We were quite happy with the efforts the Mrs Teacher is putting on DD.... but I am a little worried that she seems a little bit lost on how to teach DD. The school got an outside counselor who is specialized in gifted children and who observed DD in the classroom and gave 'helpful' hints to Mrs Teacher. She said that the reading was difficult enough and to not increase the difficulty. But she did not said anything about how repetitive the method is. Apparently DD can read difficult words and explain them but gets lost in a simple sentence because she is still sounding out words. I have the feeling that this is rather boredom. As well, DD would like to read books like (simplified) Narnia, or Heidi and not the silly books that they are reading now (full of unrelated simple sentences). Apparently in the 20 minutes of quiet reading she tells herself a complete novel based on the pictures but does not try to read.
Well, at least Mrs Teacher agreed that DD could take whatever book she likes for the reading time, even if this is ahead of what DD can actually read, but she wants to see DD motivated to read.
And for maths, both Mrs Counselor and Mrs Teacher agreed that DD needs more advanced work. Mrs Teacher has done a special workbook for DD to work upon. I looked into it and it was all sums and subtractions, most below 10-12 and some up to 20....
I mentioned to her that maybe DD would love to have some more abstract maths, like geometry or set theory, etc. Again, the counselor did not suggested anything like that...
I asked if it was possible to put DD in next grade for mathematics but it is not really possible because the timetables for each grade are different so DD would miss some other lesson.
I was thinking to suggest that DD does Rainforest Maths since they have computers and internet at the classroom. The problem is that the site is in English, which is the weakest language and I do not want to push English reading yet...
Maybe I can do some exercises with her at home and then she can work independently in the classroom....
Anyway, would you seek other counselor privately? We would have to pay for that one.
Coming back to the reading, we are all at lost about how to teach/motivate her to read... any suggestions?
I hope this is not confusing, this looks like a lot of rambling...
