Quote:
“In the gifted classrooms that I’ve been in, the majority of kids are reading at grade level or beyond, and they can write well, and then so much time is not spent on basic skills so they can spend more time on content and on comparing historical eras,” Professor Folsom said. “They are then able to do the more deep thinking work because less time has to be spent on the fundamental skills.”
This is absolutely accurate at her school. They don't need to spend the time on drilling and repetition; as a result, the kids get "more" in a lot of ways. Honestly, this is a huge advantage of the school for us. I'm not sure how you make this problem go away.
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I honestly think it's because people want to give content before skills. Why should they worry about spending time comparing content if the can't read, write, and add? I know I'm mostly alone in saying this because even in the preschool or homeschool discussions many people say to not hold a kid back to their weakest skill, which is always in the skills not the content area. But I think as flawed as the education system is it still represents centuries of analysis and experience and I'm sorry, but reading, writing, and arithmatic comes first. After that, the world's your oyster. I don't think you're doing any favors rushing somebody to "the meat" without laying the foundation (which the school system says is reading, riting, and rithmatic). If you can't do that then that's where your tome and effort needs to be spent. Just an opinion.
So, your kid can read, write, and add. They're ready for some meat and bones. The kid who can not read and write does not have that surplus of time and effort available, they need to take first things first.
