Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Kindergarten 2009-2010

mom2twoboys - Thanks for caring. The return has been OK so far. She even got a "Fabulous" sticker yesterday (but a Careful the day before). But no calls to DD from the school and no Reds (office referral). Of course, the week is not yet half over.
DD had a meeting yesterday with the Play Therapist who has seen GD twice and now the PT wants to meet with me. She did give DD some suggestions & some "wordage" to use with the school to try to get GD some enrichment materials. She also said let the school psychologist observe her in class & the teacher's reactions to see if she can help. The PT says she sees no ADHD but GD is very active, wants to "do everything" etc. Her goal seems to get GD to the point she can handle things herself (including knowing when she's hungry & saying so before she melts down & facing all the things she currently is afraid of like skeletons & mushrooms in the grass). A good goal if we can accomplish it. I'll be interested to hear her thoughts myself. DD is also supposed to bring her back weekly for ??. If this really helps, it will be well worth it but it is very expensive. Only time will tell I guess.

Of course, she suggested GD would be better off in a private school where she could learn at her level, but DD said the $12,000 a year is not feasible.

BTW - I loved the yogurt/fractions story.

My DS5 told me that he does not answer questions because it does not give the other students in the class the "opportunity" to answer. I asked if his teacher told him this and he said, "she didn't have to, it is obvious". Maybe in some way, your DS feels the same.

That's great Sounds like here!

The first day back from vacation was good, the second was horrible and I kept him home yesterday. Who knows how tomorrow will be

I'm really glad that you get to meet with the therapist! And hopefully it'll help. Did she say how long it would take before you see improvement?

Jamie B -

I'm really glad the therapist asked to meet with me. It's hard to get the info 2nd hand although DD tries to fill me in. No time frame that I know of. Maybe I'll get more info when I meet with her. She seems to be just observing & interacting with GD then giving DD suggestions. We'll see if it helps.

Sorry DS has had such a rough week back. If you want to talk about it either here or by PM, I'm interested in hearing about it. GD got through one more day yesterday with a "Try Harder" but no phone calls from school. One day at a time.

Thanks GM. I'm at work now but will send you a PM later today. And good luck with the therapist.

The principal finally called me back. She told me over and over how unfocused Isaac is. She said that if his lack of focus doesn't improve she's not sure if he's going to make it through 1st grade next year. She said that she's not saying that he's not gifted and that he exhibits some gifted signs but he needs to stay in kindergarten for social skills. She gave an example of them reading a book to the class and how Isaac started crawling under the table. I tried to explain to her that it's because he's not interested in the books they're reading (mostly board books) but she was talking so fast I couldn't get a word in.

She said that they're going to do two 15 minute sessions of 1st grade reading material with him during the day. The teacher's aid will do it. They've said things like this before and it hasn't happened so I don't know if I believe her or not. I also wish they'd have tested him because I have a 2nd grade reading book here that he does fine with. She said they'd try to put him in 1st grade math everyday which is 45 minutes. She said a few times that she didn't know if it would work and she wasn't sure if he'd be able to understand 1st grade math so I'm not too optimistic about that either. I was able to tell her that he's doing well above 1st grade math on a program that we have here.

I guess I need to take what I can get but I still don't think it's what Isaac needs. He dreads school, I dread school. He told me that he doesn't want to learn anything anymore and when I asked him what he learned at school today he told me that he learned not to be bad

Jamie B - I feel for you. Hopefully if they follow through and give him some more challenging work, he may show his true self better and make them think again. It can be so frustrating dealing with school personnel who are set in their one-track thinking - when the kid acts "mature" (in other words, fits in their little box), they'll consider giving them more challenging work. I hear "she may be smart but ..." or "she needs to learn to cope with the boredom" or "her behavior is not typical for a Kindergartner". When will they face the facts that these kids are not typical and should not be shoved into a little box - they'll suffocate!

That said, we are willing to try to help GD learn to modify her behavior in class. It's just not easy to figure out how to do it. Hopefully the therapist can help us. She has good days and bad - today was bad although not the worse.

So your son has not been tested for reading level? Neither has GD although apparently some of the other K teachers have tested their classes. So far we have been given no modifications. I looked up the rest of the Math Curriculum for Kindergarten (it's online - Pearson) and GD already is proficient in all the material. She was reading at 3rd grade level or beyond a year ago - not sure where she stands now esp. as far as comprehension. But they won't test her to find out. They expect her to just listen attentively and act interested in the repetitive material. DD and I and GD all dread school for the most part now. GD won't even talk about her day although she does seem to like her friends. DD says she is realizing how different she is from all the other kids
now.

I would be willing to find another part-time job to pay for our local Gifted School - if she qualified and if they would accept her. Not sure if they want kids who have started out with bad school experiences. Also it's quite a distance and would limit her after school time - not sure how she would react. I guess it would depend on the in-school experience.

PM me anytime you want.

Sorry - didn't mean to go on so much about GD. Just wanted to empathize.

I don't know whether to be happy for you or irritated for you, so I think I'll do both. I'm happy that they finally agreed to some acceleration even if it's not really what he needs. Maybe they will see an 'improvement' in his focus and realize that the more appropriate the material is the better he focuses and behaves.
I'm irritated that they didn't listen to you but hopefully he'll just prove himself to them (assuming they actually do the minor acceleration they said they would).

How can anyone say that????