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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 6,145
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Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 6,145 |
You are all aware that Bill Gates passion/mission is more health related than education related? His foundation's main goal seems to be to work with health organizations to bring vaccines to third world countries. It would be great if someone could convince him to shift his focus, but at this point I don't think gifted education is in his radar. Not entirely so! Here's the website: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htmNote that the motto there is "Bringing innovations in health and learning to the global community." They specifically focus on providing computers for schools and working with libraries. It looks like someone in the Pacific Northwest might have some luck getting help, too. acs? That's your area, isn't it? Need anything?
Kriston
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 830
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Dottie, have you ever looked into why your schools have limited availability of the tests? GS has never been denied availability of any of the tests on the AR website. I generally don't look for new releases, but I'm pretty sure GS was able to take quizzes on all the Harry Potter books.
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 830
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Posts: 830 |
I think AR was good for my kids early-on (maybe until about 4th grade). It made them read or they didn't make their goals. After 3rd grade, their reading levels were too high, so that the books were either gigantic (and they'd forget a lot by the time they finished & tried to test), old-fashioned/difficult to read,inappropriate, etc. It took the joy out of reading. Then the goals became drudgery. One of the boys favorite thing about going to the charter middle school is that they DON'T have AR. The public schools here have AR through 8th grade. Cym, I found that to be a problem when selecting books at the top end of the reading level. But by searching for books at the desired level, but lower points, it gives results of books that are much shorter and quicker reads. So, GS would read 10 books at level 7 worth 1 point each instead of 1 book at level 7 worth 10 points. The result was same level, same total points. It got him through a spell where he would glance at a long book and whine, "It's too hard". Now he doesn't give a thought to the length.
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 830
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Eventually we did get the last HP test, but DS read it hot off the press, and was unable to test once school started that year. I know there are "package" deals, that include more access, but maybe because we've been using it longer, we still have to purchase them test by test??? I also think we "censor" just a bit at certain levels (for example, Alex Rider books weren't at the 2nd-4th school). I don't know...
We'll deal with it for the next 3 years, but it's not my favorite "curriculum" at the moment. Just keep giving my kids reasonable goals, and let them approach it how they like, and I'll be happy. For example, DS9 likes to go in on the first day of each new quarter, and get his AR points as fast as possible. So he'll test on books he read the last quarter. Then he won't test again until the new goal comes out. He's still reading of course, so I'm okay with it, but I'm waiting for some teacher to give him an unreasonable goal because of this approach. I do admit that many of the books GS uses for AR come from the public library. Many of the higher reading levels are for middle school/high school interest level and they do not have them in the elementary school, but they still have the quiz available in the elementary school. I have been pre-screening his books for the last year, except for Harry Potter. Those aren't my taste and his friend was reading them.
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 830
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Our school claims they can't test on the books at the middle school, because they didn't purchase the test for both schools. Censorship or truth, I don't really know. There ARE enough other options for DS to meet his goal, so for now he plays the game. I only REALLY have a problem when they replace "reading" with "AR", and "book" with "AR book" (*). So far though they've let DS slide once he meets his goal. DD11 though likes to follow rules, and sticks to the actual AR books. She hasn't faced many of the "problems" that DS has though.
* Clarification....the teachers will generally say things like "Let's take out our AR books" for free reading time, and give homework to "read your AR book", rather than just require reading in general. Sometimes I get a little perturbed about the lack of services for GT at our school, you just gave me some reasons to be thankful about what is available in our school! Some of these things seem to be dependent upon the teacher, I hope things keep going the way they did last school year.
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Joined: May 2007
Posts: 982
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Joined: May 2006
Posts: 216
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Joined: May 2006
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Note that the motto there is "Bringing innovations in health and learning to the global community."
They specifically focus on providing computers for schools and working with libraries. Our school got computers from the Gates Foundation.
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