Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments My Plan

Hopefully I don't sound contradictory here, but yes, this is why even though I think they don't have DS assessed correctly, I am okay with him not being in the highest reading group. For this year if our son needs to work on communicating that (via writing) it's okay.

At home for pleasure reading, he reads at a much high level.

Not to get off topic from the original post, but just as a "here is what we are doing" comment.

JB

Yep, I agree Mia but it seems usually there is just reading level. I'm happy though that my Kers teacher has him writing main character, plot, conflict, resolution for his reading group books which is easier with a book that is at his comfort level rather than his challenge level. My 3rd grader didn't get any of that until 2nd grade, and he was reading higher than my Ker currently is.

Well, sure ... TBH, I have no idea what "reading level" my ds is. It depends on how they're defining it! I'll be interested to see his MAP results for the spring. Anyway, "reading level" is such a nebulous term. I just wanted to point out that language arts as a school subject is often quite different than "reading level," which is often based on the frequency and length of the words in the text. Going on that, ds probably has quite a high "reading level," but no way is he ready to be participating in a 7th grade English classroom.

(ETA: Sorry, I mean "reading level" as defined for things like Lexile. I have no experience with STAR testing or what they're looking for. I think "readiness for learning" level can be ver off with the kind of classroom assessments that often done as quick-and-dirty screeners.)



Completely agreed! I don't have a problem with my ds using easier books for critical thinking skills. He's enjoying higher-level books on the side, and learning the skills needed to dissect a book while reading "easier" books.

That seems logical to me; he doesn't need to work on the mechanics of reading while he's at school -- he does that quite well on his own! He needs to work on the thinking behind the reading. No need to make the learning material overly challenging, as long as he's stretching on the side; I'd rather have him focus on the assignment rather than on the actual act of reading. Frees up more brain space.

(That said, ds *is* subject accelerated. I'd be having at least a small fit if he were reading "first grade" level books and being expected to think critically for those.)

Hi Floridama,

I like your plan and will be interested to hear how it works. I've been having similar thoughts lately about my DS6 - he hasn't progressed at all in maths in a year, and not as much as I would have expected in reading/writing. They may only be little people, but I think they can be pretty quick at absorbing subtle messages from teachers/peers about what they 'should' be doing.

But we've got a meeting in a couple of weeks with the principal of a school that's recently been getting a profile for doing good things with GT kids - it turns out his own son is GT, and went to a GT school, so I'm really looking forward to the meeting. Wouldn't it be lovely to be confident that your child's teacher wasn't trying to put brakes on.

bkd

My teacher friends tell me that teachers generally score students a grade level below what the parents think they are. Our school places an emphasis on choral reading...all the kids in the group reading at the exact same time so you're forced to read at the pace of the slowest reader. Drove me insane as DS would come home reading like this out of habit. It would take him a few pages to get back to his normal reading speed.

My son was able to read and comprehend at around a 5th grade level when he was five, and it was common for him to read a few paragraphs and then then talk about what he read, making up jokes and analogies and predicting what might happen. He stopped reading Magic Treehouse books after Kindergarten and I think it was because he thought the books were too predictable. He told me if I liked them so much I could read them by myself. This is also about the time he started complaining about the way some books were written and he would tell me how he thought the author could have made the books a little more interesting. He wanted rich vocabulary and books that made him think and he hated what he thought were short choppy sentences that a lot of the kids books were written in. I remember his gifted public schooled friend who was four years older was reading books like Hank the Cowdog and that was typical of what they had available in the small school library. They didn't have the kind of books or magazines my son liked to read and nothing to encourage kids like mine to keep reading.

I know the school would have required more writing than my son would have been capable of if he had been grade skipped. Because he has motor dyspraxia and hypotonia he would not have been able to keep up with the writing. I think holding back kids to the level of their weakness and not allowing them to progress in the area of their strengths is so wrong, but there are too many teachers at our public school who disagree with me. There are people in my family who disagree with me. They use my son's cousin, a high school football star, as an example. He was held back a year, which is the custom here, and made high grades all through school even though he didn't have time to study very much because football took up a lot of his time and he made a high enough ACT score that he is being offered scholarships. I knew he was smart, I never doubted that for a minute because he used to stay with me a few days a week when my son was about 4 and I noticed that he liked the same science shows and was good at answering science trivia questions. But when I showed my son's cousin how my son at four could read 5th grade level books and answer questions about what he read, the cousin still said he wasn't old enough to start Kindergarten because kids should be six when they start Kindergarten even if they are really smart.

That comment is like poking a stick at a bear around here. Hope your cousin isn't online.

I think I liked the Magic Tree House books better than my kid also.

Yippee!

I'm hoping that it's working out in math and science at least. I guess the school doesn't see supporting above level Language Arts as part of it's mission.
Well that depends on what you mean by 'barely moved' do you mean that there is 1 months worth of grown in months, 6 months worth, or 'only' 10 months worth. Due to our OverExcitabilities, lack of Reference, and Outer Directed Perfectionism, some Gifted Parents get all freaked out if there is 'only' 10 months of growth in 10 months. So I'm just checking...even if it's 6 months of growth, given that they isn't any instruction at his readiness level, I wouldn't be upset about the lack of growth. I would still be upset at the wasted time and lack of instruction, but that's a different question, isn't it?


this is an interesting question, and this topic, which carries a lot of emotional baggage for me as a gifted ex-child and as a mother of a gifted child, has been well discussed here in this thread.

For example, I made a consious decision in late high school to use the smallest and simplested words whenever possible because I decided that what I really wanted was to communicate, even though I loved my natural vocabulary, which was chock full of long and interesting and subtle words, I trained myself to really put communication first. I remember when I was just starting to post here, catching myself wanting to use a long word, reflexively substituting a short word, and then telling myself that here, I can post as naturally as possible. I actually had hand sweat while breaking that old habit. Karmically, my husband sort of drifted into the same practice. Guess who doesn't have a terrific vocabulary? DS! Guess what I mean by 'not terrific'? At age 12 he was stumped by more than half of the SAT practice words. LOL - do you think that I'm setting the bar a bit high? Even for a PG boy who is strongest in Vocab? What was it that I said about OEs, lack of reference, and perfectionism affecting our perspective a few paragraphs ago?

So yeah, getting the 4th grade vocab list (and 5th and 6th also, while you are at it) and making those words part of your daily life or part of your afterschooling is good from my perspective. I would encourage you to 'dress it up' and use the vocabulary to learn about something that she is actually interested in, whatever that may be. I'm great at this (as that's how I got through my dull school days) but I know it isn't so easy for other people, so post here what she is intersted and I'll give you 11 ideas, one or two of which might be useful.

But, back to:

I think that it takes 'being a writer' to ultimatly stimulate reading growth. When my son(age 12) and I listen to audio books together, we'll excitedly call out 'amazing word choice' and 'killer opening hook' and'smooth transition sentence' and 'just 5 more minutes - I can't stop now!' DS only knows about word choice and hooks because that's what they taught him in language arts about how to write!

Of course, at age 6 he was a reluctant writer, hated to add details, and the biggest thing that could get him to the stage where he could learn to write was learning to type. I was also a reluctant writer in elementary school, and when I was 12 my mom sent me to summer school at our local high school and I learned to type on a Manual Typewrite. Talk about radicle acceleration. I felt very uncomfortable at first, but I had to be strong, I was escorting 9 year old brother! It was difficult, but it took. I still remember the freedom and excitement of finally being able to get my thoughts down as quickly as they came to me. OK, not really as quickly, but close enough. I can type faster than I can talk.

I'm quite sure that my son's fast typing at age 10 was part of what impressed his private school enough to allow them to gradeskip him. And with the ton of homework they poured on him, the typing really helped, especially since he was too young to stay up till midnight like the other kids in his grade.

Is 5 too young to learn to touch type? Probably to young to succed, but I would still add it to the Afterschooling list. There are lots of programs that teach kids how to touchtype properly. Even if she only learns the homekeys this summer, and can only type 'dad has sad gas. a lad had a sad fad. jass had a gaff laff.' by the end of the summer, that would be amazing.

You can also work on writing by videocaming her telling a story, then typing bits onto paper and having her move the parts around and add to them. Or just sit together at the keyboard and type while she talks. You can post them here, and we will applaud. She can make pictures, or take digital photos. Anyway, I'm a big beliver in reading and writing informing each other.

I also love the books '6+1 Writing Traits' which claims to be teaching writing, but in my mind are teaching those upper level reading skills that are rarely taught to elementary school students.

I can't get into a reading program that asks one to identify the good guy and the bad guy. I mean, is that really a difficult job? If a child can't do it for a book, can they do it for a cartoon? Once the questions become 'Is the good guy completely good?' 'Do you like the good guy?' 'Is the bad guy completely bad?' 'How do you feel about the bad guy?' 'What does the writer do to lead you to feel these ways?' then i start to see the benifit. Even more, I particularly like to compare two books on these questions, perhaps both by the same writer or on the same topic. Isn't it fasinating the Lois Lowrey uses the idea of memories being transfered from one character to another in both 'The Giver' and 'Gossamer.' That's got to be a personal metaphore for how she views her role as a writer, no?

So, for me, the only real question in life is 'how can one person actually understand another person's mind?' so when it comes to reading, after one can decode a fair number of words, the interesting question is 'how can reading this book help me understand the writer's mind?' - 'What do the writer's choices say about the way her mind experiences living?'



While I totally love your 'experimental' approach to this frustration, I wonder if you'd be better off saying to the 4th grade teacher: 'I have this vauge feeling that DD needs a bigger challenge in reading next year. Can you help me with the specifics? What reading skills to you measure to judge if a student needs more challenging work?'

Ah, the direct approach!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

So very very wrong!
And I would add, that not only should schools 'allow them to progress' that they actually have an obligation to help them progress!

I'm not exactly sure how this could be done cost effectivly, but even if it can't be done in every single instance, I think that it is the goal to aim for - to blow the roof off of anything that is keeping any child from getting the thrill of learning anything at their readiness level.

Grinity

Floridamom,
Has she read the first Harry Potter yet? That book is very inviting because there are lots of large impressive words that are defined right in the context. Because of this, that books was the turning point for many developing readers who hadn't 'caught fire' yet. If it's above her level now, start reading it aloud for a few nights, and then once she's hooked, let a day or two go by being 'too busy to read', and see if this encourages her to pick it up on her own. I wish that I could still pull sneaky stuff like this on my 12 year old, but those days are over!

Grinity