Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Mid year report from school

2eDS8 (dyslexia/graphia/praxia) is a chronological second grader but is enrolled in a mostly third through eighth class. I say "mostly" because several kids work below third grade level in some areas.

There are two teachers for about 15 kids and he gets a lot of one on one time. His accommodations include giving oral answers sometimes and no timed math fact quizzes. He likes school and is mostly working at the third grade level. He does a lot of outside of school learning on science and history and gets to share that with his class too via presentations the kids put together during their free time. They let him eat lunch with his former classmates (before acceleration) whenever he wants and he remains friends with those kids too.

Overall we are very happy with his situation. One question has come up and I'm curious how parents here feel about this. At this school love of learning and child led learning are very important. If a kid does not initially "take" to a concept, they let them move on to something else for a while. For example, DS is in second grade on telling time, third on fractions and fourth on geometry. They can't skirt material entirely but they have a lot of choice. He can do the bare minimum for grade level in one area and devote more time to getting ahead in another area. Thoughts?

I would agree generally with Portia. With our homeschooled child with dyslexic/dysgraphic tendencies, I push only far enough to get the weaknesses to within normal limits for age, and accommodate them for all other subjects, to allow strength areas to be free-running.

And on telling time: more than one of our children has had an odd little relative weakness in telling time, in the context of otherwise advanced math skills, at around that age. In our family, I usually just blame this on parents with dilatory habits...

I can relate to that particular pang on my conscience.

One of my major dilemmas is the push/pull of whether to keep my DD stimulated and learning in key areas (language arts and Maths) and reduce unstructured time as a result or whether to cut back on the after schooling to allow more unstructured time.

And that doesn't even get into Music lessons, an area where she has natural ability but one in which she must take lessons to get better - further reducing UT...

Life as a natural over thinker/worrier sucks at times LOL

Wow - that sounds awesome! I also have DS8 with DCD/dyspraxia, as well as vision (convergence) issues - but he is in regular grade 2 (with French Immersion). He would love to be accelerated in math and other subjects.

However, he also struggles with telling time. At first I was really puzzled by this - they learned this in gr. 1, how could he not read the clock. But I suspect it is something to do with either the vision or DCD - something to do with visual-spatial perception maybe?

I think what struck me in Portia and aeh's responses was their differentiating between letting a child avoid hard (but essential) stuff, vs. letting them run ahead in areas they love, without requiring them to follow the same linear script to get there as everyone else.

For mine, I have found the latter is essential - to keep them motivated and engaged, I need to feed them the conceptual stuff at the level of their appetite, and that can sometimes leap far ahead of their automaticity and skills in the daily grind. And when we do the fun stuff, I may be providing huge scaffolding on their weak areas so they don't get in the way. I don't want to hold them back to the level of their weakest skill. But yes, madeinuk, because we live in the same anti-acceleration world as Can2k, with DS I angst every word of your post, daily (nice verb, huh?)

However, letting them fly in their strengths is quite different from letting them avoid their weaknesses, which is surely a recipe for long-term disaster. And DD and I have spent the last year and a half in the reality Portia so well-describes above: if you have to do all the nasty stuff at home because they won't do it at school, that's really hard on your relationship with your kid. (But DD completed vision therapy this week! YYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! I There are no words to say how happy I am to not have to make her do that any more).

So here in asynchronous land, I would never try to put the brakes on the fast-moving pieces to match the speed of the slow ones. But I would pay close attention to the slow ones to make sure they are developing at a level and speed that is reasonable and appropriate for this particular child, in this particular skill area. (says I. this is why I don't homeschool DS: we'd do math and physics all day long, and forget about language arts and social sciences for years on end. and I'm an artsy - but it's just so much fun to watch that mind fly when we let it chase antelopes.)

Thank you for the responses so far. I would say at this point nothing is below grade level. He is about 60% accelerated one year, 30% accelerated 2+ years and 10% grade level. Some skills are good on their own but not so good together. So he aces spelling when it is all that is being tested but has very creative spelling during written responses to reading comprehension. His teachers don't harp on it, they just point it out and focus on whatever the main purpose of the exercise is.