1st grade subject specific AAP?

[Anonymous]

My rising 1st grader was identified by the school's AART/AAP panel and recommended for subject specific AAP next year. I'm not surprised given that he got a perfect score on the VALLSS screener and VKRP screener and has complained about being bored all year but we didn't get much information about what that looks like in practice. I'll admit that we didn't attend the AAP session the school hosted because our school also offers immersion and we didn't realize we'd be able to do both and intended him to stay in immersion.

1. What does subject specific AAP in 1st grade look like?

2. Does it actually make the day more rigorous? He already does beast academy at home for fun (completed level 1 this year) and has been flying through magic treehouse books before bed. Should I anticipate we will still need to supplement at home to keep him challenged?

3. Anything else I should know or anticipate?

[Anonymous]

There are lots of threads on this if you look.

I would not anticipate any increased rigor, or really any noticeable difference at all.

[Anonymous]

Nothing special. My kid in immersion had this in place from k. There were pull outs at our school but not anymore

[Anonymous]

They may or may not get some extra worksheets. I wish I had better news, but that was our experience.

[Anonymous]

Most likely means he’s supposed to get differentiation but won’t. Mine didn’t. I would think in an immersion program even less of a possibility. In a public school you’ll always have to supplement at home to keep him challenged. Mine is starting AAP full time next year, I’m really hoping they will 1. Have homework and 2. Have more challenging material to keep him engaged.

[Anonymous]

Nothing, maybe extra worksheets.

[Anonymous]

LII is different at each school. My child has never been a reliable reporter of what is happening at school. He doesn't see the need to provide information about his day voluntarily and his answers to direct questions are brief. But he never discussed any pull outs for academics until LIII in 3rd grade, our school did not have LLIV and we choose to stay at the base for the immersion program and social reasons. Some of the worksheets we saw coming home included problems that had solutions with negative numbers and the like, I don't know if that was work the entire class was doing or LII worksheet.

K is boring for just about any kid who has had involved parents. The material that is taught is the material most of us are teaching at home. I suspect that the number of kids not being taught sounds and letters and the like is on the rise since I am seeing news reports that a lot fewer parents are reading to their kids today. K-2 is focused on teaching the basics. Kids who have been read to and encouraged to learn through play and don't have LDs/ADHD are likely to be bored by the academics at school. For some, learning the social norms is what is most important in K-2.

By 3rd grade, the kids who are smart and don't have LDs catch up to the kids who had a more academic home and the groupings sort of solidify. Since kids learn at a different rate, some kids will figure out school and how they learn and move into Honors and AP/IB classes in MS and HS. ES really is elastic in where kids are and doesn't really reflect where many kids will end up by HS.

We supplemented at home by reading books every night, watching documentaries that we thought were interesting and that our kid seemed interested in, think Planet Earth, playing board games that taught math skills and strategy. I was able to talk about mythology and history while DS was playing Mario because there are pyramids and sphinxes and other references that I would discuss with him while he played the video game. We did start math classes in 3rd grade because he was bored in math and that led to math competitions, which he still does.

[Anonymous]

In first grade at our base/center subject specific included maybe one or pull outs and (for reading) being in the highest reading group. It was not really great. Thankfully DDs all had the same teacher for 1st who was amazing at differentiating based on her own observations.

Our AART really focused on the 2nd graders for subject specific and they had bi-weekly pull outs where she did critical thinking activities for them which, I believe, became their AAP application packet work samples. They put any kid in subject specific they thought was potential full time AAP material for this reason.