How does your public school differentiate instruction if you have early reader?

[Anonymous]

My son is about to start public K this fall. He is reading on a second grade level now. If your child started K reading at a similar level or higher, what did the teacher do to differentiate instruction? When I went to enroll him, he met w/ the K teacher who then sent him to the reading specialist. She did some informal tests and said they group the few K students who are already reading together. Okay, great. But how much time during the school day is spent with the rest of the class in language arts vs. that reading group? What if the other kids in the group don't read anywhere near his level? What has been your experience with your school? Does your child have to do the same homework that the rest of the class gets? Or does he/she gets something challenging on their level? TIA.

[Anonymous]

I think this is very dependent on the school. My current K kid started the year reading at a second grade level. He's grouped for reading w/1 other child just above his level and 1 child a little below. Most of the day is spent doing same stuff as the other kids and below his general work level. He's also a year ahead in math and he gets some differentiation.

Homework was the same as the other kids. I threw it away and created my own homework for him. No one said anything all year about homework not being turned in.

It's a good sign that the school was already willing to have the reading specialist assess him. My school wouldn't do that until after school started, assessed wrong and I had to push for the reading specialist to redo the specialist.

[Anonymous]

Thanks PP. That info was very helpful. I figured he would probably get the same homework. The only reason he got to meet with the reading specialist was b/c when we went into school to enroll, the K teacher said he flew right through her assessment (letter and sound ID, sight words, etc) so she called in the reading specialist. She took him to her room and did some informal assessments and then had him read a book for her. He was only gone for about 15 mins. She said it helps them know who the readers are so they can place them in the same class. PP- Do you know how much time daily your child spends in his reading group?

[Anonymous]

My daughter also started kindergarten a fluent reader and had her own reading book/group. I don't think it met quite as often as the lower groups. She is in 2nd grade now reading on the 5th grade level..but many kids have caught up and she is in a regular sized group that (hopefully) gets its rightful share of attention. Her teacher is focus on writing more with her group rather than zooming through the reading levels..

[Anonymous]

PP- So did your DD spend most of her days in K doing what the rest of the class did? My son's preschool teacher has told me that he is "tuning her out" already. He pays attention to whatever books she reads but when she starts talking about letters, letter sounds, sight words, etc, he has totally lost interest. I am a bit worried that if the entire language arts block in K is this kind of instruction, he is going to be a behavior issue. I don't care too much about homework since I can modify it for him (I'm an ES teacher myself). But the LA block is a good 2-3 hrs per day and that is a long time to be doing work that is way below his ability.

[Anonymous]

Ugh. We had a bad experience with this. My son started K reading at a 5th grade level. They didn't want to give him reading material at his own level -- in fact, their solution was to have him read to the other kids instead!

This was a problem all the way through third grade. The GT Center at 4th grade as been our savior.

Prepare to fight this constantly. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Readers Workshop, levelled books, independent reading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is about to start public K this fall. He is reading on a second grade level now. If your child started K reading at a similar level or higher, what did the teacher do to differentiate instruction? When I went to enroll him, he met w/ the K teacher who then sent him to the reading specialist. She did some informal tests and said they group the few K students who are already reading together. Okay, great. But how much time during the school day is spent with the rest of the class in language arts vs. that reading group? What if the other kids in the group don't read anywhere near his level? What has been your experience with your school? Does your child have to do the same homework that the rest of the class gets? Or does he/she gets something challenging on their level? TIA.

I agree that it's a good sign that the reading specialist met with him, because it does vary by school. In our experience, a proactive reading specialist has been the key!

Our kindergartner was reading at an upper elementary level. He started out in the highest K reading group, but that proved too low. (I was able to watch the group during the school open house and saw that my DS's complaints about being bored were justified, so we followed up with the reading specialist.) He was placed in a 1st grade group early in the year. This didn't fully meet his reading needs, but it was a decent match for his writing ability and he was happy with that group.

In 1st grade, he was with a 3rd grade group. Again, the reading part wasn't very challenging, but the writing was, and the discussions were way more in depth than he would have gotten with a 1st grade group. His only complaints were about "how much the teacher talked"--because his maturity for dealing with a higher-grade classroom was not as high as that of the 3rd graders. While at home he might read texts with much higher reading levels, this was still a good fit, with some areas of good challenge.

The key to a good placement is having the reading specialist involved. Give it a little time in the fall to see how the placement is going, but you can always ask the reading specialist to test your son fully (not just the materials usually given to kindergartners, but to the point where they can accurately state his level). And remember that the placements are tricky--incorporating reading and writing levels, depth of comprehension, maturity.

Many kids are in different reading groups at our school by first grade, so it's not unusual for kids to leave the home room for reading. (And even though it wasn't the norm in kindergarten, kids leave for other programs such as speech, English language, etc., so kids are coming and going all day.) DS's teacher sends homework packets that include her reading group's homework, but those in other groups don't have to do it. The homework was somewhat less differentiated in kindergarten, but then kids could do things at their own level (write a few sentences as a response or just some words) or work on things that were separate from reading (such as writing neatly!)

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your post PP. If I did want to have some testing done this fall, do I just need to ask the reading specialist to do it? She did say they have a handful of readers who start K which they place in the same class but "readers" could mean many things. They may be reading sight words and short easy readers. My son is reading easy short chapter type books like Frog and Toad, etc. So even if he is placed with the 3 other readers, he could still end up not learning anything new. She did say to ask about the gifted program available in K-2 at the Back to School Night. Does your school have anything like that?

[Anonymous]

My son is in K now and reading DRA level 28 books. His K teacher sends home chapter books in his reading folder for him to read each night. She also reads with him to help him further develop fluency and vocabulary. This has been the approach she has used throughout this year. (We are in Fairfax County.)

[Anonymous]

13:41 here. Our school doesn't have a gifted program in K-2, but so far it has been fine.

I wouldn't be surprised if your school has other kids reading Frog and Toad, etc. I find it helpful to look at "accelerated reader" levels of books--schools often use the program, but best of all it's easy to find out how books are scored in that system. (Google "Frog and Toad" "accelerated reader", for example.) Frog and Toad books get scores from 1.4 to 2.9 (not sure why the range...) My son was reading for fun in the 4's and 5's (Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Bobbsey Twins, books by Roald Dahl and Beverly Cleary) and so it was harder finder a peer group within his grade.

Given that you don't know what sort of a peer group he'll find, I'd let them place him (they'll do more initial testing on all kids at the start) and then see how it's going. After he's in a reading group, he may be giving you good feedback (it's fun, it's boring, etc.), and you can also check in with that instructor so see what he/she is working on with your son specifically. It's possible that the teacher will be working on something that you haven't thought of (reading aloud fluently, giving detailed answers to comprehension questions, writing answers, etc.).

By mid-late October, you could always ask for more testing if it's not seeming like a good fit.

[Anonymous]

Check out this book for some ideas of things to look for in your child's classroom:

http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Gifted-Children-Regular-Classroom/dp/1575420171#noop

Also, ask early on in the year to come and observe you child during a language arts block

[Anonymous]

I echo 14:28's suggestion to wait and see how things are going before you follow up. Remember the teacher is getting to know all her new students and she won't have a snapshot assessment of your child the first week or two. It's terrific that they separate groups, for all you know your child will not be the most advanced reader! Also remember, as another poster noted, that language arts includes writing as well as reading. Early to mid-October is a good time to check in about your child.

[Anonymous]

I'm the original PP. In answer to some questions:

The teachers let the kids get settled and then have a reading assessment window. Once that window closes, they don't necessarily do more assessment until the next window. B/c I had an older child, I already had an understanding of this.

DS was reading and understanding Nate the Great books (he read the entire series the summer before K). I kept track of when the assessment window was and sat back and let the teacher do her job. But I did ask her where he assessed. When the assessment came in too low, I found out who the reading specialist was and talked with her, giving her books that my DS was reading. She agreed to redo the assessment and explained how easy it is for K assessments to be off b/c of the computerized system that they use. This path was a good one for us in that the teacher recognized that I wasn't neurotic parent.

Also, it's important to be clear with the reading specialist and teacher about what you want for your child at school. I was very clear that I wanted DS paired with others who were at his reading level, that peers are important. For several months, he was only being paired with his group 2x/wk. I questioned what happens the other 3 days and that was enough to fix the problem.

I'm not really sure how much of his week is spent reading with his group, though they do have a reading block every day. The teachers do start to focus on writing, and this is important. By 2nd grade, writing is part of the reading assessment. Our teacher has really focused on comprehension with DS b/c he can pretty much decode any words, but as he reaches higher and higher level books, he doesn't always understand what everything means.

The truth is that regardless of how well DS does in school and what the teachers do, all that really matters to him is recess. He barely tells me about any of the rest of his day

[Anonymous]

One thing about reading assessments is that often teachers stop too early. This happened to us when our teacher assessed my DC as only reading 2 grades above level. Luckily I had monitored some of her library reading and checked lexile.com to get an approximate reading grade level. I went back to the teacher and politely asked if she had assessed my DC until she started answering/reading incorrectly. Teacher admitted she only assessed until she had enough info to know my daughter would be in top reading group. Teacher continued assessment and DC ended up reading at middle school level in 3rd grade. Can't say that this made a huge difference in class, but teacher did agree to make some modifications. HGC was a lifesaver for us.