school has surprised me!

[blackeyedsusan]

last week I asked for harder words to read... one (or more) groups have been given spellings!

I also asked for more challenging books as the yellow band books were a "little easy." given that we are reading easy chapter books at home they have put her up one band. I am shocked as we normally play a little game every couple of months where I say the books arer too easy and they ignore me and we carry on doing our own thing in our own happy way. once pmt has passed

ok so she could spell the words first time at home and green band is not a big leap, but i do not know whether she will cope with spelling in a test and at least the green band books are a little harder and we can get something out of it now. she has been asked to practice adding numbers in the teens as she doesn't use the number line to count on. (tends to do these things in her head) well we have practised and introduced a strategy of using number bonds of single digit numbers to check teens+ addition (ie if 2 and 4 =6 then 12+4=16 and 22+4=26 etc) doubt that will go down well! I hope she talks about her strategy at school.

I think I want to push for more, but not until she has had time to try out/prove herself for another month or so. (after all she might go to pieces under test conditions and we have a lot of work to do on handwriting) anyone fancy sitting on me and administering the duct tape for the next month?

(disclaimer, i know she is not doing some of the stuff other really bright children do at this age, though she is the top end of normal and I post mainly because i as fed up of the lack of progress ith reading in school compared to home)

ps, sorry about the lack of capitals, intermittent shift key!

Hi Susan, I know I've probably read it on other threads but how old is your dd?

Surprised as to how resistant they have been with the reading books, but at least you are making a little progress now. Continue with her own stuff at home - remember, the books they bring home are "For fun" ; the progress that she is making because of her own books will become apparent, don't worry. We were in a similar position for with DD2 for a while. What year is she in?

Good to hear that something has happened.

I'll come and join you in the sitting on hands/doing nothing corner though. We're in a similar situation now, DD is reading chapter books at home but still doing single letter phonics in class. Extension work has been promised, so DH and I have agreed that we won't say anything more until Christmas. He's much more patient than I am...

How many times have you had to ask to get this sort of thing? I sometimes wonder whether DH and I are a bit too worried about not being pushy middle class parents, and so aren't assertive enough.

DD was reading Rainbow Magic Fairy books independently just before she turned 3 so went to Reception as a fluent, advanced reader. However, her school liked to progress them through each and every level of the reading scheme.
The way we used the school books was to work on her reading skills. We knew, by the age of 4 that she could read anything. We used the school books to work on her grammar, to look at spellings and patterns of words, work on fluency, work on reading with expression and intonation and to really dig deep with the comprehension. OK, so one word sentences aren't that hard to comprehend, but we could delve into feelings of characters, comparison of main characters in similar books, character analysis etc. We improved her reading by stretching her sideways. This all took the usual 15 mins of reading time we were meant to do at home, she'd then go to bed and read her own books.

Great that you have come on with a positive experience. Long may constuctive relations continue

she is in y1. there was no movement in the reading every book in the scheme in reception. y1 seems a bit better. the teacher has said she is a good reader and to read library books, which is what we have been doing for the last year. they are reorganising the reading books in school so things seem to be changing.

It is hard getting that happy balance between supporting dd and being pushy. hope you get your extension work. i ould have thought it as ok to ask about it after a couple of weeks. it seems a long time til Christmas.

Well done you & her! My dd is yr 1 as well, if I'd have guessed I would have thought you were talking about reception. My experience at dcs school has been reception is all about settling them in, learning the rules, getting used to full days & making friends etc & then yr1 they'll crank things up a bit for those who are ready/able. And I've been pretty happy with the way things have worked. I think it is harder with your first though, to know what to expect & what/how to ask for things. I was very lucky with ds's yr 1 teacher (he's yr 3 now,) in that they let him become a free reader pretty much straight away (he left reception on ORT level 7, I think). And then because dd1 had the same teacher for the first part of this year, I just went ahead & asked for more challenging books & so she jumped 3 levels in the first week of year 1.

Sandwich -My advice would be don't be afraid to ask for stuff, especially if they've already told you they are going to extend, you can probably get away with just a passing question of how things are going at school pick up time.

Brachy- couldn't let your post pass without commenting. You seem to have exactly the right attitude to helping teach your dc. Are you in teaching? Great advice!

I find that a little strange from my school experience as reading is a personal one on one type thing, so my DS reception teacher just let him roll on the Oxford reading tree and by the end of the year he had covered Year 1 and half of year 2 books as well. Infact the more he read and wanted the more she provided. We delayed reading at home, as we didn't want to defer from any teaching methods and cause confusion, so he was champing at the bit to get started.

There are always other areas he could be picked up on,and have time spent on [lazy beggar at writing], instead of holding back on something that felt natural.

I was very grateful for her flexibility.

Luckily now he is in a mixed age class room with just 6 children who are all 8 years old so there is time for individual attention and pace, and also has total bi-weekly immersion in German to keep him busy and occupied

Do you know that you can strikeout a whole sentence op?

How's it going susan?

I think we will ask a few questions before then, just in a passing kind of way. But my overall feeling is that, while they know what DD can do in reading, they are rather less sure about what to do about it. Her reading age (and I know this is simplistic and there is much more to it etc etc) is 5+ years ahead of her age, and as it's only a first school, she's already above the top year, technically.

We've been advised by friends (one of whom is a primary head and so knows) that we should probably see the SENCO and ask for an IEP, and I think that this is what we'd like to do, if only because otherwise we'll be fighting the same battles over and over again. So that's what we'll be leaving until after Christmas.

Brachy - that's such a good way of approaching it, and a really useful post, thank you.

Hi all, I'm new, but have been devouring with interest topics on gifted children.

My little 1 is in a very small country school, very quaint... he started in reception last Sept and has since been keep in Reception as they 'wanted him to shine...' sorry the last time I looked it was a 'state school' not a 'stage school' - he's not the type to go 'ta dah!'

Not to put too finer point on it, but looking back he has passed all his developemetal stages early - walking, talking - constantly, at what point do we say to the teacher - look you have it wrong?

He is bored with everything bit of homework, and I get the feeling he is lazy at school - does the bear minimum of work then moves on to play - I just feel they are wasting precious time - he learned to play chess at 4 - mentally adding up his 'winnings' he is not being challanged enough.

Before half term he said he had practiced the letter 'C' he's been writing complete sentences for over 6 months and now his handwriting has got worse - AAAAGH!

Mind you we have parents evening next week...its a new teacher...

is he repeating reception?

Not according to his head, but its a small school so the classes are mixed, he is with this years reception children. We had a discussion with her earlier in the year when we were told he would be remaining in this class and looked at his EYFS form, it was quite obvious that his teacher had not assessed him properly - too busy writing her CV for her new job...! At the parents evening she had two lines written about him - I really do not think she had any idea who he was as he is a quite child and won't speak out, unlike a number of the other children in his peer group.
We were told he would be doing the same curriculum as his a number of his peers who moved up but so far there has been little evidence and I've had more art work brought home than when he was at nursery. I fail to see how with a class full of 24, 4, 5 ad 6 yr olds how they can possibly educate each different level. It may be time to move on.

y1 has a different curriculum to yr. definately difficult to do both sucessfully.

dd was writing loops in her free writing book when she was able to write (good content, poor handwriting) i used bribery to get her to write independently at school.

ask the teacher how he/she is differentiating for your son. if you are not happy, you could arrange an additional meeting.

Well, DH asked the TA today whether anything had happened, and nothing has, because a new boy started after half term, and then the teacher was away... So suitable work for her is not exactly a high priority.

I've also got a bit of a beef with them as we agreed that we'd support her writing at home; DD has taken two bits of work in, and apparently had no response back. So I think she's a bit disillusioned with trying to do well for the teacher, to the extent that she won't do writing at all when before school she was using full stops and punctuation marks. I could cry, I really could.

So we're going to talk to the NAGC next week (their website assures me that they can give advice on how to talk to the school without being pushy parents) and then go in for a meeting at the end of the week.

hmm, teaching your children is not a top priority? I think you should ask the teacher about it so that she is aware that you have not forgotten! it may remind her to get organised. can't think how you would get away with not at least having a good attempt at differentiation.
hoping you get some good advice from the nacg. just out of curiosity, what on earth do you get her to read as content of the more difficult books is not always appropriate. (need ideas for dd to move onto in a couple more years! )

i could have cried in anger and i did write a stroppy entry into her reading diary when, after several months of trying to wean her off using the pictures to guess at words, she came home from school, having been told to use the pictures to get more of the story, using the bloody pictures to read words again. (someone please make that into a proper sentence) words like the rose report and weaker readers were used.

I am hoping that the teacher does not tell them that you can not take a large number from a small number when she introduces subtraction. dd is happily counting back past 0. (she has not yet mastered which way you count when starting from a negative number though ) the teacher has said that she has difficulty using the number line to add in the 20's (probably can't physically control the jumps) but she does it in her head, and no she has worked out how to check by adding the units(without crossing 10's barrier) all in her head. that will not go down well.

on the bright side, she has been doing reading comprehension as far as I can make out from dd. and they read orange band books in group reading. (still less than she could read, but hard enough to get some good comprehension work from) science this half term is also something that dd has been reading about herself. the teacher commented on how much she knew before they started the topic last time. (which made reading the same library book repeatedly worth it)

Thanks for the sympathy! If I were to sum up DD's school in a line it would be 'well meaning but ineffectual', which is pretty much the state of affairs with her differentiation. And I am sure that over the next few weeks it will fall at the hurdles of Nativity Play, Christmas, etc etc. So I think we will need to have a word in a week or so.

What I've realised is that there are a load of small issues - DD not putting herself forward + being a perfectionist and so not trying things, added to the slight uselessness of school, all of which add up to a situation where DD is not doing a single thing at school at the level of which she is capable. A bit of this is OK, but not right across the board. She's also starting to get a bit fed up because she doesn't get praised for what she does (apart from standing nicely in line) while other children get awards for doing things she can do with ease. So it will have to be quite a subtle word I think, and we need to think about it a bit more.

There are quite a few books which are OK for her (I did a thread a while bit about able reader in reception which got loads of good suggestions too). Sophie books by Dick King Smith were a huge hit, as is Mr Majeika, The Worst Witch and the sodding Rainbow Fairies books (she is currently rationed to 2 per library visit). But there is a surprising amount with suitable content out there, fortunately.

With comprehension, I wouldn't be too worried about her working on a book below her level, because she can learn how to read a book (think about characters and plot, look at how the sentences work etc) from even the simplest of texts. I suspect that teachers may also choose easier books so that pupils don't get tripped up on the reading and so are able to think about that sort of thing.

Susan/Sandwich,
Saw there was some activity on this thread over the weekend so thought I'd check back in :)

Susan - my ds (yr3) never used a number line either, but now he's doing work with numbers in the 100s & 1000's I've found that he hasn't got a mechanism to cope with them (he doesn't even note down the bits he's worked out along the way & tries to hold it all in his head). So I've just introduced him to a blank numberline, (just so he's got another way of handling numbers or at least checking his answers). If she's reluctant you could explain how learning these methods now will help her deal with bigger numbers later. Also I actually convinced ds to let me show him how to do it by explaining that when it comes to gcses etc if you can't show how you worked an answer out you loose most of your marks!

Sandwich - ds (and dd1 too, to be fair,) also suffers a bit with perfectionism & not producing work to show what they are truly capable of. Ds in particular says at times he doesn't write as much as his peers in creative writing & so I asked if it's because his writing is slower, because he has trouble thinking of ideas or if he has too many ideas & can't choose which to use... Of course it was the last one. I think a lot of bright kids have trouble like this & it's just something they have to learn to manage. I told ds to set himself 5 minutes thinking time & no more & then just to get on with whatever idea appealed most, but to make sure he kept in mind the objective the teacher originally set, (he also gets carried away with his story & he'll only add in the bits of info they were asked to include when the time is nearly up, so it looks like an after thought, when in fact he's just run out of time to put it in the place he'd planned on putting it in the story iyswim).

I think you've started to realise, as I have, that you yourselves quite often have to come up with ways to help your kids with the issues (if thats the right word,) they have in school. Im very happy with the support my dcs get in school, but I never realised until they started how much of a team effort it was educating them! Hope you get the support you're after.

i have introduced her to numberlines. I used one when she asked about taking away 6 from 5. she now does those sorts of take aways in her head too. (within the range of about 6 to -6)

I modelled using a numberline to her when she was giving me challenges to work out. she will ask to use a number line when finding out the difference between some numbers, but can do some of those in her head too as long as they are not too complicated. we talk about strategies and I am introducing the idea of more than one way to work something out and which strategy is more efficient. also using things you know to check your answers. i am hoping to work towards using a blank number line at some point.

I am trying to work out how to get her to show what she knows to the teacher by working independently and having a go. can't work out what is going on there yet, other than she does not like working independently. she does not like to get things wrong and this may be part of the issue. she is scared to try and read some words, it took ages to even get her to have a try. she also thinks she is not a good reader, despite being able to read white band books at home.

homework is a minefield. she was enthusiastic and did quite a bit in her homework book, but we got "told off" for using more than 2 pages, even though the instructions were not clear. (and it was the teachers fault for not putting in a clear learning objective so I took several from the nation curriculum to make sure we covered what she had in mind! ) she has really taken to the topic and explored more of the area and done more writing/maps. it would have been nice to include those into her book, especially as the teacher has asked that she do some independent wwriting at home, but that would be asking for trouble

one sandwich. I have 42 of those sodding fairy books too. apparently there are at least 69 of the damn things. perhaps she will grow out of them before you have to read them all. at least when you get to chapter books, they take a bit longer to read and you need less of them [hopeful emotion]

Susan, sounds like you've really got a handle on supporting her at home. :) hope you didn't think I was trying to teach you to suck eggs. I just thought from your previous post that your dd wasn't keen on the number line because quite often bright children can't see the point of going through things step by step when they can already see the answer, but that can cause issues down the line when things get tougher.

I do hope you start getting the support from school you want soon, but in the meantime I'm really impressed with the support you've described that you are giving yourself!

Joyn, thanks for the useful thoughts. I wish I could say that we were happy with the support DD gets at school, but right now we are still working towards that.

Susan. I know nothing about number lines (although suspect I may know rather more in a couple of years time) so can't help at all.

But I can offer a different kind of light at the end of the tunnel - independent reading joy. As DD is reading on her own, I have not, praise the lord, ever had to read a blasted fairy book out loud. Admittedly, this was part of the deal when she wanted the first one out of the library, but it's still a result!

joyn, that was a helpful reminder to keep in mind strategies she will need for later. i was trying to illustrate that I am not against the number lines per se (sp?) but that she has passed using the numberline for the numbers they are doing in school at the moment, but on the other hand, she has physical difficulties that make it difficult for her to jump carefully to each number without missing numbers out, so other strategies need to be in place. perhaps I should practice it with her as a practical handwriting task rather than a maths task, so that when we come to do them again later she can use them accurately. it is so difficult balancing the physical needs and the learning needs.

I am not going to read the fairy books out loud, though I am goingto have to hear her read from a few I think as I might be about to throw my toys out of the pram with regard to the school books if they ask us to read them twice. I console myself with the fact that they have some lovely interesting words in the fairy books. we are just reading the hodgeheg, (dick king smith?) which is lime band I think. it is providing a challenge and something to really get teeth into with vocabulary and understanding. looking for words in the text that tell us that he is..... i do have the occasional crisis of confidence though about sometimes reading things that are too hard, but on the other hand, need to improve vocabulary and deeper questioning of the text (deeper for ks one of course, which is still splashing about in the shallow end!)

had a little grump about school books last night, and the teacher has said she will assess dd's reading today.... sod's law says she won't do it in school, which will be a bit annoying, but if so we will keep on reading school books and different home books.

ppssstt susan are you around for a moan?

I'm feeling really despondent/annoyed/sad about dd's school tonight.
Basically from what dd was saying about school tonight she still has'nt been put into the top ability groups,they make noises at school about it not being based on ability but it so is when you hear who is in group x.
It really gets me down,why the hell don't they want to treat dd as a child of high ability?