Ideas to support a super advanced reader in DCPS?
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Anonymous
Teacher here. Not even close. |
Anonymous
Above average is not the same as above grade level. The average reading proficiency of a class or a grade in a particular school may well be above “grade level” (which is a national level measure - and I’m not even sure is empirically determined. It may be just what adults think is the expectation for each grade.). |
Anonymous
Also, even if we’re just talking about “average reading level”, it’s pretty much mathematically certain that most (>50%) of UMC kids are above the average of ALL kids of all SES levels, since reading attainment is correlated to SES. Half of every population will be >50% of every measure by definition. |
Anonymous
| I always made sure my kids had plenty of books and remembered to take one to school for downtime. This worked until some point in middle school. Separately, I made sure I could help them find age appropriate books at the higher reading level. At their middle school, the teachers would sometimes require kids to read at their "personal" reading level. This can be hard when a 6th grader is reading at an 11th grade level because 11th graders are reading young adult or full adult fare. So, you may need to spend time on the internet finding books. Fostering interest in things like nature and hobbies can help because they will have a wider range of interests and then, hopefully, a wider willingness to read differing books. |
Anonymous
NP. Agree! There is a lot of mediocrity in the UMC children. Their parents are raising a fantasy. |
Anonymous
As opposed to what? Where do you think all the brilliant children are hiding? |
Anonymous
Brilliant children are rare. The vast majority of them (and us) are various shades of average. |
Anonymous
| Junior Great Books (used at some DCPS elementary schools) is a great program for challenging students academically and developing their critical thinking skills. I'd speak to your school about whether they use the program and if they don't whether they can consider doing so. |
Anonymous
There just aren’t many brilliant children. Or brilliant people in general. Every other parent in DC thinks their child is “advanced”. By the end of my kids school journey in DC , nearly every one in their social academic cohort was on the same level. Pure fantasy. |
Anonymous
I have a theory that since DCPS doesn't test for giftedness, most UMC parents just believe that their kids are gifted. If they were tested, as in other districts, they would get a reality check (and it would be the top 2 percent, or top 5 percent, or whatever, that made the cut.) |
Anonymous
Academic differences get more pronounced as kids get older. Maybe if your "social academic cohort" was all kids whose parents have graduate degrees and you're defining "same level" extremely broadly, this is the case. But my kids are at a title 1, and it's unfortunately not the case that the kids struggling when they're younger catch up. |
Anonymous
How old are your kids? Chances are, your kids won’t go to MS HS with these kids. |
Anonymous
I’m the PP that everyone is replying to. I totally agree that most people aren’t geniuses and that we’re all pretty average. My point was that test of reading level don’t capture that. I was tested at a college reading level as early as I can remember. My kid struggled with reading in early elementary and was reading at a college level by 4th grade. Others that I know were similar. This doesn’t reflect giftedness or talent but rather the rather standard - in our circle - practice of reading every day, doing audiobooks on all car rides, and having a house full of books. It’s not talent, just the luck of being in our circumstances. |
Anonymous
Sometimes, but this thread is about super-early readers. In my experience, there's a wide range of age when kids learn to read, and the first half of that range doesn't correlate closely with academic results in upper elementary. My DD, who learned to read at 3, is a bright child, but her friends who learned at 5 or 6 are doing equally as well as she is now that they are all 10 years old. What seemed like a big gap has closed. Kids who are still struggling to read at 7 or 8 are a different thing. Super-early fluency just doesn't predict that much compared to early fluency. |
Anonymous
They're in ES. But "other kids don't catch up, you just avoid them" is pretty different is different from "they all wind up on the same level." |