Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Does acceleration solve the problem?

He has developmental coordination disorder so the physical act of writing is hard, plus he hates writing and will generally write as little as possible and needs to be reminded to stay on task. He needs constant reminders about letter formation, capitalization, etc. He probably has some mild dysgraphia.

Most of the teachers ability-group the kids for reading so it's not that big of a deal if he can't accelerate, but the class instruction part of it probably won't be that interesting. She also seems to have very high standards, for instance she is teaching the first graders parts of speech like "adverbs" and expecting them to use them in sentences. I don't think DD has talked about adverbs that much that even in third grade. She did mention typing and how she wants to add keyboarding to his IEP.

Thanks, DeeDee for mentioning that book. I looked it up on Amazon and it appears to be something I need to read as well. She has a second edition titled: Developing Math Talent, 2E.

"2E" stands for second edition; not to be confused with twice exceptional children with math talent

When we entered our ability-leveled charter for DS' first grade year, we asked that he be tested with an end-of-the-year third grade test in math. He had been doing third grade worksheets in Kindergarten and we also brought those to the meeting. The teacher seemed surprised by the request, but did do it. He completed the test with a high enough score that she placed him in the third grade level for this past year, however it hasn't been compacted. (See my post on when to ask for compaction and if it helps.) DS' gaps have been filled in, but now we have a problem with too much repetition.

We're having a meeting with the potential new teacher next week. I am planning on asking about pre-testing, even if they allow him to grade accelerate for math, because I know he already knows most of the material. For instance why should he have to sit through lectures on how 3 5's equals 15 when he has known how to multiply for a long time? The problem is that they like giving UNIT tests, which are very specific to the curriculum. For instance "draw a math mountain for such and such equation." There must be another test (like CBM) that will look at actual standards mastered but then they will probably claim that's not "rigorous" enough and he needs to understand the specific curriculum.

Darn it, I was already on my way to Amazon. Clearly someone needs to write a version for 2E children.

Yeeaahhh...

I thought it was rather confusing; hence my clarification. That title is REALLY misleading for someone who supposedly knows gifted and all their possible educational "issues".

We had the meeting with the new school and they said it shouldn't be a problem to grade accelerate him for math, however there would be 31 or 32 kids in the class vs. 22 if we kept him in his grade. The teacher said she can attempt to give him work at the right level. The current teacher thinks that if we accelerate the work will still be too easy and with 32 kids in the class it would be impossible for the teacher to do anything special for him to differentiate further. So now I don't know what to do.

I think I will start a new thread about student/teacher ratio and what is normal, because this seems really absurd to me.

His current teacher was adamant that he not be given any second grade work next year--she told the new teacher that would be a complete waste of time even if she did enrichments. I think they used to work together and the teacher told Dh after the meeting that she is going to talk more about it to the new teacher over the summer. After our experience with the last school and how negative everyone was (it was like they were going out of their way to make sure DS didn't learn anything), I could practically weep with gratitude.

Right now the plan is to NOT accelerate and see how things go for a couple weeks in the fall, then decide.