Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school 1st report card - Has the teacher even MET DS???

Yeah, I think my DD is pretty lovable in general except when she is being excessively bossy but objectively speaking, I don't think she'd be the type most teachers would see as an ideal student with a halo around her head. This could change in the next few years but she is the type who would be a decagon if someone tells her to stop being a square and be a circle so unless she gets a teacher who thinks that's actually clever and funny, she won't be coming home with the student of the quarter ribbon, not that I think that's important.


K has gotten a little bit more academic since Common Cores but I think most experienced K teachers still believe K is about socialization, readiness skills, and learning to be at school. Even if you don't have a super genius at hand, I think the first 3 years (K,1, & 2) are problematic for precocious learners unless they are complete extravert who are happy as long as they are around their friends.

How would having your DS1 at home full-time affect your DS2?

lol ... DS also gets along with his classmates ... but wants to be friends with those kids 2-3 years older that he can have actual conversation with.

It will make things a lot harder on me because I'll get no break (I love those 3 hours of quiet when DS5.3 is at school! lol) ... but for DS3.5 it will be actually BETTER if the older one is home all day. The younger one doesn't handle well going from loud house to quiet house and back to extremely loud house when DS comes home from school and has a serious urge to talk nonstop because he had to be quiet at school. The whole house atmosphere is a lot better when things and noise are at a constant level Plus now that DS is in Kindergarten we can't go out anymore on any trips ... gyms, play areas, museums or anything like that because there's no time during the school days and we can't go on weekends because then it's too crowded and DS3.5 can't deal with the crowds. So homeschooling will give us all that freedom we had back!

I don't pay much attention to grades right now. My twins are in first. One of my DS's received a "low proficient" rating on a common core standard recently because he obviously wasn't paying attention for one sheet out of six that he had to complete that week. That one sheet had several incorrect answers that were obvious inattention mistakes (as in his work showed the right answer, but he marked the wrong one on multiple choice), but he got everything on the other five sheets right. At home he is doing much harder math- I guess he was just thinking about something else.

This has been our experience as well. Our "emerging reader" has finally emerged, now that he independently tests at fifth-grade level.

We also had some rubric issues, where he would rush through an easy sentence and be dinged when he didn't slow down for punctuation.

Exactly this! The teachers don't get raises or credit if the kids enter kindergarten knowing how to behave, how to count and do addition and subtraction, how to read at second grade level, make letter sounds, write rhyming words etc. Then these kids would show zero progress from one trimester to the next when their report cards come out. And it would look bad for the teacher that some kids never progressed under their teaching - they always had a 4 on all subjects!
This is what made me cynical about the motives of public school teachers. My child got a "meeting requirements" in counting up to 30 in his first report card - he was working on Singapore Math 2B at that point. He got a 5 on social behavior (which was the only grade that truly reflected his abilities). And he got a 3 in PE - he has an advanced belt in martial arts and plays little league baseball - his coaches would give him a far better rating than what his teacher thought his PE score should be. And the funny thing - he got a 4 in "Art" - this is the kid with small motor delays, is color blind and hence picks awful color combinations and who cannot hold a crayon correcyly and whose drawing is just scribbling - I would have given him a "1" rating on art.
My point is - what you see in the early elementary report cards do not reflect the true abilities of your child!

I think some teachers in lower grades seem to issue report card grades on how hard they think a child works (among other things). This does not bode well for kids who enter kindergarten ready for third or fourth grade. My kids are in a virtual school now and, I love that their grades are based on whether or not they answer questions correctly on tests and quizzes.

well, at least ONE positive! DS brought a finished math assignment from school where he was supposed to count the counters and write how many there are so he decided it's too boring and wrote 10 + 10 = 20 ... and got a smiley face from the teacher for it. Normally they get stars so at least she appreciated the effort on his part! lol DS also said that the other kids were telling him it's wrong and he shouldn't do it and the teacher said it's ok for him to do things "differently". ... one little step at a time ...

I just realized I posted this in the Preschooler section! I guess I still haven't gotten used to having a child in Elementary now! lol

As for the theory about schools grading lower so there's room to improvement ... I just watched DS's Music grade that's been a 4 for a long time now change to a 3. The official report cards go out on Friday so it looks like all the teachers are adding the final touches!