How to handle first grade when DC is way ahead
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Anonymous
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DC is a fluent reader, loves math, and is used to being afforded opportunities for self-paced learning (in preschool and K). In first grade, must sit through phonics lessons, do math that is way too easy, and generally does not seem to learn much (or feel excited to be there). What can I do beyond supplementing at home? I feel depressed that DC is not excited about school and that school isn't what it used to be in pre-k/k (private and more attuned to individual needs). Will DC's teacher eventually differentiate more and let DC do more independently (should I ask?) DC does BA at home and is learning typing. Can kids work ahead in Lexia and ST Math? Though I fear with ST Math it will take a very long time of going through the motions to get to where DC is in BA. The school seems to have some cohort of bright kids, so will the teacher do some differentiation? Should I send DC with books from home?
Other tips or solutions you came up with to get through this? I was thinking maybe DC should have skipped a grade but I didn't want to put DC in with older kids. |
Anonymous
| Not exactly what you're asking, but I remember reading that 1st grade is a tough, boring year for kids who are ahead and so it's a good year to take up an instrument. Obviously that's outside of school, but I put my kids in piano lessons in 1st grade and it gave them some stimulation they needed. My kids also read A TON on their own during the school day in 1st and 2nd grade, which I didn't love but is probably the best case scenario. |
Anonymous
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It's January, have you had a conference with the teacher and maybe the school's GT coordinator if there is one? Ask about how they differentiate and what you can expect to see in terms of work coming home that indicates DC is being appropriately challenged and seeing growth.
It's first grade, so they may also talk about social-emotional skills they are working on with your child. Yes, unfortunately it's also public school. The focus is going to be on the 1st grader who can't read, not on yours who is accelerated. |
Anonymous
Thank you. Did you send your kids in with their own books? Could your kids work ahead or at their level on ST Math and Lexia? |
Anonymous
| My kid is in the 99th percentile for both math and reading according to iReady and she does not complain about being bored at school. I think they differentiate and I also think they work on enough social emotional skills that she is still very occupied. She also will often be called upon to help kids who are struggling which I think is a great skill for her. |
Anonymous
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The day my first grader was pulled out for her routine reading evaluation with the reading specialist, she'd sneaked my collectible copy of The Lord of the Rings to school and was reading it in class. For the next 3 years she was in that school, the reading specialist never let me forget it!
Yes, gifted or precocious kids get bored in any and all group primary settings. It's the first experience, for most of them, that they are outliers and have to work on skills other than academics: patience, tolerance for nuisance, and generally biding your time until something interesting crops up. Sometimes kids act out because they're bored. I just gave my kid more appropriate books than my precious, thin-leafed, gilt-edged edition of LOTR! She stayed quiet in a corner and read. She still does that in 8th grade, despite being in all the most advanced tracks her public can offer (including being bused to the high school for math). The English teacher whispered to her as a joke: "DD, you read too much". So ask the teacher for differentiation, supplement outside of school (BA is great! DD loved it), make learning fun, get them into a cerebral activity (violin for DD but could be chess or whatever) and a sport, and exhort them to patience in class, with all the books they can carry, or maybe a Kindle, if the teacher allows it. |
Anonymous
Started talking to principal and DC skipped 2 grades and additional grade in Math. Also did CTY-SET and had DC read law school casebooks starting in 3rd grade to improve reading comprehension. |
Anonymous
Thank you for your reply--It cheered me up. I appreciate the ideas. In terms of asking for differentiation and allowance to read outside material, I'm a bit nervous because I do not know the teacher very well yet. (DD didn't start at this school until mid-semester last year.) I don't want to come across the wrong way, lest the teacher get annoyed, offended, etc. Do I just wait and see? |
Anonymous
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Well it's hard to say without knowing what your school district is. But since you mentioned Lexia and ST math I assume it is Fairfax.
There are fixed amount of time every student do Lexia and ST math every week, my son told me is like one hour a week for each. Your child can absolutely work ahead. My son achieved Lexia 13 by end of first grade, and he finished second grade ST math before Dec of second grade. At the end of first grade around May the school will evaluate every child and decide to provide Level II service or not. I got a letter before end of 1st grade that my son will receive in-class level II in second grade. My son likes the social aspect of school, and he knows who the top students are. I think he's one of the top students but he was never bored, partly because he loves to show off what he already knew. |
Anonymous
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It all depends on how flexible the teacher is and how overburdened they are with below grade level kids. If you are in a Title I school or any school with a lot of kids below grade level, the teacher will not have the bandwidth to provide differentiation for your kid, but they might be fine with letting you provide it.
I'd ask if your child can skip the ST math and Lexia, and instead read books from home, do BA workbooks, or do BA online. Or for both of them, the teacher definitely can increase your child's level in the system, so the child gets more advanced stuff. ST Math is terrible and will still be a boring slog. |
Anonymous
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A few things:
- Agree with talking to the teacher about how your DC is being challenged. Be careful with how you approach this. Don't say "DC is bored" or state that DC is ahead of the other children. Saying your kid is bored will feel like an attack in the teacher's approach (no teacher wants to hear that children are bored in class) and you don't actually know if your child is ahead of everyone else -- often there are multiple kids who are accelerated on a given subject, and your child might not even be the most accelerated in any given subject. But discussing where your child is at, how you can support what is happening in the classroom, etc., will give you a better idea of what is happening at school and whether it's meeting your child's needs. - Don't discount the value in repeating certain basic concepts even if your child is very comfortable with them. In math, in particular, there can be value especially in covering basic concepts multiple times because it leads to a level of fluency that will benefit them as they move into more complex math. A child can be totally comfortable with addition/subtraction in 1st, but will still benefit from spending time on it because there's a difference between "comfortable with the concept, understands the function" and "can quickly and accurately solve problems without needing to think much about it." Unless your child is a math savant, they probably don't have that fluency yet even if they are already working on multiplication/division in terms of comprehension. - Now is a good time for your child to start learning productive methods for dealing with boredom in class. I was a very accelerated child in elementary school, and while there was a G&T program, I still remember spending many hours in classrooms reviewing topics I knew backwards and forwards. During that time, I had a teacher who encouraged me to use curiosity to make even familiar, easy subjects more interesting. She would tell me to pay attention to the lesson even if it was easy, but when it was over, write down at least one question on the topic that the lesson did NOT answer. So an example would be be, after a lesson on exceptions to phonics rules, I might write down "But why do some words break the rules and some don't?" And then she would either give me an answer or help me find a resource that would tell me. And that's how I became interested in etymology of words as a child. To this day, I have a pretty unceasing curiosity about a really broad range of subjects, and my profession relates directly to this practice, and I'm very good at both asking provocative, useful questions, and figuring out how to answer them. And that started because I was a bored 2nd grader who initially wanted to zone out during lessons because I'd already finished my worksheet in the first 2 minutes of class and thought I knew everything I needed to know. I did not, and I remain grateful to that teacher for making the effort to show me that and giving me tools for reaching further and higher. This is something you could also do at home with your child regarding both lessons at school and any homework assignments coming home that seem boring or too easy for them. GL. |
Anonymous
| Way ahead of the program or the other kids? Few are ahead of other kids and the two I remember from classroom, needed help socializing/ PE. There is almost always something to improve. Your 'I feel depressed" is concerning. |
Anonymous
Why law school case books? An 8th grader reading case books would be "8 years ahead". That's way out of context for 3rd grade general knowledge. Does the kid know the Consitution, civics, crime, finance, etc? Language skill is only one component of reading a text. |
Anonymous
DP. A few options here, depending on how passive you want to be with the situation. 1. You could request a conference, frame it more as being worried that DD is having trouble adjusting to the new school, see what the teacher says, and then segue into her being bored. It's not at all a direct approach, but it shouldn't annoy the teacher or make her view you as *that* parent. 2. If you have some documented test scores that show your child is far ahead (did she do iready and get very high scores? Did she have testing from her previous district?), be more direct that your child is struggling because she needs more challenge. If you don't want to burden the teacher, offer suggestions for enrichment that require no effort on the part of the teacher. 3. Have your child just take a BA workbook or whatever chapter book she's reading, and then ask the teacher if she could do that in place of the ST math or Lexia. The worst outcome is that the teacher says no. |
Anonymous
I *think* it was sarcastic? But perhaps it wasn't. I have an autistic son who was reading some of my grad school immunology textbooks at 4. I did not want him skipping grades because of his social issues - he went to a twice exceptional program instead, with same-aged peers. Not in VA. |