Here's my personal experience with 'in-class differentiation.' Seems I have a lot of baggage on board here. Hold on to your seats:
During DS13's 4th grade class, the school made a really good faith attempt at coming up with interesting assignments for him to do 'in parallel' with the class. DH and I had work tirelessly to advocate and explain DS to the school, and were thrilled that it was finally paying off. DS had friendships and was having a great time in school. DS was also reading under his desk about 4 hours a day. DS was a good deal happier, and I was tempted to 'leave things at that' but I took him to a local pyschologist who mentioned that DS kept talking about 'masking' himself.
So I switched him to a private school for 5th grade, still hoping that a gradeskip wouldn't be needed. Just before school started, the principle (who had always been very supportive appearing) sent me a copy of the note she had written to DS's new teacher in the public school 5th grade. (I had just signed the check for the private school.)
I was horrified to read the note. It described DS as deeply antisocial, a behavior problem, and 'we understand, it's because he's so bright.' I was taken aback, shocked really. Before you all think that there must be a grain of truth here somewhere, there are a few folks here who have met him, and he is really a wonderful kid. I was so grateful that my son wasn't going to have to spend a year with a teacher who had been primed to see him as a 'poor, unfortunate misery.'
What's my point? My point is that we really really do have to get our kids into a school environment that actually gives them what they need, instead of trying to modify, modify, modify to the point of 'nothing left to keep.' I've always heard the informal guideline is that if a child is working within 3 gradelevels of their assigned grade, then inclass modifications can work, but if it's more than that, they will need a combination of changing the classroom AND in class modifications.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
