How to handle first grade when DC is way ahead

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would have a conversation with the teacher and see what they are doing in the classroom. I wouldn't worry about upsetting them by asking for a discussion, it is a reasonable request.

My son was advanced in grade 1 and there was a lot of repetition for him and the biggest benefit to him was socially meeting other kids and making friends. I wouldn't discount the social benefits. I also know there is a lot of hate for Lexia on here but it helped test my son's reading comprehension in first grade when he was an advanced reader.

Thank you. I'm going to give it a little while longer and then do just that. I'm glad to hear you found Lexia useful when you son was already an advanced reader!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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?

PP you replied to. Others have great advice. What did the teacher say in the parent-teacher conference?

I didn't ask for permission for DD to bring in books, if I recall correctly. This was in a pretty overcrowded public school in Montgomery County, and I knew the teachers were all rather overwhelmed. So DD brought whatever she wanted to school, and read those books during reading time. At every parent-teacher conference in November, without me broaching the subject, every year the teacher would say: "I wish I could do more differentiation, but I can't, so here's what she's been doing" and would hand me a miserable one-pager of slightly different math sets. Not the teachers' fault, they did their best. This is why we did Beast Academy. Essentially for grades 1-3 (she did a Montessori preschool that ended in K, and then went to a magnet for 4th grade), DD thought that school was a purely social scene, where you were occasionally required to do boring sheets of stuff, but the rest of the time, you could eat lunch in a very noisy hangar gaily enhanced with food-throwing, run around at recess, read and talk with friends, or watch someone scream and hit the teacher's aide.

Great to know and thanks again. I just worry about offending the teacher by sending him in with BA workbooks! DC also was in Montessori before this and was at home for a brief period as we were planning to buy a house, but that plan collapsed, which is why DC started in first grade a bit late. No parent-teacher conference yet, but I'll ask for one soon.

I think soon DC will take on a perspective similar to your DC. For now just not very happy because it's so different from past experiences (at Montessori and at home).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

Depending on just how far ahead your kid is in math, you could look into having your child skip a grade or two in math, but remain in their regular grade for all other subjects. FCPS does allow this, but your kid would have to be pretty far off of the charts for the school to consider it.

Thank you. So how would it be determined if kid is 'off the charts'? How will they know? I am happy to talk with teacher/principal when the time is right and make a case, but I feel nervous about it and would obviously prefer if it was just something that became known to them from knowing DC's work.

It won't become known to them from your kid's work, because the teacher won't assign anything to facilitate that. The best approach is to have absurdly high test scores that support your case. If your child had taken 1st grade iready and had scores indicating that your child was at a 3rd or 4th grade level, that would help. They would then still test your child on their own.

If your child is comfortably doing BA 3 or 4 problems, you could request that the school test your child for a possible math skip. The teacher and principal absolutely will roll their eyes at you behind your back and assume you're one of the many parents who think their children are much more gifted than they actually are. But they should do the testing, and your kid's performance will speak for itself.

DC started mid semester and didn't complete iReady (yet; not sure if/when he will). I don't want to incur eyerolls because I know how much power the teacher has re: AAP referral (the HOPE).

The HOPE referral will come from the second grade teacher so I wouldn't worry to much about the first grade teacher's impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

Depending on just how far ahead your kid is in math, you could look into having your child skip a grade or two in math, but remain in their regular grade for all other subjects. FCPS does allow this, but your kid would have to be pretty far off of the charts for the school to consider it.

Thank you. So how would it be determined if kid is 'off the charts'? How will they know? I am happy to talk with teacher/principal when the time is right and make a case, but I feel nervous about it and would obviously prefer if it was just something that became known to them from knowing DC's work.

It won't become known to them from your kid's work, because the teacher won't assign anything to facilitate that. The best approach is to have absurdly high test scores that support your case. If your child had taken 1st grade iready and had scores indicating that your child was at a 3rd or 4th grade level, that would help. They would then still test your child on their own.

If your child is comfortably doing BA 3 or 4 problems, you could request that the school test your child for a possible math skip. The teacher and principal absolutely will roll their eyes at you behind your back and assume you're one of the many parents who think their children are much more gifted than they actually are. But they should do the testing, and your kid's performance will speak for itself.

DC started mid semester and didn't complete iReady (yet; not sure if/when he will). I don't want to incur eyerolls because I know how much power the teacher has re: AAP referral (the HOPE).

The HOPE referral will come from the second grade teacher so I wouldn't worry to much about the first grade teacher's impact.

DP. I agree not to worry too much, but at our school the first grade teacher at least was part of the group that puts the GBRS together, and I can't imagine that's changing for HOPE. The AART is too. 2nd grade teacher is only part of the puzzle, though I assume the biggest.

[Anonymous]

I can't imagine that requesting a conference with the first grade teacher for a student new to FCPS would be seen as a negative and cause the teacher to give a low HOPE rating next year.

Ask for the conference. Express concerns that your child came from Montessori and is struggling to adapt to public school. It's fine to say that your child could use a bit more challenge. As long as you don't come across as arrogant, imply that your kid is smarter than all of the other kids, and imply that the teacher doesn't know how to do her job, you'll be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

Depending on just how far ahead your kid is in math, you could look into having your child skip a grade or two in math, but remain in their regular grade for all other subjects. FCPS does allow this, but your kid would have to be pretty far off of the charts for the school to consider it.

Thank you. So how would it be determined if kid is 'off the charts'? How will they know? I am happy to talk with teacher/principal when the time is right and make a case, but I feel nervous about it and would obviously prefer if it was just something that became known to them from knowing DC's work.

It won't become known to them from your kid's work, because the teacher won't assign anything to facilitate that. The best approach is to have absurdly high test scores that support your case. If your child had taken 1st grade iready and had scores indicating that your child was at a 3rd or 4th grade level, that would help. They would then still test your child on their own.

If your child is comfortably doing BA 3 or 4 problems, you could request that the school test your child for a possible math skip. The teacher and principal absolutely will roll their eyes at you behind your back and assume you're one of the many parents who think their children are much more gifted than they actually are. But they should do the testing, and your kid's performance will speak for itself.

DC started mid semester and didn't complete iReady (yet; not sure if/when he will). I don't want to incur eyerolls because I know how much power the teacher has re: AAP referral (the HOPE).

The HOPE referral will come from the second grade teacher so I wouldn't worry to much about the first grade teacher's impact.

DP. I agree not to worry too much, but at our school the first grade teacher at least was part of the group that puts the GBRS together, and I can't imagine that's changing for HOPE. The AART is too. 2nd grade teacher is only part of the puzzle, though I assume the biggest.

OP here. Interesting, I hadn't known that the HOPE is only completed in 2nd grade. Thought this was an annual thing completed by the child's current teacher.

I haven't talked to the AART yet but I might at some point, although have been told there's not much point in first grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't imagine that requesting a conference with the first grade teacher for a student new to FCPS would be seen as a negative and cause the teacher to give a low HOPE rating next year.

Ask for the conference. Express concerns that your child came from Montessori and is struggling to adapt to public school. It's fine to say that your child could use a bit more challenge. As long as you don't come across as arrogant, imply that your kid is smarter than all of the other kids, and imply that the teacher doesn't know how to do her job, you'll be fine.

Thank you! This is great advice and I would definitely aspire to avoid coming across arrogant or saying kid is bored, smarter than others, etc.