G can read at probably a third or 4th grade level at this point. Yet she comes home with spelling words that are way too easy for her. Last week was "pin, tin, bin, pit, sit, kit, fin, sin, bin, two". When I practice them with her at night, she just rattles them off without even thinking. She gets 100% on her spelling tests. Now she is coming home with little books that then entire class brings home to "practice". Here's a few sentences of that this week's book: "The dog got a hat. it was a tin pot. Did the tin pot fit the dog? No it did not. The pig got a hat. It was a pot top." G is reading "Charlie and the Chocolate factory" and reads the newspaper.....
I talked to the teacher shortly after the beginning of the school year. That week, she sent G home with a really neat book. Now we are back to the early readers.
School = many children, one mold. Each child is funneled though the same place, at the same pace, regardless of their needs. G is getting tremendously bored. We give her more appropriate and harder "homework" to do at home ourselves. But that's just making her lose even more interest in her classwork as she moves further and further ahead.
I don't want to have to keep bringing this up with the teacher. I certainly don't want to sound like one of "those" parents who believes that everything their child does is gifted. But G could easily be doing the work in 1 or 2 grades higher. From all signs thus far, it will not come as easily to A, and she will be the student who needs to start 1st grade at the level the teacher is teaching to. So how do I fix this for G?
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That is so frustrating.
A few thoughts:
Is the class not divided into reading groups? If not, that seems really odd. I mean it's just crazy to basically hold back a good reader, and most elementary schools try to teach reading at the right level.
Have you had her tested for gifted? I realize such a program might not be available in your private school but having the designation might help get your administration's attention, if nothing else. Your local public school might do the testing, even if she is not enrolled. (I think that happens here, though I'm not positive).
B. is in the gifted program at his public school. It's a once-a-week program. One of the girls in his class spends the other four days at St. James, one of our local Catholic schools. This seems really inconvenient for her parents, to me, but they seem to think it's worthwhile. Just a thought. But really, the school she attends should be able to provide differentiated reading instruction -- it's just not that hard.
Though B. is challenged -- by his high-end reading group and a reading program that has kids pick books based on their own skills -- he also just skates by when it comes to spelling.
I've decided not to worry about it because I think there is a list of 4th-grade words the teacher has to get through. But he never studies and always gets 100.
Last week, there was a spelling test marked 95, and I was shocked.
Turned out, it was a classmate's test!
Anyway, good luck. It is hard to feel like the class isn't encouraging G.'s talents. But maybe with a few more conversations with the teacher, you'll get some satisfaction.
Sorry I went on so long!
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