Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How to approach to teacher about an unfair report?

I am listening to this podcast:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/colorado-gifted/id650064362?mt=2

It's very good and seems very relevant to this discussion. Hope it helps...

How is her day structured? When my son's recess was an hour after he got to school, well, that didn't work out all that well for him behavior-wise. It took them a while for the light bulb moment and when they moved it to a more appropriate time, a lot of behavior issues for everyone were much improved.

The other thing that affects his behavior is cereal choices. I try not to let him eat red food dyed cereals for breakfast. I notice less behavior reports when I monitor sugar/dye in cereal.

The other suggestion is to ask pointed questions about when she's lost focus. Is it certain subjects? Certain times of the day? Maybe she gets a little less focused before lunch because she's hungry?

Good luck!

We just had a similar experience with DD's report card. Several "beginning to understand"s for things we know she's proficient in, at least. She's in the highest groups for language arts and yet gets only "proficient"s rather than "expert"s on some; I'm guessing they're leaving room for improvement for the final term, and just don't really know her yet, which is something we've recently been feeling, sadly. She doesn't react we'll to being put on the spot, so I'm sure it's harder for the teacher to see (we have also had long term maternity leave subs BOTH years so far). I know DD spaces out and has been coming up with her own methods to help herself focus, like singing songs in her head as she copies spelling words there are just so many learning centers and she gets distracted

How did the meeting go?

For this one, after not reading the OP or the thread, I am going to propose that a large plate overflowing with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies is an excellent solution.

I am always getting reports for as saying his next step is to learn x when he has been able to do x for ages.

This is sort of what we have always had to deal with. The report would show mastery of counting to 20, but wouldn't be marked for mastery of counting to 50 or 100, even when they could easily do these things. The explanation we received was that the teacher hadn't taught those things yet, so they couldn't mark it on the report yet. How ridiculous!

We start actual grades in 3rd grade, so hopefully the OP is in a similar situation and next year there will be no more subjective grading for her DD.

Side note -
objective - "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion."

Even with (objective) actual grades this will not always stop some teachers from continuing to grade based on behaviors and perceived notions vs. the student proving they know the material. BTDT!

Hello all,

First of all, thanks so much for all support and feedback. I can not say that how much your feedback gave me food for thought.

We have met yesterday afternoon and it took me a while to absorb all the information I received from our teacher. Overall, it was great and I am so glad I met with our teacher and I believe she felt the same way.

Overall, it seems like her lack of focus pretty much dropped all her grades about 1-2 points. It seems like they have been doing STAR testing every six weeks. Even though her math results are progressing upwards (nevertheless her math grade dropped as well), there is a slight decrease in her reading tests. Even though it's not mentioned at all in her grade report, teacher thinks she is struggling with reading comprehension. Since it's her first year in gifted program, the material got much richer than last year and has been tough on many students in the class. I wish I knew about this before, so that I can help my DD in timely manner.

She suggested talking to her about focusing better and she will have a talk with her today as well. It seems like DD has been asking her to move her to another table, so she is going to move her to a quitter table. Our teacher also promised me to send her STAR results so I can monitor her progress as well (vs. having a shock moment when I see the grade drops).

As part of reading comprehension, she suggested to read poetry, fable and talk to her about those. In this area, I am looking to find a good tutor as I am no good in poetry. I feel a good/experienced teacher can help DD better than me.

Overall, I see some hard work ahead of us for DD to work on progressing reading comprehension. I also see that I will be better informed next time.

quitter table??

Oopps, spelling mistake: "Quieter table"