So, DS6 is going into first grade in two weeks. Last year, in K, he spent about 1/3 of the year going up to 2nd grade for math and reading and the rest of the time his K teacher differentiated for him to that grade level while still in his K classroom. His K teacher was wonderful and we really feel like he got a lot out of the year socially and that he did get some things out of it academically, but not a lot. While he was in the second grade classroom we went from "he's doing fine" to "he's in over his head" back to "he's doing fine" and eventually to him acting up and deciding he didn't like anything at all (reading, math, science, ANYTHING...) at which point we put him back into K but with mostly 2nd grade instruction. At one point his long term sub teacher told us that she had figured out that if he appeared to be struggling with something and the teacher tried to intervene to help him he would just shut down but that if they left him to his own devices that he would figure it out on his own.
We (all of us- parents, school, DS) aren't exactly sure where he should be this year, what he really knows, or what, exactly, to do with him. The director of the school did say that she would like to have DS take the state standardized tests (NWEA MAP) in September to see exactly what he knows and what he doesn't. I think that is a good start but am wondering what else should I be thinking about or asking for in this conference. For example, I saw that someone else had mentioned asking the teacher to limit the "he's so smart" comments in class and there's a lot of discussion about pretesting on here. I think these are both things that I would like to request but wondering if anyone else has any other thoughts along these lines.
Last edited by vwmommy; 08/22/12 08:27 AM.
