Hi - I mostly lurk here but could really use some advice.

I have never put one of my offspring into first grade in public school, so keep in mind that I don't have any first-hand parenting observations on this topic.

I do, however have experience as an educator in public school districts ranging from high-needs to high-performing.

That being said, expectations for first grade really do vary as much as you've been told by your range of acquaintance. In the high-needs district, we had many entering first graders who were still working on basic letter sounds, after a whole year of kindergarten. In the high-performing district, we had entering kindergartners who were able readers. And in both places, everything in-between.

I would suggest going to your state website to look at the curriculum frameworks for grade 1, checking your child's elementary school website for curriculum notes, and taking advantage of any parent night, curriculum night, or back-to-school night your school holds. That might give you a better sense of what the expectations are.

Probably the biggest difference since your childhood experiences is the huge impact of state-wide mandated testing, which has tended to narrow the curriculum, and change the focus of primary-age education.

Hopefully, someone who's actually sent a child to public first grade will also respond!

My DD's first-grade experience was in line with your expectations. The spelling lists had monosyllabic words with the vowel sound of the week. The reading was of the "Dick and Jane" variety. DD's school had a G/T program available to her beginning in first that sent her to a daily pull-out for ELA and math, so she was able to avoid it.

To get a feel for your own DD's prospective school, I suggest you go to their website, locate the first-grade teachers, and go to their individual sites. We find that several of our school's teachers post their spelling lists weekly. That'll give you a first-hand glimpse into the class level.

I think 1st grade has changed quite a bit in 30 years, but I do not think that your child will have a peer group at her level, from what you are describing. Maybe there will be one other child.

In our district, Kindergarten has the academics that I remember from my own 1st grade. So, yes, many children can read at a basic level entering 1st, and a few will be reading easy chapter books. However, the spelling lists, even the challenge lists, were incredibly simple and most of the time was spent teaching very basic reading and math skills.

I agree with looking at the school website and looking at the class materials available there.

We are in a high performing district (like 40% gifted), the classroom is taught to the 90th percentile, but still there is a wide range of abilities. I would say your experience will depend on your class size and your teacher's ability to differentiate. We had 29 kids so I felt like our kids' needs weren't served (as the teacher put it, "I have 28 other kids so there is a limit to what I can do.") So while my kids had peers at their level, they weren't taught at their level.

finca, your DD, your district, and your school's approach to later identification of G&T students sound very much like the experience I had with my DD (now 9).

The good news is, if your DD is a good and VERY INDEPENDENT, voracious reader - she will probably continue to make some progress on her own. The bad news is, the school may make little or no contribution to that progress during the school year.

I would talk to the teacher about what she has read and is currently reading at home, to see what might be available - can she join 2nd grade reading for this year, so she has a better chance of making some progress? Does the school have any resource people/gifted teachers who might be able to work with your DD and perhaps even a small group of readers in the grade (it can feel better to have some peers, even if she is ahead of them)?

One lesson that I have learned the hard way, though, is that even if the teacher is sympathetic and well-intentioned, that does NOT mean that he/she will have the time or resources to sufficiently differentiate for your DD - so you will need to keep a dialogue going (and I'm afraid to say that it will not stop after 1st grade).

I completely understand your situation. While this worked for DD, DS6 is headed to first this year, has been able to read for years, just scored very high in reading on the WIAT - but he is NOT as voracious of a reader as his sister (instead does math and climbs trees ). I, too, am worried about his reading instruction this year.

I tutored reading in a public school, which was fairly diverse with many kids (maybe 40 percent?) on free or reduced lunch. By the middle of first grade, "average" was probably kids reading 30 words per minute of first grade level text, like "The cat ran by the tree." A lot of kids were still working on sounding out basic words. I looked briefly at test scores for reading fluency and there were very few kids who were fluent readers. That being said, when DD was moved to first grade from Kindergarten, in Nov. of that year, I would say about 1/3 of the class was reading chapter books, like Magic Treehouse or Junie B Jones or something along those lines. We are in a somewhat higher SES school, maybe 25 percent free lunch? I think it was a higher performing class than some of the other teachers had. So you never know until you actually see the class. You didn't ask about math, but for math most kids are still working on basic addition/subtraction up through 20, like 5+7 and they don't do much beyond that. It was a dismal situation for DS this last year, who was in first grade able to easily multiply and divide. His teacher ultimately threw out the first grade curriculum and had him do work based on above-level testing.
For writing, the kids were expected to write short paragraphs, but nothing really more than that (although a lot of it was journal writing and they could write what they wanted).

Here's another data point. In my son's 1st grade class, there was an extremely wide spectrum of reading abilities. The school was about 40% FRL and in his class of 24 it ranged from level C readers who were still working on simple CVC and four letter word phonics to advanced chapter book readers. They used Reader's Workshop which basically meant most of reading was done with individually leveled books and with pairs of roughly similar children. Bottom line, your experience is going to really depend a lot on the curriculum in use and the teacher.

If you think this is a good fit for your dc, make sure you stay on the waiting list, and call the school ever so frequently to check on status. Chances are high that someone will move away or find that it's not a good fit sometime before the end of the school year.

Be careful not to break a rib laughing.

First grade is a joke these days.

I think my DD's old 1st grade teacher said it best when we met at the 1st parent teacher meeting. " I have 22 kids in my class: 4 of them should still be in kinder, 12 of them are doing well for 1st grade, 4 of them are at 2nd grade level, 1 of them is at 3rd grade level reading and 1 is reading at middle school level and doing Math at 4th grade level."

She was awesome. She tried to differentiate according to the kids' abilities. Some parents who are 1st grade level (in both reading and Math) complained to the principal (not getting enough attention and accused the teacher of favoring the smart kids) and she stopped after about 4 months.

You should check the school. But even in the same school, the teachers (especially elementary) have flexibility to teach what they deemed necessary. But most will be cookie cutter teachers and will teach only the curriculum. Common core curriculum is here.. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RI/1/

First grade was when we realized that DS7's school wasn't a good fit. DS didn't attend public school, but his traditional private was seemed focused on teaching only a first grade curriculum. Advanced work took the form of supplementation (extra busy work) and learning without differentiated instruction (basically, work ahead without teacher feedback).

Fortunately, we recognized right away that it was not a good learning environment for DS and were able to switch schools mid year. My normally excitable, motivated child became disengaged, careless, and even cynical about school (at age six!). We weren't having it, so we left.

I think first grade is the year that "real" academics come into play and advanced/gifted kids can languish in classrooms.

I have a young 1st grader and she's in a very high performing district. I'm not sure if you still need the info but I'd say that she seems to be fitting in just fine and can read kids books (more than Dick and Jane but not chapter books) she's much more of a math kid, though. Spelling tests at the beginning of the school year are 3-4 letter words. They do short stories sometimes in terms of writing.

From what you've described I'd guess your kid would be pretty bored with the reading assignments/spelling tests. Where is she in math? That could also be a deciding factor.

I think what's most important is that it's a school and a classroom where the teacher is willing and able to notice and adjust for abilities. In the very high-performing district at a very high-performing school (10 on GreatSchools, >90% passing the state test) where DD was from K-2, they were incredibly rigid with curriculum and strongly associated model children with giftedness. It was 3 years of raging disaster for DD.

We moved to a lower performing school--it is rated a 5 on GreatSchools, 65-70% passing on the state test--and DD is having a wonderful year in 3rd grade with teachers who are working hard to meet her needs. (In this distrct, TAG starts in 4th.) In this case, the general level of the curriculum is meaningless because DD isn't doing most of it anyway.

Before we moved here, I called the head of the district gifted program and the school principal, and spoke to them each for about half an hour about my child specifically (with test scores in hand) and what specifically they could do to serve her needs. They were friendly, interested, and totally willing to talk about appropriate accommodations. In our old district, the gifted program head wouldn't have given me the time of day and the principal refused to let teachers do real accommodations. In another high-performing district I was considering, the gifted program head did give me a 10 minutes phone meeting but was not very interested in talking about my kid, only about what tests she'd need to re-take to enter their gifted program.