Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Parent teacher conference coming up!

Hi Everyone,

We have parent teacher conferences coming up next week and I'm just trying to plan out what to say. DS 6 is already in a first grade gifted talented classroom. The teacher is good but she has never taught this group before. Currently DS is one of the strongest math students as well as the top reader. From what I can tell from homework and discussions with ds they are doing 2nd grade math with a bit of differentiation and reading books at their independent reading level. For example in math the other kids are doing 7+5 so the teacher will add another digit to ds' homework so that he has to do 37+25. She really isn't teaching him anything new and I skimmed through the 2nd grade workbook and other than some geometry and fractions ds already has all the topics mastered. For reading he gets to read his independent reading books but he is not being instructed at all. He does not have a reading group and he has been at the same reading group since September even though he is way above the level she assigned him to at the beginning of the year already (His K teacher had assessed him at P at the end of last year and this teacher said he regressed and put him at N though I though he improved a bit). DS said that his teacher has to test them before she moves them up which makes sense to me but he said she hasn't done an assessment since September!

So I am trying to trust the teacher but I really don't think ds is getting what he needs. I don't know how to broach this subject with her at the conference. I'd like DS to do 3rd grade math (there are a few other students that could do this with him) and I would like him to get instructed in reading and have some kind of book to study with peers even if they are a few reading levels behind so DS can work on looking into details of a book and discussing book elements rather than just reading book after book. Does anyone have any advice? Thanks. Sorry if I rambled. I'm very tired!

I think personally that the reading will sort itself out. Your son will eventually get instruction in reading comprehension strategies etc., and will doubtless grow in reading ability just by reading. I'm not saying that would be optimal, but it's not a terrible situation such as the one you have with math. Reading is also something that would be fairly easy to afterschool in spare moments. You could at a minimum just discuss with him what he's been reading lately.