Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School So howis it going?

Oh dear, I hate to be the one to break this to you but, at least in our district, there is no out-of-level testing. Our district uses Acuity. They only test at grade level because that is what they care about. Their only concern is whether your kid is on track to demonstrate proficiency on the state standardized/NCLB test. So our school district pays for regular testing where my kid regularly gets all questions correct on material that she learned 1-2 years ago. It tells us and them nothing about where my kid is or whether she has learned anything. It does allow them to check off their NCLB requirements.

In other districts, they regularly use resources, like MAP, that allow the kid to go beyond grade level. Celebrate if you are in one of those districts. Our district declined to use MAP because it is too expensive.

Well, yeah, but only because I've seen it mentioned here that a good advocacy strategy is to ask for out of level testing and a good way to ask for subject acceleration is to ask to group your kids with others who have a similar MAP test score.
I don't know if we use MAP. I only know it by name from here. I know we use the heck out of some TAKS tests though because every year I see kids wearing shirts that say "attack the TAKS".
My oldest kid's just starting school for the first time. The only decision I had for starting pre-k is whether to tell the teacher or let her discover your child is advanced. My hubby hadn't read that and I guess I hadn't mentioned that part so he proudly told the teacher our kid can read at the meet the teacher event. So the next day I sent in "Flap Your Wings" by PD Eastman and a few days later he said he read it to the teacher. I've heard positive responses back. She hasn't seen his handwriting yet but it's in his backpack so she'll see it sometime this week.
There's not much to ask for. It's a little rural public school. The teacher told everybody she expects the pre-k kids to start reading by the end of the year and she has materials for up to 2nd grade. My sister lives in Florida and says that's super great, she says their public pre-k doesn't do that. She homeschools anyway.

I remember my kid looking at song lyrics at his musical theater practice and happily pointing out examples of alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, etc.
I think he was around six years old at the time. None of the other kids in his class were doing this and he was one of the youngest kids there. When he was five and in kindergarten I volunteered at the school and found a 3rd grade language arts worksheet in the trash. I took it home and with my husband watching, had my son read and do the worksheet. It was easy for him. But there was no grade skipping or anything like that at our school.

He hated reading books that were predictable or redundant or just didn't use enough interesting new vocabulary. He wouldn't even read Magic Treehouse books after he turned five. He liked them at three and four but refused to read them after that, preferring to read his science encyclopedia, how it works type books, and DK books, and classic stories with high level vocabulary. He was disappointed that he didn't really learn anything new in kindergarten and all they wanted him to do was color and do crafts that he had trouble doing because he has a disability that affects fine motor skills.

We had to homeschool for my son to get an appropriate education. He is 14 now and has to work around chronic pain issues. He wakes up in pain every morning. It slows him down. It affects the amount of work he can get done. We never had time to waste on "learning" things he already knew. We are hoping and praying that he will be finished growing soon so that he can stop wearing a painful scoliosis brace and have a normal life again instead of watching other people have fun.

We mostly unschooled until now. I did make him do some math and I did make him practice handwriting when he was younger but the rest of the time I let him choose what he learned. This worked for him because he was interested in so many things and compared to other kids he always seemed to be very well read. He was always very interested in current events and the newest technology and science news and even politics. He liked to do online quizzes. He reminds me a little of my mother who read all the time and could answer more Jeopardy questions than anyone I knew--until complications from surgery left her with severe brain damage. When this happened we read a lot of wikipedia articles about the human brain and neuroplasticity. He became very interested in neuroscience because of my mother. He learned a lot about cancer when his dad went through cancer treatment. When he later developed his own difficult medical issues at eleven it was too much so he took a break from reading about medical things. He and I both developed a really bad case of medical or white coat anxiety. Last year was very difficult and he didn't do much math of any kind. My son watched his grandmother die and saw his grandfather go through the pain of losing his wife. He then saw his grandfather recovering from the multiple surgeries that were put off because my dad was providing 24 hour, seven day a week care for my mother. My dad didn't tell anyone that he was in so much pain because he didn't want my mother to go into a nursing home.

So my dad got through his painful surgeries and I got through the pain of watching him and helping him (he lives next door) while also helping my son deal with his brace pain and isolation in a town where he doesn't fit in and with unsupportive extended family that we need to limit our contact with to maintain our sanity, and I am still determined to provide my son with a better education than our local public school and to prepare him for college. We are dealing with challenges that nobody can help us with because nobody else has any experience with this particular set of challenges.

Okay, so we survived last year. It didn't kills us, but I can't say that we feel stronger. We are just too stubborn to quit. And that thing I read about cortisol and belly fat is true. On top of everything else, I now have to work on that. I have to stay healthy so that we can keep homeschooling.

My son, who has always liked taking online quizzes anyway, has been taking AP practice tests on biology and history and getting about half the questions right without having read the books so we are going to figure out what he needs to learn and just learn those things. Because the pain issues eat up so much of his time he will have to do it this way. We just don't have time to waste.

DD9 is having a great start to school - a combo of 7th grade in school and 8th grade via virtual school. She is flying through virtual school classes, and she loves that she can do that instead of having to wait for everyone else in class. She just started playing the clarinet and was put in the intermediate band, so that is her challenge right now - learning to play in a band with kids who learned how to follow and keep up last year.

DD4 started pre-k this year and loves it. We told her teachers that she is beyond what they will be teaching in class, and were told that they are stuck to teaching state standards, so they can't make an entire curriculum for 1 child. (Sounds bad, but...)In the next breath, this same teacher told us that when she asked DD what she wanted to learn this year her response was "monkeys", so the teacher asked her to be more specific - what about monkeys did she want to learn. DD's response: "I want to learn how monkeys hang from their tails."
So, while it seems like she is opposed to doing different stuff for DD, she is actually trying to do more, so we'll see.

In our district there is a fixed procedure for requesting subject acceleration or whole-grade acceleration. They do end-of-grade testing for the receiving grade, might do some other testing if it's a whole-grade request, do an Iowa Acceleration Scale, and hold a meeting to decide whether to accelerate the child. So the timing isn't really strategic-- you request the testing and get it done.

DeeDee

Not that well. DD's teacher is strict this year and DD seems very unmotivated. She is doing the bare minimum and no more. Phoning it in, bigtime. Says she wishes it were still summer. All this might seem typical, but she is such a schooly kid. MInd you, she doesn't have any actual complaints about the teacher--doesn't say she is mean or unfair or anything. I'm hoping she just needs a little more time. Also, she is struggling a little with the math (they have really ramped them up this year--she is at a GT magnet)--not big-time, but she's actually having to think. She isn't used to it and she's panicking.

(I'm telling myself over and over that these nightly math homework freakouts are a good thing in the long run. Sense of perspective! Please! Now!)

DS is rocking preschool, though. I was a little worried, but he's loving it. I just hope the shine doesn't wear off the penny after a few more weeks. This place is like kindergarten was when we were kids--block corner, housekeeping, fingerpainting, daily jobs, puppets. They know he can read and seem to find it sweet. Academics seem pretty brief (I was worried about this)--mostly letter of the week and writing practice (which is fine for him). This is his first structured environment and I just didn't know, but his teachers seem to think he is the cat's pajamas and he's gotten a smiley face for "good behavior" every day. Another reason to consider skipping K...

Kcab -

Thanks for the input. I put on my big girl pants and emailed his teacher last night. I went through MANY drafts: am I saying too much? Too little? It was a nuerotic seizure of sorts. Not pretty. I erred on the side of minimalism (ie: this is what he can do...not the entire developmental history of my ds) and asked if the screenings would pick up advanced progress and if she had advice for me.

Hoping it's a good start to a conversation instead of "my ds is bored to tears and you need to fix it!". Anxiously awaiting her response.

My two find out who their new teachers are today. To say I'm eager to find out as well is the biggest understatement of the year. Not fair that they get to find out in the morning and I have to wait until 3:00!! LOL Unless... I go hang out at the school yard at recess... ha ha ha

(hmmm...)