wonder if those levels are really scientific at all? In terms of the book content. The age gap looks to be about 4 to 6 months. You have so many battles, may e that one is worth shrugging off unless it becomes a predominant pattern.

He had to take like three tests to prove he was at least at that level... so I guess there is some science behind them? I don't know for sure! But for all their testing to make sure they have him at the right level, they are still not instructing him at the proper level!

I was thinking more about the text evaluations themselves. When I was around twelve, I helped my dad rewrite government manuals to a lower grade level. It was all about words per sentence and syllables per word averages. I'm wondering that DRA isn't something similar rather than something deeper getting into comprehension. But I do think a kid should get the right material.

Well the DRA test requires giving summarizations, comprehension questions and some inference type questions. Then they gave him something called a Qualitative Reading Inventory and I got to see the passages and the questions. It involved sight word leveling first. Then it had a pretty involved comprehension piece at each level, each of which had concept questions, comprehension questions and inference questions and also involved him giving a summary for each passage. That one was all about comprehension. It seemed very involved to me. He passed the fourth grade comprehension level and the fifth grade sight word level. There were no words per sentence and syllables per word averages but they did make note if he didn't get a word in a passage correct.

But no worries I am relieved that the advice is to let it go. I will just make sure we do higher level work at home. I ordered reading detective and that seems to interest and challenge him so we can do that. He is not the most fluent of readers in my opinion ( he sounds fluent but he misses words, inserts words, etc; although there was no evidence of this in his testing - he must be able to really do it right when he wants to) so maybe it's not so bad he is at the lower level at school anyway...

FWIW, I took a similar approach with our DD to PB.

I read some silly school reports telling us stuff that we knew to be untrue, e.g. she could not write a story with a beginning, a middle and an end or didn't have mastery of addition/subtraction. This when she had already written elaborate stories at home and was confident with exponents and simple pre-algebra.

At the end of the day, I decided that it was important that I knew what my DD was capable of and not necessarily the teacher. I could see that fighting this would be futile and put us in a confrontational situation with the school but have little to no upside. A true Pyrrhic victory.

Ultimately, elementary kids spend so little time at school that what happens there is somewhat irrelevant particularly when they are so far ahead of their peers. Eventually, we came to terms with the fact that no school will ever 'teach' our child in the way that other NT children are taught simply because kids like ours learn so darn fast.

We are very lucky, though, in that once we had our DD tested (over a year ago now) and the teachers saw the results they were supportive of a skip. Looking back, I am not sure that her teachers would have been so positive about DD's skip had we riled them up unnecessarily.

YMMV

Now maybe my son is an anomaly but his reading program begins each lesson with a whole group lesson (story) that is on grade level....everyone on, below, above, limited English speaker or not...reads that story, works through it as a large group. Then they have small groups where they are grouped a bit by levels (really not specific levels...just on, at, below level and ELL) for a story related to the first one. The thing is there aren't readers for his outlier reading level. His class is fourth grade and the above level second story group he is in is probably 5th grade, his reading level in October was 7th grade. They just tested him again and he got 9th grade (not grade equivalency, but his independent reading level...his instructional level is even higher). So just with his independent reading being his choice and getting classroom instruction below his level he increased 2 grade levels in 4 months. Either it is okay to get instruction below level with additional reading that he selects at a higher, challenging level or my kid is just a freak who is going to grow no matter what.

But unless he went to the middle school next door for reading there really isn't a way for them accommodate him with the classroom materials. I am also thinking of my 9th grade lit text book. He is 9 and he isn't interested in Silas mariner, Romeo and Juliet, and 70 % of the other stories at a 9 th grade level. So as long as he is happy, I am happy.

I think this is a really valid point. The last thing we want to do is turn them against reading by creating an obligation that isn't aligned with their interests.

I remember being in elementary school and reading entire novels in a night (ie. Gentle Ben, Call of the Wild, that sort of thing) and having teachers try and shove harder books under my nose... it drove me nuts. Let me read what I want to read. Now I get paid to write, so clearly I'm literate.

My DD11 meanwhile loves reading as much as I did/do, and I've never required her to reading "certain" material. Meanwhile she has a friend whose well meaning mom made her read some of the classics (Little Women, etc) and this poor kid can't get far enough away from books.

I agree. FWIW, I read a lot of comic books when I was a young kid (mostly Disney of the Carl Barks variety). I was given two separate tests when I was 9 and was told after both I was reading at a 10th grade level. I remember reading Dante's Inferno and Dracula when I was 16 (not for school; for fun), so something must have changed.

Personally, I think that developing a love of reading is very important --- IMO, more important than reading industrially-defined materials and answering comprehension questions.

Irena, is your son complaining about the work at school? Does he get to read what he likes at home?

Good points all.

No DS is not unhappy. As long as he gets to choose something on his level *and of his interest* for independent reading (he is reading "count of monte cristo" for independent reading) he's happy ... He's fine with the instruction group... he says he is in the highest group so what else can they do?

I just wasn't sure if I should do something but these are all really good points. As long as it isn't hurting him!

And yes I let him read whatever he wants at home!

Just my opinion, but, yes, please advocate for the higher reading level. Hopefully, your state requires the school to meet your child's needs. I can only relate the frustrations that I felt. An advanced reader can jump right over babyish books. Our child preferred textbooks on science topics and was precocious with advanced ability in that area and, it never was received well. People do not understand it; they think the parents are pushing. They have nothing to compare it against. It confounds them. Meanwhile, a child who is an advanced reader is so lucky and rarely bored if the appropriate materials are provided. I found so many people who should have been helpful, just plain-out were not and I can't even blame them. They could not believe it. But, one way or another, I always went around the system and did what worked for our family and when our child grows up, he can advocate for himself. For example, I can already think of a handful of college majors that are just too easy for gifted students. I always took the hardest level classes and as many of them as allowed. A gifted brain needs to be challenged and constantly enriched or the person may not be happy. Hope it helps. Good Luck!

I would let this one slide if everyone is happy. We ran into dead ends with classroom reading thru 3rd, 4th grade too. He still read what he wanted on his time/all the time.

We decided to work on reading comprehension stuff at home. I just let the school stuff go. I mean, they HAVE his scores. They *know* what his reading level is. The fact that they honestly have no real way to accommodating him is sad, but, whatever. There's not much to be done about it there.

At home we read together, or, I'll have him read a book after I finish it, and we discuss it, talk through the plot, the characters, define any words he doesn't understand, yada yada yada. I'm waiting on his latest MAP scores to come in the mail, so we'll see what they say.

In 4th grade it shifts from learn-to-read to read-to-learn in any case.

One hopes for accommodation, but I try to also regard this phase as short-lived. Once you're in the higher grades, nobody gives a hoot about your reading level, as long as you understand what you read.

My family might be weird but sometimes we basically have our very own book club. Luckily my husband and I like children's literature. Sometimes I have to preread books to make sure they are appropriate for my younger son...sometimes they aren't that inappropriate just not necessary for a 9 year old to read. But many times they are fine. Sometimes my 13 year old will let me know if he has read it. Once all of us have all read the same book we do sit around and discuss it, sometimes over dinner, sometimes in the car.

This started when my older son was young and homeschooled...he would insist I read books he loved and then lead the discussion. I fondly recall a book "club" discussion on captain underpants as one of our first.

We have a similar situation with DD8, only she doesn't like to read independently. I still think there is something more going on than her just not wanting to read and we will continue to look into that...but I digress. She is in the top reading group for her grade same as your DS, however, there could very well be a huge difference between her level compared to the level of the other students in her group. She likes her group and they seem to get along well, but I totally agree with what you have said are your concerns - if she is a more advanced reader than the others in her group are we hindering her by not speaking up. I don't know what level the others are at and I wouldn't ask, even though I could probably guess.

Last year (1st grade) the AR levels were posted on a chart in the classroom, so all one had to do was go check it out. She set a goal of getting to a 4th grade AR reading level on the chart. Soon after making that goal she got to somewhere around AR 4.2 on the chart and she stopped. I asked if she wanted to set another goal and see how far she could go and she wasn't interested, so we let it go. There was one other boy in her class that she was sort of competing with and he also made it to 4th grade AR level. Other than that, no other student on the chart was close.

When I first read this thread I agreed with several other posters that you should just let this one go (no harm, no foul). But the more I thought about it and compared it to our situation the more I wondered if we too are just letting this one slide and I started getting fired up. You say what else can they do? Once again how about school meeting the student where the student is at. If an 8 year old reads and comprehends at a higher level, then why can't they go to that higher level for reading? Now I don't mean I want my petite 8 year old 2nd grade baby going to a hormone filled 6th grade class (just a joke people, don't get upset) just because she can read at a 6th grade level, but why can't she go to 3rd or 4th grade (probably also hormone filled in this day and age) for reading? Yea, yea, yea - the school's class schedules don't match up - we have heard that plenty of times before - poppycock people, make it work!!!

Yeah. I am thinking of just mentioning it at the iep mtg coming up. Just asking if they don't think that is a problem - that he is being instructed two levels below his "instructional level." I might as well at least let them know I KNOW they are shortchanging him and hey maybe we could have a special reading pull out for other in the grade at his level (I am sure there are at least a few other kids in his grade that are at his level or higher - in fact I KNOW there is... maybe he could go to their class for reading group. If not then I won't push it but maybe throw it out there maybe they just don't even think about it and all it will take is a nudge.