Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School What is first grade like these days?

I think my DD's old 1st grade teacher said it best when we met at the 1st parent teacher meeting. " I have 22 kids in my class: 4 of them should still be in kinder, 12 of them are doing well for 1st grade, 4 of them are at 2nd grade level, 1 of them is at 3rd grade level reading and 1 is reading at middle school level and doing Math at 4th grade level."

She was awesome. She tried to differentiate according to the kids' abilities. Some parents who are 1st grade level (in both reading and Math) complained to the principal (not getting enough attention and accused the teacher of favoring the smart kids) and she stopped after about 4 months.

You should check the school. But even in the same school, the teachers (especially elementary) have flexibility to teach what they deemed necessary. But most will be cookie cutter teachers and will teach only the curriculum. Common core curriculum is here.. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RI/1/

First grade was when we realized that DS7's school wasn't a good fit. DS didn't attend public school, but his traditional private was seemed focused on teaching only a first grade curriculum. Advanced work took the form of supplementation (extra busy work) and learning without differentiated instruction (basically, work ahead without teacher feedback).

Fortunately, we recognized right away that it was not a good learning environment for DS and were able to switch schools mid year. My normally excitable, motivated child became disengaged, careless, and even cynical about school (at age six!). We weren't having it, so we left.

I think first grade is the year that "real" academics come into play and advanced/gifted kids can languish in classrooms.

I have a young 1st grader and she's in a very high performing district. I'm not sure if you still need the info but I'd say that she seems to be fitting in just fine and can read kids books (more than Dick and Jane but not chapter books) she's much more of a math kid, though. Spelling tests at the beginning of the school year are 3-4 letter words. They do short stories sometimes in terms of writing.

From what you've described I'd guess your kid would be pretty bored with the reading assignments/spelling tests. Where is she in math? That could also be a deciding factor.

I think what's most important is that it's a school and a classroom where the teacher is willing and able to notice and adjust for abilities. In the very high-performing district at a very high-performing school (10 on GreatSchools, >90% passing the state test) where DD was from K-2, they were incredibly rigid with curriculum and strongly associated model children with giftedness. It was 3 years of raging disaster for DD.

We moved to a lower performing school--it is rated a 5 on GreatSchools, 65-70% passing on the state test--and DD is having a wonderful year in 3rd grade with teachers who are working hard to meet her needs. (In this distrct, TAG starts in 4th.) In this case, the general level of the curriculum is meaningless because DD isn't doing most of it anyway.

Before we moved here, I called the head of the district gifted program and the school principal, and spoke to them each for about half an hour about my child specifically (with test scores in hand) and what specifically they could do to serve her needs. They were friendly, interested, and totally willing to talk about appropriate accommodations. In our old district, the gifted program head wouldn't have given me the time of day and the principal refused to let teachers do real accommodations. In another high-performing district I was considering, the gifted program head did give me a 10 minutes phone meeting but was not very interested in talking about my kid, only about what tests she'd need to re-take to enter their gifted program.