Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy First grade update

One way I think really helps with spelling is dictating a paragraph, stopping once the child makes X amount of mistakes (I usually do 10 mistakes), having them study the words by writing them 5 times each and then retesting them again on the same paragraph a few days later. You can obviously go farther each time because hopefully they will remember some of the words they missed the first time.

Cathy A,
My heart goes out to you, because I do hate it when grade skips 'dry up.'

I'm praying that he gets an intelligent and understanding teacher next year. Individual teachers make a huge difference.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Grinity, it's still better than where he was. I still help out every Friday in his old K class. I didn't want to leave his teacher high and dry without a Friday helper. Anyway, I am still in there talking about how we Hear with our Ears and that the letter H says, "hhh", etc. They are still counting objects (up to 25 now!)

His teacher now is very good with him but there is still a LOT of repetition and he ends up tuning out. I am worried that he will get in the habit of tuning out all the time and miss the few new things that do come along.

DD was always engaged in class and eager to share her knowledge (even if it was a repeat.) DS doesn't seem to care as much about sharing his knowledge during class. But he has been taking it upon himself to do extra work, like a page of multiplication facts. She told him he should practice his 2s and 5s (because they keep coming out backwards) and he came home and made a worksheet for himself. He drew boxes with a ruler and wrote numbers (frontwards!) in the boxes. He was very proud of his work.

Hmmmm....I think I will talk to her and ask her to suggest other projects to him....

Just talking about this stuff gives me ideas

From what I've seen, you're entirely correct, Dottie. I don't know if it will get better in the upper elementary grades, but it's hard to imagine that it could be worse than the lower ones!

That's my conundrum. Do we try one more year, 3rd grade, and see how it goes? But what if that's the year that does him in? Do I HS 3rd grade and maybe 4th, put him in 5th grade which is the year before he'd move to a new school for 6th? Or HS 3,4,5th and start at Middle school along with everyone else (3 schools coming together so everyone will be all mixed up).

Dottie and Kriston, I'm not thinking of any more skips for a while. But I do think that it is good to encourage him to do his own projects because ultimately that is what is going to save our bacon. If he responds so well to teacher suggestions, maybe she and I can take advantage of that to keep him interested and engaged in school.

His K teacher noticed the same thing about him. She suggested that he needed to learn how to skip so he practiced doggedly at home for several weeks until he could do it. Same with dribbling a ball and tying a shoe. The school considered those things to be strongly in his favor in terms of approving the skip. They said he "takes instruction well." He doesn't take instruction as well from me, LOL!

I have high hopes for second grade, I know all the second grade teachers (six of them!) from my mathlab volunteering and they are a great group. They share their resources and ideas and they are still excited about teaching.

I found out that my dd's whole grade skip was actually initiated by her teachers (she has one homeroom and 8 specialty teachers). They all got together and went to the administration to suggest/ask for a grade skip for my dd.

I agree, the right teacher can make all the difference in the world. My dd has been extremely lucky and so far has only had excellent teachers. We are lucky in that we already know who her homeroom 4th grade teacher will be and she absolutely adores her (mutual feeling).

Also, I just found out today that the school has hired a Math Specialist for lower school for next year.

And Dottie, before you DOK, remember that I have had to pay for my dd's good fortune by having to deal with DXH. He is many times over worse than any school administration.

It seems like it can't be a smooth, easy ride for any of us, can it?

Wouldn't you love to hear from someone who had no barriers whatsoever to getting a fabulous education for her kids? Everyone around the kids understood LOGs and met the kids' needs without need for argument or advocacy.

<swoon>

Yeah, back to the real world, dreamer!

I have to say that getting the gradeskip for DS involved a lot less anguish on my part than getting DD's 504 plan for food allergy. But maybe that food allergy advocacy smoothed the way for DS because now the school administration knows that I am persistent and it is just easier to give me what I'm asking for!

I'm sure I'm one of "those" parents, LOL. I do try to make myself useful around the school though, which makes me fairly popular with the teachers.