Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Is anyone 'not' advocating re Kindergarten?

Thanks Chris and JJsMom.

Being on the other side of it now, it seems like it was so easy. I can tell you I was a nervous wreck for a while about a year ago.

That's fantastic, Sciencemama. DS5's school is still in the testing phase and I decided to wait and see too since I do feel the teachers need time to get a sense of what the kids can do. It's hard though when his first weekly update came home and they said next week will be the letters A-E and learning some shapes!

I was in between when it came to advocating for my child. My eldest, was in K 2yrs ago and I started off by asking some basic questions to get a feel for the teachers point of view on things. (Ex. reading...etc.) Got the usual, they all level off by the end of the year and are reading at the same level. i didn't bother to tell her that she was reading chapter books for 2 years already. I Highly doubt that she will "level" off with the other kids. Anyhow, by the end of the year, the teacher approached me saying she testing exceptionally well for her School readiness test (for first grade) and that she was being recommended for the GT program. Turns out, out of the 5 children that were recommended, she was the only one who qualified in the end. Her school is very strict on their program. There are a LOT of really smart kids in the school and even though the state only requires one test with a nationaly percentile, her school requires 2-3 with a comp. of 95% (they seem to adjust it based on the number of kids who qualify... which doesn't make sense to me. If 100 kids scored that high on multiple tests, make accom. top take them all, not make it harder and harder to gfet in?!) Anyhow, I decided to advocate in 1st grade, once already in the GT program to get harder work for class time, as my daughter complained that she was froced to do sight word flash cards and use her "magic flashlight" to point to the words when she read and that she felt like a baby. Well, the teacher was defensive and told me that there were more things to work on in first grade, like organization and that "
if she was really as bright as I say she is.... she could work on org. because afterall, she forgot her folder on the table..". I felt like saying, I never said she was PERFECT, I said she was very advanced academically. SHEESH! So.... now I bite my tongue and let the teachers see for themselves, and when it becomes an issue for my child, then I speak up to the teacher. If that doesn't work, I go to the administration. The principal has been great to work with though. My youngest is in K this year and I am riding it out because I don't know where he stands. My view seems skewed by the high abilities of my older child so I am not sure with this one yet. Besides, by the end of the year, my daughter, being as verbal as she is, started whispering in the teacher's ear to please give her harder math work to do. I think she opened her eyes to see that she really wanted this, not just a pushy mom

It is fantastic. She will be getting level 20 DRA guided reading books to take home (second grade level books), and will be with the 3 other high testers from the other kindergarten classes. There are 4 or 5 total K classes I think, but most anyone else in dd's class tested at a level 2-3 so they needed to combine the other classes to have enough for their own reading group. It's going to be very interesting to see how things go!

I hope your son has similar good luck!

Just wanted to check in with the fellow non-advocators...
How's it going?

With DD5 she is enjoying Kindergarten in her Montessori classroom. Not much talk about the work but since is still a non-reader I know she is working on the appropriate pre-reading work. Our parent teacher conference is in October but as of right now I am not feeling the need to advocate for her at all.

I'm debating about whether to advocate or not. DS5's math needs certainly aren't being met by K, but I think they are being met at home. He's also not yet reading, so that's not an issue yet.

Still mulling it over...

Things are going well for my DD. She is in a half-day program (2.5 hours) that so far is play based - legos, blocks, writing center, kitchen, floor for games, cars and has recess. They haven't even tried to tackle any phonics (at least not yet).

At home, she just finished reading Pippi Longstocking & asked to do multiplication again yesterday.

We have a regularly scheduled parent-teacher conference in mid-Oct. and we will try to chat with the teacher about what she sees ahead in 1st grade. We are just happy that she looks forward to going to school & think it's probably better that they don't appear to be teaching anything!

Okay, for those who advocated prior to K entry...

1. How did you go about contacting the teacher (method of communication)?
2. What kind of wording did you use?

I am having such apprehension about what school to choose for my rising K son and then whether or not to tell the teacher about him before school starts. It is likely some of his skills would be "found out" within a few weeks but I'm sure not all...like I'm sure his preschool teacher doesn't know he can divide, basic fractions, etc. but does know he can read and do some adding and multiplying. I won't want to come across as being a pushy parent and ruining the teacher-parent relationship before school has even begun, you know? Any advice would be helpful. Great thread!!

You might feel better starting a 'portfolio' of work, in your child's own handwriting, that you can bring around to the various schools and let the work 'speak for itself.'

You can't really assume that schools will attempt to figure out 'how far ahead' a child is, as lots of the schools feel that part of their job is to get the child 'on track' with the other kids so that they can all march ahead together. So when 'assesment' is done, it will likely be stopped a grade or two above level because 'why would a school need to know that information?'

I'm not being very reasuring, am I? Sorry. There are a few schools out there that get it. You'll see it when they look at the portfolio and their eye's light up. You don't have to be 'pushy' at all - just 'show' and let them tell.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Personally, I'm for putting all your cards on the table up front. When I scheduled a visit to our local public school, they gave me only 15 minutes to talk to a school rep, so I decided to cut to the chase. I described the type of work my son was doing, his reading level, etc. and then asked directly how they would handle a kid like him. Much to my surprise, they were equally direct and candid, telling me they wouldn't do anything to meet him where he was at until the one-hour-a-week pull-out program started in the third grade! That's exactly what I needed to hear to be able to scratch them off my list and move on!

As for talking to the kindergarten teacher up front, in a really good school, you won't need to, because they'll do thorough assessments themselves. At the private school my son goes to, they don't officially teach anything for the first two weeks of the year, because that time is devoted exclusively to assessing all students in all core subjects and observing their learning styles. When my son hit the ceiling on their sight word test on Day 3, they did a full formal DRA reading assessment on him. I realize that, unfortunately, this is the exception rather than the rule, but if you can find a school that is simply open to finding out what your child already knows before they start teaching him, you've won half the battle!