Reply to Do Montgomery County HGC and magnet programs ever "counsel out" students who are struggling?

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Reply to "Do Montgomery County HGC and magnet programs ever "counsel out" students who are struggling?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I think this is kind of odd.

At a certain point, it's not the level of the books you read.  What I mean is -- in the HGC my kid read books that were young adult books for the most part, so below my own "reading level," yet even I found them thought provoking and engaging.  No, they weren't reading DeLillo and David Foster Wallace but I think they were challenging in terms of the way they were asked to interpret the content and think about the writing.  It was the discussion that was important.

So to me, that doesn't mean that the program isn't meeting their needs.  Sure, we all choose to read different things in our spare time and thank goodness there's a library full of books so we can find things that interest us.  But once you get to a certain level, I don't think we pick books because they are written at a "late college/graduate school reading level."

[/quote]

I'm the PP whom you quote.  To a certain extent, I agree with you.  In middle school, the books have become more challenging intellectually -- Animal Farm, Farenheit 451, etc.  These assignments have provided room for more thoughtful analysis and discussion.  Some, such as Animal Farm, may require additional research to understand the full scope of the book.  These are worthwhile reads even though others, like Farenheit 451, have a  "lexile" score that might make them relatively "easy" reads in terms of text.

But, the level of difficulty of text is also important.  Dr. Seuss writes some thoughtful books that even adults can read and think about, but an adult would go bonkers if he had to read Dr. Seuss and other similar books 24/7 at work.  It's similar for advanced kids.  Frankly, YA books hold little interest for my child.  She can read them in an hour or so, but the class can go on and on about them for weeks.  The teacher assigns 1-2 chapters at a time, which is a snail's pace for her.   Higher level of difficulty of text is what drives more complex vocabulary acquisition and the ability to understand and write more complex text.

In any case, my point was in reply to the original thread topic -- that the HGC is somehow "so" challenging that many kids must be dropping out.  That hasn't been the case in our experience, on the reading side, for many kids (not just my child).  And, it's unlikely that kids who can easily read the text will be unable to analyze/discuss it.  Is the HGC meeting my child's needs better than the home school?  Yes, absolutely.  In that sense, I'm grateful for it. [/quote]

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