This is a little bit of a brag thread.
But a good news, bad school situation/good school situation, resisting-learning-turnaround story!
Most of you know my ds6's backstory, but for newcomers ...
Ds6 started public K last year reading well, doing second-grade math or so. No accommodations were being made. When ds started getting in trouble for talking, not paying attention and defiance at school, we had ds-then-5 tested, with 99.9s across the board. School refused to recognize a need for acceleration beyond very basic differentiation, and tried to stave us off with promises of a better first grade year and more appropriate leveling at that point.
Ds-then-5's attitude worsened; by February he was hauling off and smacking other kids, he's stopped reading chapter books and reverted to Spot Lift-the-Flap books almost exclusively. School *still* refused to do anything. We started looking at private gifted schools and were blessed to get a spot at a local one that does inter-grade grouping for math and language arts. Ds6 started in first grade, with subject acceleration to third grade.
So! The good part!
Last year, ds was resisting learning anything new, or doing anything that required much effort at all. If he couldn't do it on the first shot, it wasn't worth doing, period. Fast-forward to today ... when I realized he'd had a real turnaround.
We've been working on spelling lately. Ds had been getting 8 of 10 regularly, and we bribed him into studying harder
because the words weren't *hard* for him, they just required a few times of review. So right at his learning point. After several 10s of 10, he seems more convinced.
He got a math test back yesterday that got a 28/40 -- they're doing long division and multi-digit multiplication. On reviewing the test with him, as I promised to teach him long division, I saw that a full 8 of the questions were wrong in only one digit -- on two others he'd had the right answer and erased it! We've been working on long division at home with graph paper, and I'm really proud of him. He's sticking with it even though he wasn't getting the right answer all the time. (BTW, the graph paper helped enormously -- I highly recommend it).
Another instance: Ds6 hates writing, and according to his LA teacher, isn't progessing as she'd hoped. I've been pointing out little writing tips to him as he works, and we've been doing little writing exercises, and he's really working at it! He thinks before he writes a letter; I can *see* the wheels turning in his brain as he remembers the "right" way to do it. And once again, he's sticking with it! Ahh ... I love it.
So -- a success story of appropriate placement! The difference that challenge at school has made for him has been amazing. He was totally done with school, wasn't interested in learning or trying in kindergarten, and it showed at home. The little guy I was seeing today is a very different kid -- he was *excited* to work on his long division today! Yay!
Also, a quick question -- do you think it's ok to ask his math teacher if he can use graph paper to do his scratch work? It helps him enormously to have those guidelines while doing stuff like long division and multiplication -- his writing is just not up to keeping all those numbers in line. Thoughts?
