I have been really sick for the past few days, but I wanted to respond to a few comments before I completely move on from this topic. (Yes, I know most of you will be relieved when I move on, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t mindfuck it a little more.)
I was quite surprised by the teachers who commented that there would be nothing to gain by accelerating M in reading (actually it is technically in “language arts” so she will be getting more than just reading instruction, but LA is a pain to type.) I do get the point about about horizontal enrichment ( and M does go out of her way to learn more about what they are learning at school), if her class is only expected to learn 25 sight words by the end of the year just how much self enrichment should M be responsible for if she can already read chapter books?
We do a lot of outside enrichment at home: M reads voraciously. She takes Chinese lessons (doubly useful because it is hard, but she is also the worst kid in the class for once). We work education (fractions, science, history) into a lot of our daily activities because M enjoys it.
But, I think the school also has a responsibility to challenge her and I think there is a lot to be gained by putting M in a class where she has peers working close to her level. While she will be at one of the more advanced 1st grade reading groups due to her comprehension level, there are plenty of things for her to learn. According to the 1st grade teacher, they will talk about character webs, plot development, predicting what will come next, etc. M can read almost anything, but she needs instruction to expand the depth of her understanding.
It isn’t fair to expect M to just wait around for other kids to catch up to her level when she is itching to learn more. When those kids do catch up to what M knows, M will still be able to learn the new material much more easily and quickly. When we got M’s test scores, she tested above the top 99.8 percentile for learning ability. That means there will be 2 in 100o kids who learn as quickly and easily as she does. I can’t imagine that anyone would advocate sticking a kid with an IQ of 100 in a class where the average IQ is 50 or 60 and expect them to just add to the same curriculum to keep themselves challenged.
Even at M’s school where about 30% of all kids eventually qualify as “gifted” (which usually means they score above the 2nd standard deviation on an IQ test – the top 2% — also, hello upper middle class suburban skewing), the school has already suggested that M isn’t getting enough of a challenge and they would better be able to provide that for her in a 1st grade class where she would also have peers learning the same material.
So far with M, I feel like she has the best of both worlds: she learns easily but she also has no problem fitting in socially and appropriately with other kids her age. After several conversations and meetings, I feel confident that M’s teachers and her principal recognize that academic challenge AND fitting in socially are both really important for M’s development. We will see how things go in the next few months and we will be in a much better place to know how we should move forward in the future. I can’t even tell you how good I feel about M’s school knowing that they are working with us to make sure M gets what she needs while keeping her happy and well-adjusted (or so we hope).
On a slightly different topic, Carol asked how we would feel if L is an average student. I really want to answer that too, but this is too long. So, I will do just one more post before I move on from this topic.
Enrichment is usually just another word for more work, not better work or more challenging work for the child. Your experience with having to do all the regular classroom work as well as the TAG program is typical. I think you have made a wonderful choice for M. It is also one which you can rethink and change if needed. Obviously you and A have thought about all the options and looked at a variety of possible outcomes. I wish you and M a wonderful year at school. Merry Christmas!
I completely agree that the school is responsible for offering more challenging work for those who need it. I think it’s great that your school is working on doing this for your daughter.
So this is sort of like an arrangement that my mom put together for me. I attended kindergarten at a private school at age 4 (because I had already taught myself to read). At 5, my mother wanted me to go to first grade (luckily, I was pretty old for my grade), but the public school refused, and private school forever was not an option. In the end, I spent a year switching between kindergarten and first grade for Language Arts. This is just my experience, and of course you might experience something totally different, but I think it was a bad decision.
For starters, it marked me as being weird and different and “smart” from the very start of school. For seconds, it made it hard to make and keep friends. I never fit in fully in either classroom. And while I’ve always excelled academically, honestly I don’t think it made a bit of difference for me. Just my $0.02, I’m totally not trying to judge you– you should do as you see fit, and maybe you have better teachers than I did.
jaimie said exactly what I’ve been thinking.
It bothered me that you said M cried when presented with this option.
She may be fitting in fine socially now, but kids pick up very quickly on who is “different” and her leaving Kindergarten to go to a different class for Rdg/ELA is no different in their eyes than leaving to attend a special ed class. And 1st graders feel very much above Kindergarteners…for the first time, there is another group below them and they are very proud of their big kid status. She may not feel like she really belongs to either group.
If it were my kid, I would keep her in K with her peers and do the enrichment at home.
I can’t imagine that anyone would advocate sticking a kid with an IQ of 100 in a class where the average IQ is 50 or 60..
I know you were only trying to make a point, but this example is not the same thing at all…and most districts do embrace the inclusion/blended style of special ed now…so kids with lower IQs and learning disabilities, emotional disabilities and other ‘labels’ are in regular classes and the teacher is trying to teach them, the average kid and the gifted kid.
but maybe it’s just better in your school!
I don’t know that I would worry about the class switching, for my two cents. My daughter has been in speech therapy (special ed, I suppose) since she was 4. Now at age 7–second grade, she leaves 2x a week for speech, and her math class is with a different teacher every day. I volunteered last year in her room and so saw the schedule more thoroughly than this year. In 1st grade, out of 22 kids, 4-5 switched for math every day, 3-4 went to speech, 1-2 more went to other therapies, they had a group for reading readiness, they split the class for guidance activities…There was a lot of coming and going.
I’ve commented on this in the past and will limit repeating myself-but my mother refused to accelarate me and took Jaimie’s approach of doing the enrichment at home. I was in a very advanced elementary and, reflecting back, I mostly agree with her decision (didn’t then). How many grades would she have needed to advance me? I could always figure out where I was at and move beyond that. The amount of work in each grade was the same, and once I caught up to that level, we would be right back where we started. And honestly? Being smarter than your peers? At some point you need to figure out how to navigate that socially too-because it won’t suddenly change when you get into the work force. And it’s also helpful to learn that being smarter sometimes doesn’t mean much. And some times someone much less smart than you, is better at solving problems or moving an issue forward. ~lmc
In the small city where I am from, there is an elementary school (open 30 years or so) that is strictly for TAG students. Students attend their home campuses during their kindergarten year and test to get in during the spring of kindergarten. One thing I love most about this school is it’s extremely culturally diverse and challenging. Students have to really want to go.
I taught this group of kids when they were in 6th grade (they move through elementary together, in a bubble, really) and then 6-9 they are bussed to a jr. high where they take all of their core classes with each other but their art, music, p.e. are all with the regular population.
By the time they get to HS, they are in AP and taking college courses.
I always assumed that every district had this type of school, but am quickly realizing this is not so. The school district overall really sucks, but this GT program they have going on really is amazing. The class I taught is graduating this spring. I have followed some of their academic careers and could not be more proud. I think my students owe a lot of their sucess to Windsor Park Elementary.
kind of going through the same thing with my Kindergarten kid. Though the teacher suggested not pulling him to the 1st grade or just for L/A. She instead gives him the same work as the other kids but modifies it. Kids work on finding objects that start with A. M spells words that start with A. Kids work on an alphabet worksheet M works on sentences, paragraphs or making his own books. Though his school does more individualized lessons in L/A for each kid so this sort of thing works and doesn’t make him stand out in the classroom. He is also doing 1st grade math at his own pace.
We also supplement a lot at home b/c one teacher could never cover everything for every kid. Plus M loves the extra work and asks for it. We make him write mini-book reports, spelling tests, spanish etc…
My $.02 from the other end of the spectrum – there IS a lot of coming and going in the classes. My son leaves for speach therapy, occupational therapy, as well as his special ed reading and math. He is not the only one and there doesn’t appear to be any backlash with the kids. It just is what it is and that’s all that they know. Later, it may be a different story. My son must wear a weighted vest and use a special chair pad for sensory processing issues and before he began using them, the teachers discussed this with the class not because they didn’t want him to be teased, but because they were worried that the other students would want to have these items as well. That was last year when he was in first grade. For the record, I was in FLAG (Delaware’s version of TAG) and found it to be exactly as you described. Time out of the regular class that left me with extra work and Saturday O.M. competitions. It was fun, but I don’t know how much it added to my overall education. . .
I’m surprised no one has mentioned private school. Have you considered it? I used to be a public school teacher before having kids and totally support public school. BUT… The kids are in a private bilingual Chinese school right now and though we went there for the language aspect, I am seeing other advantages for my son. He isn’t the only kid in preK who is reading! We are trying to decide where to send him for kinder and I’m a little worried that our local public might not be a good fit. I don’t think he is as gifted as M, but I can’t see him flourishing in a class that is learning their letters/letter sounds, etc. Many private schools around here work at a year or two ahead of the state standards. Of course there are pros and cons to private school as well.
Interesting question, about how you would feel about having an “average” kid. I have one apparently gifted kid (Big Son) and one apparently below-average kid (Daughter, who always places in the lower half of everything, including standardized tests), and I honestly think I have the same goals for all my kids.
Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Wow, I am reading these in reverse chron order, but feel free to email me as this is a VERY truncated $0.02:
I think every kid is different and every situation is different, but most kids are pretty resilient emotionally and parents know what each of their kids can handle, socially. I skipped 2 grades (2nd, 8th) and graduated from HS at 15 – I’m very happy I did it and wouldn’t have done it any other way. The 1-3 skip was purely because of my parents, I had no clue until my report card at the end of the year said I was going to 3rd grade, and I was very excited about it. (Ok, so I was intense and competitive ALREADY.)
Even so, as a 3rd grader I went to 4th grade classrooms for language, math and science, and eventually, at least for math, my teachers just started giving me different textbooks and advancing me when I learned a new skill.
I skipped 8th by my own request, which was probably fueled by hating adolescence and wanting to get out of jr high ASAP. Just went to the guidance counselors and told them that as I mapped out my trajectory of classes, I was going to run out of classes to take by 10th grade, so why not skip me now?
Looking back, my parents were most supportive and were my best advocates. I never felt like I missed out on anything (took full 4 years for college and loved it), and I was lucky to have some very good teachers along the way.
I also had some not-so-great teachers who kept insisting that I was slow, but that is a subject for another time. Let’s just say I had motivational issues if I wasn’t challenged enough.
My daughter is in a school for “highly capable children” and tests in a similar range to yours on educational testing. We still started our parent-teacher conference with the teacher saying “My challenge this year will be to figure out ways to challenge your daughter.”
I’m convinced that for her, advancing her a grade would do nothing to alleviate the challenge, and that enrichment is the only way (but, I do say this knowing that the teacher can give her individualized attention, knows what it means to enrich, rather than over-burden with repetitive work, and that she has peers in her environment because it’s already not an “average” classroom).
My daughter is also the kind who challenges herself — not someone who is happy completing the bare minimum, so this helps, as well. Her strengths are also in language arts — where the general view is that she’s reading at a 10th grade level (in second grade) and seems to have comprehension close to that of 6th grade. Clearly, she couldn’t be advanced to the 6th grade on the strength of that assessment alone. Putting her in 3rd now wouldn’t help much, either. So, we’re going for the enrichment route. In our school, that means the teacher introduces the student to new topics to challenge them.
(But, as I said, we’re at a private school, for highly capable children, with small class sizes).
If you’re still considering the private school you talked about earlier in your city (which I and my sister attended when we were kids) I can say that I think a similar level of enrichment (similar to what my daughter is getting) would be available there.
PS: If you haven’t discovered them already, the discussions at the mailing lists served by TAGFAM: http://www.tagfam.org/ and Hoagies gifted site: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/index-old.htm
have been very useful in navigating all the educational stuff.