Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Grade 1 gifted pull-out - appropriate content

Hi

My DS7 has been identified gifted by the school board. He is currently in grade 1 attending a French Immersion school. He has an IEP in place and they are supposed to be providing more 'challenging' materials for him in specific areas (math, reading, science). So far, we haven't seen a lot of evidence this is happening, although sometimes it's hard to tell.

Anyway, I got (naively?) excited to hear that they were starting a weekly science pull-out session with the gifted gr. 1s (there are 2 others in his class). [At the beginning of the year the principal had said they were discontinuing gifted pull-outs.]

I just found out what their first project will be: creating a picture or sculpture using materials of different textures (which is their current science unit).

Am I wrong to be disappointed with this type of project? DS is NOT an 'arty' kid and really resists anything crafty (he's not great with fine motor skills). Possibly the teacher's description was just too vague and there's more to it than it sounds?

But I'm wondering what to do - DH wants to say something to her - make suggestions to 'bump it up'. Since it may be the first pull-out she's done (she's new to the role), I may be inclined to wait and see how it goes.

Have your kids done this type of pull-out? What kinds of projects are usually done for grade 1?

The fun thing about an IEP is, it's supposed to contain only things that are actionable, demonstrable, and measurable. "Provide more challenging materials in specific areas" does not meet that criteria. It's too vague.

Knowing that gives you an opening to begin a dialog with the school. Something like, "We're reviewing DS's school activity with respect to the IEP, and we have some questions. We're not sure what "provide more challenging materials" means" (because you already know it means practically nothing). "What materials are being provided that are not included in the standard first-grade curriculum? How often is this being provided? What grade levels do these correspond to?"

That ought to set off some red flags in the school that you know about the accountability requirements of an IEP, and you intend to see them enforced if necessary.

The gifted science pull-out sounds like it's an enrichment offering. Those are designed to be on grade level, and related to the grade-level lessons currently being explored in the classroom. Honestly, I don't know what else you could do about "textures" within the confines of a public school. The simple answer is that enrichment isn't nearly enough for your DS. He probably needs acceleration.

Prior to contacting the school, you may wish to check your State laws and school or district policies to research what agreements are in place to provide for gifted education experiences and to manage parents' expectations.

I would want the IEP to have SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable, and time-bound) goals around outputs. I'd want a chart that has column headings like these listing out the final results you can expect:

1. Output (action focused on output, like level proficiency achieved, not input activities, like textbook provided)
2. Measurement metric to assess performance
3. Staff responsible
4. Minimum acceptable target
5. Goal target
6. Date completed

Without a responsibility matrix and clear output goals, I'm afraid the plan is worthless.

Recognize that whether or not a G-IEP is even a legally enforceable thing at all-- that's going to vary by state, and perhaps by local policy if your state is one that doesn't really recognize gifted children as officially having special needs educationally, which are handled under IEP's.

Other than that, aquinas has excellent advice, I think.

Consider, too, that what Dude mentions is likely to be a serious limitation to in-class enrichment/differentiation.

I had a child that hated artsy/craftsy "enrichment" as well. I feel your pain on this one.

Thanks for everyone's replies!

We are in Canada, so enforcement is probably different. Our IEP is very vague, despite efforts to get them to add details. We have discussed with his teachers what we think should happen - ideally on a daily basis in class, not just a weekly pull-out.

DS's biggest complaint is that the math is too easy, so that's what we focussed on. We may be making progress there - his teacher claims she is working with him (and with two other kids with gifted IEPs in his class) on more difficult math. But it's very hard to tell what is really happening in class - he just gets mad if I ask him too many details. Also, from his POV curriculum items like 2-D shapes and clocks are not really 'math', so most of the time if I ask what he did in math he tells me they didn't do any.


When he was identified we were offered a placement in congregated gifted, but it meant no French instruction. We had a really hard time deciding, but the staff assured us that they could provide enrichment in class. We can always move to the CGP later, if necessary - the thing is, he really enjoys the French part of his day - and he's good at it. Languages are his thing.

Unfortunately, acceleration is (apparently) not an option - because his birthday is early in the year, I've asked. Also we were told they cannot teach beyond the curriculum - even in the CGP.

I was just surprised that creating a drawing/sculpture was the first pull-out project chosen by the resource teacher. It may be a moot point anyway since he's been off school sick. We'll probably just wait and see what she chooses for the next project.

I would not wait to address this, just because it's her first time doing pull-outs. In fact, I think the earlier you catch this, the better. She may be more amenable to friendly, helpful feedback at this stage. I would make it clear that I expected science pull-outs to contain actual, you know, science. Depending on what the topic is supposed to be ("textures"? huh?) you could suggest a project that explores friction and how it affects how an object moves across a surface; or how our fingers detect different kinds of textures. Keep it friendly and light and helpful at this stage.

Just chiming in to add that my DS7 also feels let down when "enrichment" activities are actually just arts/crafts tangentially related to things going on in class.

Related and unpromising - I was at our Site Council meeting yesterday, where we discussed a proposal to open a tinkering room for our elementary school. Hooray, right?

As it turns out, not so much. The mission statement included creating a place where kids could "purposefully explore and invent ..." I asked how "purposely explore and invent" differed from "explore and invent." As it turns out, the exploration and invention will be severely bounded. One example: kids studying animals will make a clay animal or cut out magazine pictures of the animal, and then cut out pictures of the appropriate habitat for it. The "exploring and inventing" was described as "ways to make the habitat stand up around the clay animal." Oh - and this was for 4th grade, not first. I can't imagine what they would consider "exploring and inventing" for first grade.

In our experience, enrichment has almost always been busy work rooted in arts and crafts. But I'm ETA that I think MegMeg's approach is brilliant and I'm going to try it!

So this would be 'explore and invent' by following directions, then?

Forgive my gauche inability to understand, but that does sound a lot more like "following directions within the context of curriculum-related enrichment activities."

I feel the same way about enrichment as I do about differentiation: excellent for all students and not enough for gifted ones.