my DS5 has been at his current Montessori preschool for over 3 years...we have been up and down about his preschool over the past year because his teacher has been willing to really try to work with his Sensory Disorder and he seems comfortable there but she has been wishy/washy about meeting his needs academic wise (she has set times/ages that she introduces lessons and we have had a hard time swaying her to pick up the pace for our bored little guy)..he qualifies for the Florida McKay scholarship for K next year and I have helped the school complete all the paperwork to become a McKay school so we can use the scholarship...our idea was that since his tuition for the year would be covered, we could then take the money we would have spent on tuition and use it to do lots of other enrichment activities - so he would be happy with going to school and we could help with enrichment to keep him from getting bored...fast forward to today at pickup from school....

DS5 has been reading books by himself for well over a year now - math is his passion but he goes through spurts with undying interest in reading to not wanting to pick up a book - so we haven't pushed it - we read stories to him at night that he picks out and he has a large array of books to pick from when he feels like reading. This past week was an "I love reading week" and he finished his pack of level 5 Bob Books which he read through in like 15 minutes and finished several of his early chapter books. So when I picked him up from school today, I had some new books I got for him as a suprise - he had to run back into his school to show his teacher his new books. He told her what he had read this week and she looked at me and his new books and said, "mom, you have to slow down, I have no idea what I am going to do with him for the fall as far as reading". I was confused and asked her to explain. She said that all she had was up to level 2 bob books and a handful of early readers that were way below him and that she doesn't usually introduce those until Fall of K and here he is not in K yet and is way beyond. She said I shouldn't let him advance anymore because he is going to be way ahead next year. I could feel my jaw drop and was just shocked that she honestly thought that I should stop allowing my son to read at his level. I told her that I will always allow him to continue to grow and achieve at the level he feels comfortable with and will not stop just because he is way above everyone else in class and then I offered to help purchase materials for her to use in class with him next year. I was just totally flabbergasted - anyone else deal with something like this!? How would you handle it?

Hmmmm.... Maybe you could share some articles with her about young gifted children. Or maybe A Nation Deceived? I don't know how she would respond to that. Some teachers might become a bit defensive.

Are there other school options?

When my DS5 entered Montessori this past fall we were met with some of the same issues. Certain activities could only be done in a certain order at a certain developmental age. Fortunately my son doesn't take no for an answer and told his teacher that he had to start the early readers even though the kids don't start them until the fall of the K year (which he won't start until September). He quickly raced through them all. He pushed the limits and has even completed all the advanced K materials relating to math that the current extended day class never even got to use this year.

In our case I think our lead teacher realized that she was not going to slow down DS5 and he has made huge strides socially (which was her excuse before for not allowing him to work academically at his level). Just last week she told me that she was in the process of purchasing a new reading curriculum for my son to use next year that is more advanced. Not sure what her math curriculum plan will be but she has never mentioned to me that I should slow him down.

I agree with Cathy...are there other school options? No matter what school you choose if the teacher is not on board it will not work. I think after being at that same school 3 years already, if they were going to get your son they would have by now.

Time to part ways, I'd say. I don't think any article will change her mind. She is telling you loud and clear that she is no longer capable of meeting his needs. Better to stop now than to wait for things to get ugly. If after three years she still can't fathom the kid's intellectual needs, it's time to cut bait.

My son was in Montessori school for a bit. It worked very well the year he was 3/4. The directress gave him lots of work with the kindergarten students and brought in things like a 4th grade history text for him to read. He used to just happen to be sitting in the book area reading encyclopedias when parents came to tour the school- I found out about that later. My son was being used as a marketing pawn, despite the fact that he was reading long before he entered her school!

The following year he returned as a 4/5 yo kindy student, and we had to pull him after 3 months. It just wasn't working anymore. I have to say, it was incredibly tough to make that decision, but then we were all much happier.

good luck-

I'm with Lorel. It sounds like the teacher is telling you to find another school.

You could try meeting with her, but I doubt it will help. If she were unaware of his abilities, you'd have a shot. But she knows what he can do; she just doesn't see her job as being to teach him. Her basic sense of purpose as a teacher is incompatible with your child.

That sounds like an unfixable situation to me, I'm afraid.

Well, you can try and reason with her and even get upper level involved. It could go either way, really. I tried to reason with DD5's kindergarten teacher throughout the whole year and it was a big mistake. She had her ignorant opinion firmly cemented in her limited little psyche and no matter what evidence to the contrary, she was not changing.
Unfortunately, she would smile and say all the right things and agree to incorporate recommendations from the gifted psyd. in the classroom and then turn around and not do it. I was patient, I was reasonable, I was polite, I was firm, I escalated it, I had the principal's support, I did everything right.
At the end of the year, my child was miserable and I don't regret many of my decisions, but this one I do.

You are describing DD's teacher !!!

Thanks guys for the advice/feedback....he has been at the school for over 3 years and in this particular teacher's classroom for about 2 years - she has come a long ways with trying to understand his SPD but for some reason when the word gifted comes up she just has no clue. The tough thing is that there are not many choices here in our area and public K is out of the question at this point....28 kids in a K public classroom would do him in with his SPD - and as an ex-K teacher i can all but guarantee that will be the going number in his classroom if we went the public route (he can not handle loud noises, crowded areas even after years of OT and continuing sessions)- he handles 16-18 very well and it took us a long time to get him to that spot...we visited a handful of other K program Montessori preschools in the area both with him and without him and and we got a pretty good vibe that none of them had a clue as to how to handle a child who is not autisitc but has SPD and who is gifted....and our son got beyond stressed out and was barely sleeping/eating for weeks at a time during the whole looking process. He has been very vocal in letting us know that he wants to stay at his school for K and that he understands then he would like to look at a new school for first grade. He really trusts his teacher and we have been so confused as to what to do... So with that in mind...would anyone recommend that I try to look for some curriculum ideas for reading to suggest/introduce to her - she is very open to learn but I think she just gets scatterbrained and overwhelmed which is why we have been so back and forth about staying/leaving.

Do they do Accelerated Reader? Could she give him some kind of reading assessment to get an idea of his reading level and then get some books for him? There are some assessments available free online like DIBELS and San Diego Quick.

Cathy

Or even just plan a weekly trip to the library and bring his book picks to school with you. That might be an easier sell than asking for the school to spend money on books that no other kids can read.

There's the risk that the library books might be damaged or lost, I suppose, but to me it would be worth that small risk to make sure that my son wasn't being damaged.

The bigger problem I see, however, is that of making sure the teacher gets it.

Have you checked out Hoagies for help? There might be some articles there that are written to help a teacher gain a greater understanding of GTness. I can't think of a good article offhand since I never found a situation where I thought that such an article would have been useful, but I'd bet there's something on Hoagies that could help you to communicate to the teacher what's happening.

Thanks Cathy and Kriston for the posts - I just get so frustrated and it's nice to hear other's comments about the issue - we finally got her on board with the SPD and she is really going out of her way to understand that whole thing and has really done amazing things in the room to accomodate those needs and now I feel like I have to start from square one to try to get the point home about how to deal with gifted children...it's that old $10,000.00 question - do you just let your child be happy and learn to socialize and hope we can meet his needs intellectually at home(now that his needs are finally being met with his SPD and he is comfortable) or do you worry that his intellectual needs aren't being met...wish there was a happy medium! I actually did the DIBELS assessment on him about 10 months ago since I was a K teacher and was on the county's DIBELS assessment team and he scored well past K and First Grade skills and well into the second grade before I was out of my league in knowing how to give the test for the upper levels...so I have a very good idea where his skills lie and his reading level, i just need to get that across to her...his newest thing is that he earns an allowance now and is big into learning how to make change with coins and is massively into multiplication so we have been making up lots of games with those skills at home (all at his request) - today when I picked him up, she told me that I really need to stop doing these activities with him because "the repercussions were showing up in the room" - meaning that he was way beyond the K level skills she had wanted to focus on with him in the fall..she just doesn't see the whole picture of differentiated instruction for each child and I honestly don't think she knows how to teach anything but the same lessons she has been doing year in and year out...so here is a child who is way beyond her "normal" lesson scheme and she is lost....I think maybe another face to face sit down with a large amount of time alloted so that we can get our concerns out in the air *again* and then offer to purchase leveled readers at his growing pace and would even offer to purchase elementary level Montessori lessons for her if she honestly does not know how to go beyond the simple basics....I just hate yanking him out now that he feels like he actually fits in and has made some friends and is comfortable and end up spending maybe the whole K year trying to get a new school/teacher on board with understanding gifted/SPD children and my son I know would be a mess trying to start all over from scratch again....things could be a lot worse I suppose!

Whatever you decide about curriculum, I think that this issue does need to be addressed. Maybe you could talk to her about how you think it's important for your son to pursue what interests him and how you believe that fits with the essential Montessori philosophy. Give her some articles that explain that what you are doing at home is not "pushing" him. And talk about how ideally you would like him to be able to extend what he learns at home with activities at school. Try to make it sound like a partnership between you and her rather than you demanding that she does something extra for him. At least, that's how I envision the ideal teacher I could go to her and say that DS has been working on multiplication at home and she would offer some multiplication activities. Of course, you may have to look for some materials yourself--it sounds like you are already thinking along those lines.

My guess is that she thinks you are pushing and skipping important things. I know that our vice-principal advised me not to skip DS because "he wouldn't learn phonics". Actually, he already knows phonics, but I don't think she really gets that. In her mind, he is missing it because he "skipped" it.

Cathy

If you are in the San Diego Area, The Academy Learning Center might help.

Good luck.

That's really tough. We had DS5 in a montessori program for half of last year (when he was 4). We would have had him in sooner but it had just opened after branching off from another area Montessori program. Anyhow, they were a lot different and were able to accelerate in lots of areas. He was only there for about 6 months, they were not able to do much acceleration in math but did what they could and brought in some things. They were honest in telling us that they couldn't really accelerate more in math...but I knew they could in other areas. He didn't even do reading there...just read at home. But like I said for us there was enough other stuff and we wanted him to get excited about learning again and it worked for us. It sounds like with your experience they are looking at it quite selfishly however, because not allowing him to grow because they don't have the materials. That is ridiculous. We are not keeping DS in montessori for next year because that school only went through K and also because he will be going to public and skipping K. I do like the whole montessori approach when it is done properly, but holding kids back means that they are not doing it properly. Good luck!

It sounds like the teacher doesn't even understand Montessori - let alone giftedness. By holding him back and only "introducing certain work at certain times" she's completely going against the Montessori philosophy of letting a child prgress at their own pace. Our Montessori teacher did the same thing and held the kids back. I understand that they may have a plan that generally works for "everyone" - but if they are going to keep an extraordinary person in their school -they need to make accommodations or ask you to leave. I think using library books would be a great idea. But also - why are you so afraid of going to the public school if you have teacher experience and it sounds like you have a specificed learning disability? Couldn't you just get your child an IEP before he even starts or accelerate him to start in 1st grade? IEP classes are usually quiet, and a lot smaller - I thought that was the whole idea anyway?

Oh Belle!

What are you going to do next year?
Can you fill out paperwork and qualify yourself as a McKay school?

Who knows if you can open this teacher's mind? Is she the director?

In kindy, especially with a half day program, if he is having fun and making friends then sure, you can afterschool him. This teacher seems to have some definite strengths.

Oh, maybe the director will 'hire' you to tutor your son at her school next year, using his tuition money to pay you? Can you sublet space in her school and open a 'school within a school' for your son and a few other Mckay families?

Just thinking...
Smiles,
Grinity

I had to do a double take when I saw this up on the board...This is my DS's last few months at his Montessori he was at before we pulled to homeschool him all last year - so it's a really old post (5/08) ...we sure wish that we could have kept his first Montessori teacher for the rest of his elementary years (there were two that team taught and then our fav left and went back to work in the younger classroom) - she made the first 3 years at his Montessori school amazing and an awesome experience for him in so many ways - wish we could have cloned her -the teacher that was left in the room just was a mess - she was a good person but had no clue how to handle a gifted child.

Looks to me as if your thread was resurrected for advertising purposes (based on my experience on other Internet fora).

Too bad your great Montessori experience didn't continue; it's disheartening to me as a new kindergartener's mom to read of so many problems with schooling gifted kids. It makes me wish there were a forum just for success stories, so we could have some hope. <grin>

Well, I just logged on to ask questions and get opinions on montessori, and I found this post. The learning environment sounds perfect for my DS6, but my concern is that they will not differentiate the curriculum or allow DS to move ahead when he is ready. This post confirms my fears. I know all schools are not created equally, but...I spoke with the Montessori school today and asked if it would be possible to do a placement test so that my son can begin in first grade, and she said if he hasn't completed a kindergarten program then he'd likely have to go into K. Well, that's why we're pulling him from his current school. There's no challenge with the K curriculum, and I'm not about to put him with 3,4, 5 year olds! Every time I try to come to some conclusion about school, I'm always led to homeschooling. It seems like the only alternative. Now, how can I cut our expenses so we can afford for me to stop working?!

Ok, by the time I read the whole thing I saw that it was an old thread (don't look at the dates when I read whatever's at the top, LOL) but I have to ask:

Did you stop giving him new things to read, or did you run out of books like she seemed to think you would?

There are only so many books in the world, you know, and once you've read them all....