A couple of weeks ago, at my annual year-end meeting with our school’s principal to talk about transitioning AJ into the next teacher, he mentioned AJ’s latest MAP test scores. “Have you seen his scores?” he asked me. At that time, I had not. “They are very high. I mean, VERY high.”
AJ’s school started MAP testing this year and AJ loves it because it challenges him. Although I am generally not a fan of the rapid increase in frequency of standardized testing – there were four testing periods this year, each lasting over a week – I think the nature of the MAP has helped teachers understand AJ a little better. If nothing else, it’s demonstrated to the school, using a tool it knows and trusts, that he needs individualization in class.
The MAP, which stands for “Measures of Academic Progress” is a computer-based self-leveling test administered by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). You can read what NWEA has to say about it here. The test is designed to be administered to all grades K-12 – it’s not limited by grade-level editions, so kids with advanced skills can go as far as their brains will take them. This can be an advantage, although the farther you go, the more concentration is required. This is sometimes a problem for younger kids with advanced skills, so the scores at the upper levels of the test are not always reliable. In one educators’ board where I was reading about the test, a teacher was saying that not all gifted kids turned up in the 98th percentile or higher on both reading and math, but most did in one or the other. And some liked the test for kids with test phobias or certain types of learning disabilities, because the test isn’t timed. Students can take as long as they want to figure out the answers to the questions. The test ends after they’ve made a certain number of errors.
Schools have the option to take the test multiple times during the year and most do, because this allows them to gauge student progress. AJ’s school takes it once each trimester. The repetition of the testing allows teachers to get a number for “student growth” -- the difference of the scores between test iterations. With the final report card, we got a printout of all AJs scores and a number that represents his growth in each segment of the test – in the case of AJ’s school, there are scores for Math and for Reading.
AJ’s math scores are very high, but his growth was lower than average. This is typical of kids performing at the high end. And his pattern of growth was a zig-zag – the second trimester’s score was lower than the first, but the third was the highest of the three. I expect the math scores are generally less high as compared to the reading scores, because these tests are achievement tests, not aptitude tests. In order to get a really high score, you would probably need to have had some exposure to the topics it deals with. AJ’s score suggests that he correctly answered some questions about algebra and geometry, which he’s never studied. But that’s where he topped out. At some point you need to know the rules and may not be able to just figure things out.
The reading scores were a different story. He started high, in the 99th percentile and still made steady upward progress. His final score was well into the zone expected for a high school senior. His growth score was also more than 4 times the norm for his grade. The difference in growth between math and reading is, I think, partly a function of the way he has learned language skills (largely on his own and at home) versus math (mostly at school). I also think the school has done a better job at meeting his needs in reading. He hasn't been getting much above-level math, so it's not surprising he didn't progress as much there.
For reading, there is an additional score, the lexile. The lexile is a measure that teachers use for assigning reading. Huge numbers of books are given a lexile score or range. Armed with your child’s lexile number, you can go to lexile.com and look up books that might be appropriate for his/her reading level. AJ’s lexile was surprisingly close to the maximum possible score on a test designed for K-12.
And this is where things get complicated for a kid like AJ. AJ’s school has just started a new reading program where students are supposed to read a certain number of books from their lexile range. So I went to lexile.com and typed in his number. I came up with a long list of books, many of which appeared on my college and graduate school reading lists. The Confessions of St. Augustine. Assorted works of Walter Benjamin. Novels by Faulkner and Joyce. John Donne’s sermons. The biography of composer Anton Webern written by one of my former professors was deemed on the low end of his lexile range. This made me laugh. Hard. AJ may be able to handle the vocabulary in these books, but there’s no way he’s ready to really read them (I’m not sure I’m even ready to read some of them), nor do I think he’d be likely to have any interest in them. He just finished the third grade. He thought the Marmaduke movie was funny. There's more to books than a lexile score. Does the lexile even mean anything?
Fortunately, lexile.com allows you to cross-reference by the age of the reader. Unfortunately, though, most of the books are miscategorized or not categorized at all, so the age limitation is pretty useless. A search of fiction for ages 9-15, for instance turned up only 25 books, several of which would have been inappropriate (Harold Bloom’s biography of Stephen King, for instance). And a number of appropriate books from the full list – Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events books, for example – didn’t appear on the age-limited list. Moreover, some of the books had puzzling age ranges applied to them. Why, for instance, is the very academic book African-American Women’s Health and Social Issues, edited by Catherine Fisher Collins, labeled for ages 8 to 12?
I am working under the assumption that the school will not hold to AJ’s lexile range. While I’m certainly open to him reading as broadly as he wants to, I don’t see the point in him reading things that his experience will not allow him to understand just because the book has the correct number. For kids like AJ, it is a real challenge to find books that challenge their reading and thinking skills, but which also engage them by being well suited to their experience and interests.
So what’s a parent to do?
1. Get recommendations. Ask teachers, ask friends, search the boards at Hoagie's Gifted. A few years ago Freshhell and I started making a list of books that worked for our kids. We’ve continued to update the list with things our own kids have read and suggestions from others, including many readers here. You can find the list here. There’s also a permanent link to it in the sidebar. It's a list I turn to again and again.
2. Preread. When he was younger, I used to preread all of AJ’s books. Now I can’t keep up with his speed, so it’s lucky for me that he’s old enough that he can find his own books. But prereading let me figure out where problem areas might be so that I could be prepared to discuss them. For instance, when he was reading a book that took place in the Civil Rights era, I didn't want him reading the word "colored" without context and without talking about racial language. It turned out, though, that AJ totally didn't understand the term had anything to do with race. He figured the character that someone called "colored" had tattoos (he was 6 at the time). I was glad to be able to help him understand the story, but I also was reminded that kids reading books that are out of their experience often either gloss over or reconfigure the things they don't understand to fit in with what they know.
3. Read together. We are big on social reading in this house. At bedtime, Mr. Spy reads with him first and then I do. Sometimes AJ wants to read out loud for a while. Sometimes I do all of it. Currently, AJ and I are reading Roger Lancelyn Green’s The Tale of Troy, which is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey that I loved as a kid. The vocabulary is pretty challenging (and a little old-fashioned), there are a lot of unfamiliar names, and a lot of references to the culture of ancient Greece that AJ doesn’t know about. Reading the book together lets us talk about some of the unfamiliar words and fill in the background. I’m also able to connect the dots to the Percy Jackson stories he’s read, with also draw on Greek mythology. Reading together allows for a deeper experience with a book.
4. Free range reading. While pre-reading can help a child find the right book, and reading together can help with deeper understanding, it's also important to let kids explore on their own. Like AJ, I was an advanced reader. When I was seven or eight, I was given special permission to use the adult collection of the public library. Children had different library cards that only allowed them to check out from the children’s section. But I got an adult card and could go anywhere. Freedom! My mom turned me loose. I don’t remember what I checked out on that first trip, but I remember taking my time. It seemed like such a big responsibility to pick the right book. But soon I was wandering through there regularly. I read a lot of literature that was perfect for me. And I remember being slightly obsessed with a book called Ginny about a girl who’d been in a terrible accident and nearly died but who had a long but miraculous recovery. At some point, I discovered the shelf with Colette books and found a book “Claudine at School” that seemed to be about a girl not much older than me. I checked it out. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I read it. I read all the Claudine books. Maybe I shouldn’t have. But honestly, the only thing I can remember from them now is how her nanny or maid had breasts like melons. I thought that was hilarious. I do remember picking them up again when I was older and being properly horrified. But I just didn't understand all the stuff that makes Colette Colette when I was in elementary school, and so I kind of ignored it. So yes, I read some inappropriate books, but so what? Most of the time I checked out books from the kids section anyway. I thought they were more fun. But I got the message that I could read anything and could make my own decisions about what is right for me. And isn’t that more important? It was to me. Still is.
5. Own books. Last week, Laura Miller wrote in Salon about a study that correlated household book ownership to the level of education achieved by children in the household. The study suggested that even more than socio-economic status, having books yielded better school performance, the more books, the better. Having a lot of books in your house sends the message to your kids that books and reading matter. Encouraging your kids to prowl through the shelves can encourage “free range reading” – a safari right in your own home. And having books in your house means there's always something to do.
6. Make connections. When the books are hard, it’s easy for a child to get discouraged. When AJ has expressed an interest in something challenging, I usually try to provide some backup, some other activities that get at the topic from a different angle. With the Troy book, for example, we found some easier reading at the library that filled in some of the background holes. We’ve looked at pictures of Greek art and will look at some in person in a week or two when we pay a visit to the Art Institute. We’ve looked at maps. I showed him the journal I wrote and photos I took when I went to Greece with my sixth grade class after studying ancient Greece in school. And we’ve signed him up for a class on mythology with a couple of his friends who are also interested in it. I hope that doesn’t sound like I’m too overbearing. It’s not really the way it came about. It’s AJ’s interest that has guided us. But by expanding the boundaries of the project beyond the covers of one book, I hope I’m giving him the tools to make his own explorations.
I’m sure there are more. How do you handle the reading level/age disconnect? What do you recommend?
Showing posts with label testing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label testing. Show all posts
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Second Grade wrap-up
Yesterday was AJ's last day of second grade. I think we were all ready for it. The last month or so has been tough on all of us.
AJ came home with a pile of old projects and a report card stuffed with test scores. The report card was...not great. Many of his marks slipped from the last report card, mostly in the category of "learning/social characteristics," which is the non-academic stuff. AJ has definitely struggled this year with his classroom behavior. He has had a particularly hard time keeping himself focused in the face of the many distractions of a small classroom crammed with 26 kids. But he also, apparently, has had motivation issues. We've seen it at home too. A lot of it is, I think, boredom. But he's also balking at more challenging work, not wanting to work too hard. In the past, such reticence has often been based on a sense of social isolation, wanting to do the same thing everyone else is doing. But this time, it seems to be more about fear of failure or sometimes just plain laziness. It's a behavior we'll need to watch carefully. At the moment, we're addressing it by reiterating our expectations that he try his best.
The distraction issue is something I'd like to work on over the summer, to find ways of keeping him more focused. One of the things I've notice about AJ, and about many kids his age, especially boys, is that he concentrates better when he is moving. When he works on his homework, he is often moving around or fidgeting with something and he does well. He can't do this in the classroom. We need to help him channel his energy.
The test scores were another matter. We finally got the official notice of the OLSAT. We also got the report on the ISEL, the individually administered state standard test. The results of both were a little puzzling. For the ISEL, which is an achievement test, AJ was in the 100th percentile in most areas. But his lowest area -- noticeably lower -- was verbal comprehension. This was the same area that had given AJ the most trouble on the OLSAT, an aptitude test, where it was also the only percentile below the 90s. AJ took the ISEL last year too and the score was more than 10 percentage points lower than the last time he took the test -- a significant difference. But that isn't the weird part. The weird part is that verbal comprehension was his highest score on the WISC, at the very top of the range at 99.9th percentile. What accounts for this drastic difference between tests? I know it's probably not fair to compare the tests in this way. But still, what is the reason for a nearly 20 percentage point difference between his scores in the same area? I wish I knew.
Has anyone else experienced such anomalies?
We still have one more round of test results, for the ITBS, due in sometime this month. Then we're off the hook for a while.
In addition to all his projects, he brought home a book of letters to him, one from each member of his class, his teacher and her aid. They've been working on these letters for months. Each child got the chance to be the "Star Student" for the day and got to make a poster and get up in front of the class and talk about their favorite things. Then the rest of the class wrote letters in response. The letters from the students were wonderful and sweet. But the one from his teacher made my day because she wrote it in a code for him to decipher. I was thinking about how hard they both struggled to understand each other at the beginning of the year. The code was perfect and AJ loved it. She's done a good job of trying to figure him out.
Over the next few weeks, AJ will be busy with sports and piano lessons and camps, including two weeks at the camp for gifted kids he attended last summer. I was, unfortunately, too late to sign him up to get the fabulous physics teacher he had last summer, who this year is teaching their most popular computer gaming course. But he'll be taking art, science and geometry, and he's very excited about it all.
AJ came home with a pile of old projects and a report card stuffed with test scores. The report card was...not great. Many of his marks slipped from the last report card, mostly in the category of "learning/social characteristics," which is the non-academic stuff. AJ has definitely struggled this year with his classroom behavior. He has had a particularly hard time keeping himself focused in the face of the many distractions of a small classroom crammed with 26 kids. But he also, apparently, has had motivation issues. We've seen it at home too. A lot of it is, I think, boredom. But he's also balking at more challenging work, not wanting to work too hard. In the past, such reticence has often been based on a sense of social isolation, wanting to do the same thing everyone else is doing. But this time, it seems to be more about fear of failure or sometimes just plain laziness. It's a behavior we'll need to watch carefully. At the moment, we're addressing it by reiterating our expectations that he try his best.
The distraction issue is something I'd like to work on over the summer, to find ways of keeping him more focused. One of the things I've notice about AJ, and about many kids his age, especially boys, is that he concentrates better when he is moving. When he works on his homework, he is often moving around or fidgeting with something and he does well. He can't do this in the classroom. We need to help him channel his energy.
The test scores were another matter. We finally got the official notice of the OLSAT. We also got the report on the ISEL, the individually administered state standard test. The results of both were a little puzzling. For the ISEL, which is an achievement test, AJ was in the 100th percentile in most areas. But his lowest area -- noticeably lower -- was verbal comprehension. This was the same area that had given AJ the most trouble on the OLSAT, an aptitude test, where it was also the only percentile below the 90s. AJ took the ISEL last year too and the score was more than 10 percentage points lower than the last time he took the test -- a significant difference. But that isn't the weird part. The weird part is that verbal comprehension was his highest score on the WISC, at the very top of the range at 99.9th percentile. What accounts for this drastic difference between tests? I know it's probably not fair to compare the tests in this way. But still, what is the reason for a nearly 20 percentage point difference between his scores in the same area? I wish I knew.
Has anyone else experienced such anomalies?
We still have one more round of test results, for the ITBS, due in sometime this month. Then we're off the hook for a while.
In addition to all his projects, he brought home a book of letters to him, one from each member of his class, his teacher and her aid. They've been working on these letters for months. Each child got the chance to be the "Star Student" for the day and got to make a poster and get up in front of the class and talk about their favorite things. Then the rest of the class wrote letters in response. The letters from the students were wonderful and sweet. But the one from his teacher made my day because she wrote it in a code for him to decipher. I was thinking about how hard they both struggled to understand each other at the beginning of the year. The code was perfect and AJ loved it. She's done a good job of trying to figure him out.
Over the next few weeks, AJ will be busy with sports and piano lessons and camps, including two weeks at the camp for gifted kids he attended last summer. I was, unfortunately, too late to sign him up to get the fabulous physics teacher he had last summer, who this year is teaching their most popular computer gaming course. But he'll be taking art, science and geometry, and he's very excited about it all.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Testing roundup
Today AJ finished what I believe is the last standardized testing for the year. Since this time last year, AJ has taken the KTEA-I (Kaufman Test of Eductaional Achievement, 2nd edition, brief form), KBIT-2 (Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test Second Edition), CTD Inventory (Center for Talent Development, Northwestern University), the Gates-McGintie Reading Test, the Darrell Morris Developmental Spelling Test, the ISEL (Illinois Snapshots of Early Literacy), the OLSAT (Otis-Lennon School AbilityTest), WISC-IV (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Fourth Edition), and ITBS (Iowa Tests of Basic Skills). Hard to believe at this point that I was, not all that long ago, testing averse.
Why am I no longer testing averse? It comes down to circumstances. I don’t see the point in intelligence testing for children unless you are trying to accomplish something – get into a program, get services needed at school, etc. And while I hate seeing schools teaching to the test, as a teacher, I also know the value of good student evaluation. It helps a lot to know what your students are getting and not getting. I love giving tests because it gives me a ton of information (I still hate writing and grading them, though. Well, not hate, exactly. More like resent the time they take.)
Of the tests above the first three (KTEA-I, KBIT-II & CTD) were administered in a single one-hour session. We elected and paid for that one to get AJ into a summer program that, ironically, we ended up not doing because of the test – we discovered just how awful the commute would be when driving there. The WISC-IV was the only other one that we elected, and that was to get AJ into the gifted program after a subpar showing on the OLSAT. All the rest of the tests were administered by AJ’s school. I’m thinking his file is going to need its own cabinet by the time he graduates.
But tests are designed to accomplish something. If you are just fishing for information, I don’t think you’ll get your money’s worth. You need to know what you need to know.
Then there’s the issue of the IQ number. We’ve deliberated about this. My feeling is that no one should know his own IQ. It can limit you or intimidate you when really, the number is a description (and not a very nuanced one at that) of a moment in time. It’s not a solution to anything.
AJ wants to know what his IQ is. I can understand the frustration of having someone know something about you that you don’t know. It’s why I wanted to know, when I was pregnant with AJ, whether he was a boy or a girl. I didn’t like the idea of my doctor having information that I didn’t. But in this case, I can’t see anything good that can come out of him knowing the number. He could brag about it. He could feel like he’s not living up to it. He could even be disappointed by it. Right now, it could be anything. And moreover, since he hit the test ceiling, we don’t even know for sure what that number is. We could sign him up for more testing, but what is the point? We know what we need to know.
But I didn’t like the idea of holding out on AJ. So I told him that I’d tell him what it is on the day he graduates from college. I plan to stick to my side of the bargain. But only if he remembers to ask me.
We are all looking forward to a break from testing for the summer. Now we just have to wait for the rest of the scores to come in.
What about you? What are your thoughts on testing? Where do you stand?
Why am I no longer testing averse? It comes down to circumstances. I don’t see the point in intelligence testing for children unless you are trying to accomplish something – get into a program, get services needed at school, etc. And while I hate seeing schools teaching to the test, as a teacher, I also know the value of good student evaluation. It helps a lot to know what your students are getting and not getting. I love giving tests because it gives me a ton of information (I still hate writing and grading them, though. Well, not hate, exactly. More like resent the time they take.)
Of the tests above the first three (KTEA-I, KBIT-II & CTD) were administered in a single one-hour session. We elected and paid for that one to get AJ into a summer program that, ironically, we ended up not doing because of the test – we discovered just how awful the commute would be when driving there. The WISC-IV was the only other one that we elected, and that was to get AJ into the gifted program after a subpar showing on the OLSAT. All the rest of the tests were administered by AJ’s school. I’m thinking his file is going to need its own cabinet by the time he graduates.
But tests are designed to accomplish something. If you are just fishing for information, I don’t think you’ll get your money’s worth. You need to know what you need to know.
Then there’s the issue of the IQ number. We’ve deliberated about this. My feeling is that no one should know his own IQ. It can limit you or intimidate you when really, the number is a description (and not a very nuanced one at that) of a moment in time. It’s not a solution to anything.
AJ wants to know what his IQ is. I can understand the frustration of having someone know something about you that you don’t know. It’s why I wanted to know, when I was pregnant with AJ, whether he was a boy or a girl. I didn’t like the idea of my doctor having information that I didn’t. But in this case, I can’t see anything good that can come out of him knowing the number. He could brag about it. He could feel like he’s not living up to it. He could even be disappointed by it. Right now, it could be anything. And moreover, since he hit the test ceiling, we don’t even know for sure what that number is. We could sign him up for more testing, but what is the point? We know what we need to know.
But I didn’t like the idea of holding out on AJ. So I told him that I’d tell him what it is on the day he graduates from college. I plan to stick to my side of the bargain. But only if he remembers to ask me.
We are all looking forward to a break from testing for the summer. Now we just have to wait for the rest of the scores to come in.
What about you? What are your thoughts on testing? Where do you stand?
Friday, May 1, 2009
Holding Pattern
We're at the end of the line with the school district, for the moment anyway. And yet, the news is, I think, cautiously positive. Mr. Spy and I each spoke this morning with the district Director of Curriculum, who is, among other things, in charge of admission policy for the gifted program. I'm finding that talking to everyone, from the teachers on up, tends to result in their talking very fast over you, as if to anticipate problems before they happen. They all use the, "I understand -- I'm just like you" kinds of lines. These are mostly defensive, but still well-meaning. For the most part, anyway. And I don't think it's necessarily a conscious manipulation. I do think, however, that as a parent-advocate, you need to know how to push through it. Otherwise, when you get out of the conversation, you are left scratching your head and saying, "What just happened?"
Good point number one -- every single person we've dealt with, from the classroom teacher to the district administrators -- has done when that said they would when they said they would do it. This is huge. It means good communication in the district. It means they're taking us seriously.
Good point number two -- the Curriculum Director is talkative, but she is also friendly and smart and we were largely in agreement on matters of educational philosophy. However, she still couldn't tell us what we wanted to hear. But she didn't say no either.
We heard more about the district's reevaluation of the criteria for gifted program admission that our school principal had mentioned last week. It is not just an idea, it's actually happening and it's supposed to be in place this fall. The new policy will add two more criteria and take the weight off the one test. They're still trying to figure out what criteria will be included and in what weighting. They will likely include test scores, portfolio, teacher recommendations and parent recommendations. The goal is to get more kids what they need. It also sounds like the district may be reevaluating the pull-out program. The C.D. is on the fence about it. She has been looking at districts that use a gifted label, but not a gifted program and focus on training and supporting classroom teachers. I think this is a great direction, if it works. What we want is not a label, but the extra challenge AJ needs. But when there is a label, when there is a pull-out program, we need that too. Because if we don't, he is unlikely to get what he needs. When there is a pull-out program, teachers rely on it.
The C.D. seemed to think that it was likely that AJ would be included by the new criteria, especially since he's only 1 point away by the old criteria. But she can't promise -- there are others who, like us, are advocating for their kids. She promised to get him what he needs in the classroom and to call her any time if I needed help. But she couldn't guarantee the pull-out. All she could do is say it looked likely. If we want guarantees, the only thing left is testing -- assuming the test scores are high enough. And so we will be spending the $500 to have him tested later this month and hope it helps.
One thing that worries me slightly, though, is that we're getting mixed messages about how much the test scores will help. The gifted teacher had told us that they will substitute the private testing for the OLSAT score. But that's not what the C.D. said. She said it would be included in the things they look at, although she also said that it was the only thing that really has made a difference in the past. This does not sound like a guarantee to me either, but at least it sounds promising.
While we didn't get what we'd hoped to get, we did get what we expected to hear, more or less. And now we know to focus our energies on learning about the IQ testing on May 19.
I hope all these stories about the process are not too tedious to read. My hope is that others can learn from our experience, that it will help others learn how to advocate for their kids. Since we have a lull in the process, I'm working on a more general post on advocacy and another one on how to approach IQ tests with your kids. I would love to hear some more voices on this subject. If you're interested in posting here on these or other subjects of giftedness, please email me at harri3tspyATgmailDOTcom.
Good point number one -- every single person we've dealt with, from the classroom teacher to the district administrators -- has done when that said they would when they said they would do it. This is huge. It means good communication in the district. It means they're taking us seriously.
Good point number two -- the Curriculum Director is talkative, but she is also friendly and smart and we were largely in agreement on matters of educational philosophy. However, she still couldn't tell us what we wanted to hear. But she didn't say no either.
We heard more about the district's reevaluation of the criteria for gifted program admission that our school principal had mentioned last week. It is not just an idea, it's actually happening and it's supposed to be in place this fall. The new policy will add two more criteria and take the weight off the one test. They're still trying to figure out what criteria will be included and in what weighting. They will likely include test scores, portfolio, teacher recommendations and parent recommendations. The goal is to get more kids what they need. It also sounds like the district may be reevaluating the pull-out program. The C.D. is on the fence about it. She has been looking at districts that use a gifted label, but not a gifted program and focus on training and supporting classroom teachers. I think this is a great direction, if it works. What we want is not a label, but the extra challenge AJ needs. But when there is a label, when there is a pull-out program, we need that too. Because if we don't, he is unlikely to get what he needs. When there is a pull-out program, teachers rely on it.
The C.D. seemed to think that it was likely that AJ would be included by the new criteria, especially since he's only 1 point away by the old criteria. But she can't promise -- there are others who, like us, are advocating for their kids. She promised to get him what he needs in the classroom and to call her any time if I needed help. But she couldn't guarantee the pull-out. All she could do is say it looked likely. If we want guarantees, the only thing left is testing -- assuming the test scores are high enough. And so we will be spending the $500 to have him tested later this month and hope it helps.
One thing that worries me slightly, though, is that we're getting mixed messages about how much the test scores will help. The gifted teacher had told us that they will substitute the private testing for the OLSAT score. But that's not what the C.D. said. She said it would be included in the things they look at, although she also said that it was the only thing that really has made a difference in the past. This does not sound like a guarantee to me either, but at least it sounds promising.
While we didn't get what we'd hoped to get, we did get what we expected to hear, more or less. And now we know to focus our energies on learning about the IQ testing on May 19.
I hope all these stories about the process are not too tedious to read. My hope is that others can learn from our experience, that it will help others learn how to advocate for their kids. Since we have a lull in the process, I'm working on a more general post on advocacy and another one on how to approach IQ tests with your kids. I would love to hear some more voices on this subject. If you're interested in posting here on these or other subjects of giftedness, please email me at harri3tspyATgmailDOTcom.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Eve
I spent some time today getting organized for our meeting tomorrow with the gifted teacher. As part of my preparation, I organized all of my files of AJ's work and test scores and the research I've done and put together a one page argument for inclusion. The document is one I will be able to use to appeal his case, if we need to. But in putting it together, I realized just how strong our case is. So hopefully we won't need to. AJ scored in the 99th or 100th percentile on most of the standardized tests the school gave him in the fall (on the most important of the tests, as well as several others, he didn't miss a single question). Even by the school's own means of measurement, the most recent test looks like an anomaly. And we've got recommendations, or promises thereof, from every teacher he's ever had. Fingers crossed.
Friday, April 17, 2009
School update
I made an appointment with AJ's classroom teacher for this afternoon in hopes of getting a little more information about what happened during the test and what to expect on Monday. She was very helpful.
Apparently, AJ did fine on the parts of the test with written instructions. But in later parts of the test, the instructions were read aloud. The teacher was only allowed to read them once. These are the sections that gave him trouble. Also, in at least one of the sections in which he was below the cutoff, he missed it only by one point.
AJ's teacher has already talked to the gifted teacher and the school principal about her feelings about AJ needing to be in the gifted program. But she also said that she has never known of a case where they've taken a kid who didn't meet the minimum test scores. She thought we had a good chance, though, because we've got so much other documentation. But she said, "Bring everything you've got." And so we will.
When I spoke toLSM yesterday, she suggested three steps, which we plan to follow.
1. We will go into the meeting assuming that he will be admitted into the program with no further action required. We will bring all the documentation we have to support his case.
2. If that isn't enough, we will ask the school to retest him before the end of the school year. If they won't, we will offer to have him privately tested again.
3. If, after appealing his case to the teachers and principal that still isn't enough, we will take it to the administrative level. I think it very unlikely that we would need to do that, but you never know.
And now all there is to do is get his portfolio in order and wait for Monday. It's looking like Mr. Spy will not be able to attend the meeting with me, so I also should spend some time practicing to be a hardass. Wish me luck
Apparently, AJ did fine on the parts of the test with written instructions. But in later parts of the test, the instructions were read aloud. The teacher was only allowed to read them once. These are the sections that gave him trouble. Also, in at least one of the sections in which he was below the cutoff, he missed it only by one point.
AJ's teacher has already talked to the gifted teacher and the school principal about her feelings about AJ needing to be in the gifted program. But she also said that she has never known of a case where they've taken a kid who didn't meet the minimum test scores. She thought we had a good chance, though, because we've got so much other documentation. But she said, "Bring everything you've got." And so we will.
When I spoke toLSM yesterday, she suggested three steps, which we plan to follow.
1. We will go into the meeting assuming that he will be admitted into the program with no further action required. We will bring all the documentation we have to support his case.
2. If that isn't enough, we will ask the school to retest him before the end of the school year. If they won't, we will offer to have him privately tested again.
3. If, after appealing his case to the teachers and principal that still isn't enough, we will take it to the administrative level. I think it very unlikely that we would need to do that, but you never know.
And now all there is to do is get his portfolio in order and wait for Monday. It's looking like Mr. Spy will not be able to attend the meeting with me, so I also should spend some time practicing to be a hardass. Wish me luck
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Sheep and Goats
I was about to start my weekly volunteer stint in AJ's classroom. This morning I was helping students edit letters they'd written to each other and to their teacher ("Dear Mrs. F, How old are you? May I guess 29?"). Mrs. F. came out of the classroom to talk for a minute while the students were rummaging through their desks in preparation for their next activity.
"We got the test scores yesterday," she said. I knew instantly that she was talking about the Otis-Lennon test that all the 2d graders took earlier this year. "It's not good." AJ didn't make the cut-off for the gifted program. "He was close, but he didn't make it."
This is not good news. Although also not entirely unexpected. This is AJ's first real experience with group standardized testing. The testing we did privately last year was one on one. Moreover, he had never done questions like this before and the school did nothing to prep the students. For a kid like AJ, who tends to freeze when he sees something he is not 100% sure he knows, this is not a good thing. From all I had read about the test, it was set up to play to his weaknesses. Many of the questions are somewhat ambiguous. Students are supposed to look for the best of several answers that may be right. AJ sees too many options in such situations. Instead of thinking it through, when there are multiple options, he shuts down.
Mrs. F. went on to say that AJ appeared agitated during one section of the test in particular. She thought he was guessing because he didn't understand what he was supposed to do. It was a section with pictures instead of math or words. My suspicion is that this test has tested his ability to take tests, not his "mental capability," as it says it is supposed to."
He is apparently not alone. A couple of studies have been done that have demonstrated very gifted kids often do poorly on the Otis-Lennon. Still, it is one of the most commonly administered tests for identifying gifted children, mainly because it is cheaper to administer than most tests. It takes only 45 minutes and requires no special training for the administrator. And considering that, many reviews suggest it is a pretty good test for the investment. But it doesn't seem to be very accurate. I've seen variability rates as great as 9%. But still, how do we process not making the cutoff on one test and 99.9th percentile on another? And am I wrong to give more credence to a test where a psychologist sat down with my kid for over an hour and talked to him over a fill in the bubble test that took 40 minutes that was taken in a classroom full of distractions?
We are trying to figure out what to do next. These kind of things make me second-guess myself all the time. Am I pushing too hard? Am I kidding myself? And then AJ starts doing something at home where it becomes clear to me that we are not in error. We have off-the-charts test scores form private testing and two classroom teachers who will vouch for him. That should be enough. But as I understand it, school policy bases admission to the program on Otis-Lennon scores alone. I can certainly understand why a school would have such a policy. You need to be able to draw a line in the sand. But does it really make sense to draw the line in this particular case?
Mrs. F. said she can make sure he gets into the cluster class with the other gifted kids next year, but she thought we'd better get involved if we want him in the pull-out program. We're meeting with the gifted teacher on Monday to figure out what the story is. But my first contact with her was not encouraging and we're preparing for a fight.
I'm putting together a dossier which includes AJ's previous test scores (even though the school already has them) as well as written reports from his teachers at a summer camp for gifted kids last year, a recommendation written for his application to the camp by his first grade teacher and, hopefully, some of the articles about the fallibility of the test. I may also contact the university where we had AJ tested last spring, which offers some resources for parents of gifted kids and may be able to help.
And for my own sanity, I called Siren to bend her ear about it. She suggested we consider offering to take him for a full IQ test if necessary.
Logically, I would think that the school would have enough grounds to make an exception -- we have test scores and teacher recommendations. That really should be enough. But we haven't had to confront a formal policy before. We're not sure what's going to happen.
But another issue is how much we want to fight for this. We don't really know much about the program and I have to say that my interactions with the teacher who runs it have not been overwhelming. Is this something we should even be worried about? Is clustering enough? He will be tested again next year. Should we just wait? Siren rightly suggested we hear what they have to say. I knew I could count on her to keep me from going off half cocked. So I am resigned to wait until Monday. This is good, because it leaves me enough time to have nine heart attacks over my nearly-but-not-quite finished taxes.
And I was hoping for an easy transition this year. I guess there's no such thing.
"We got the test scores yesterday," she said. I knew instantly that she was talking about the Otis-Lennon test that all the 2d graders took earlier this year. "It's not good." AJ didn't make the cut-off for the gifted program. "He was close, but he didn't make it."
This is not good news. Although also not entirely unexpected. This is AJ's first real experience with group standardized testing. The testing we did privately last year was one on one. Moreover, he had never done questions like this before and the school did nothing to prep the students. For a kid like AJ, who tends to freeze when he sees something he is not 100% sure he knows, this is not a good thing. From all I had read about the test, it was set up to play to his weaknesses. Many of the questions are somewhat ambiguous. Students are supposed to look for the best of several answers that may be right. AJ sees too many options in such situations. Instead of thinking it through, when there are multiple options, he shuts down.
Mrs. F. went on to say that AJ appeared agitated during one section of the test in particular. She thought he was guessing because he didn't understand what he was supposed to do. It was a section with pictures instead of math or words. My suspicion is that this test has tested his ability to take tests, not his "mental capability," as it says it is supposed to."
He is apparently not alone. A couple of studies have been done that have demonstrated very gifted kids often do poorly on the Otis-Lennon. Still, it is one of the most commonly administered tests for identifying gifted children, mainly because it is cheaper to administer than most tests. It takes only 45 minutes and requires no special training for the administrator. And considering that, many reviews suggest it is a pretty good test for the investment. But it doesn't seem to be very accurate. I've seen variability rates as great as 9%. But still, how do we process not making the cutoff on one test and 99.9th percentile on another? And am I wrong to give more credence to a test where a psychologist sat down with my kid for over an hour and talked to him over a fill in the bubble test that took 40 minutes that was taken in a classroom full of distractions?
We are trying to figure out what to do next. These kind of things make me second-guess myself all the time. Am I pushing too hard? Am I kidding myself? And then AJ starts doing something at home where it becomes clear to me that we are not in error. We have off-the-charts test scores form private testing and two classroom teachers who will vouch for him. That should be enough. But as I understand it, school policy bases admission to the program on Otis-Lennon scores alone. I can certainly understand why a school would have such a policy. You need to be able to draw a line in the sand. But does it really make sense to draw the line in this particular case?
Mrs. F. said she can make sure he gets into the cluster class with the other gifted kids next year, but she thought we'd better get involved if we want him in the pull-out program. We're meeting with the gifted teacher on Monday to figure out what the story is. But my first contact with her was not encouraging and we're preparing for a fight.
I'm putting together a dossier which includes AJ's previous test scores (even though the school already has them) as well as written reports from his teachers at a summer camp for gifted kids last year, a recommendation written for his application to the camp by his first grade teacher and, hopefully, some of the articles about the fallibility of the test. I may also contact the university where we had AJ tested last spring, which offers some resources for parents of gifted kids and may be able to help.
And for my own sanity, I called Siren to bend her ear about it. She suggested we consider offering to take him for a full IQ test if necessary.
Logically, I would think that the school would have enough grounds to make an exception -- we have test scores and teacher recommendations. That really should be enough. But we haven't had to confront a formal policy before. We're not sure what's going to happen.
But another issue is how much we want to fight for this. We don't really know much about the program and I have to say that my interactions with the teacher who runs it have not been overwhelming. Is this something we should even be worried about? Is clustering enough? He will be tested again next year. Should we just wait? Siren rightly suggested we hear what they have to say. I knew I could count on her to keep me from going off half cocked. So I am resigned to wait until Monday. This is good, because it leaves me enough time to have nine heart attacks over my nearly-but-not-quite finished taxes.
And I was hoping for an easy transition this year. I guess there's no such thing.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Testing 1-2-3
This week, all the second graders at AJ's school are taking the Otis Lennon School Ability Tes, or OLSAT. The OLSAT is not an IQ test, but it is often used as an entrance exam to gifted programs. It is the only aptitude testing that AJ's school uses. Third and fourth graders take a state achievement test.
The school uses the OLSAT to determine tracking and special services. Starting in third grade, students are clustered with others at their level within their classroom. Those performing well below or well above the norm will get special services. AJ's scores on this exam will determine whether he gets into the gifted program next year.
I'm not concerned about that. I'm sure he'll do well enough to get in, and even if for some reason he didn't, we have enough paperwork to get him in the back door. But I did want to make sure he knew how to take the test.
This will be AJ's first experience with standardized testing. I would like it to be a good one, for his sake. He will expect to do well. His teacher hasn't said anything about the test, what to expect, how to take it. I wanted to make sure AJ knew how to handle the mechanics -- finding directions when they are at the top of each page instead of by each problem (a known issue for him), coloring in the circles accurately, what an analogy problem question. But I wasn't sure if I should. I don't want to pressure him. I honestly don't think this test is all that important in the general scheme of things (if he does well, it will help; if he doesn't, it probably won't hurt much). I also don't want to prep him if we're not supposed to. In the end, I decided to walk him through the basics. I really don't know much about the test, so I don't think I could possibly give away much.
What would you do?
The school uses the OLSAT to determine tracking and special services. Starting in third grade, students are clustered with others at their level within their classroom. Those performing well below or well above the norm will get special services. AJ's scores on this exam will determine whether he gets into the gifted program next year.
I'm not concerned about that. I'm sure he'll do well enough to get in, and even if for some reason he didn't, we have enough paperwork to get him in the back door. But I did want to make sure he knew how to take the test.
This will be AJ's first experience with standardized testing. I would like it to be a good one, for his sake. He will expect to do well. His teacher hasn't said anything about the test, what to expect, how to take it. I wanted to make sure AJ knew how to handle the mechanics -- finding directions when they are at the top of each page instead of by each problem (a known issue for him), coloring in the circles accurately, what an analogy problem question. But I wasn't sure if I should. I don't want to pressure him. I honestly don't think this test is all that important in the general scheme of things (if he does well, it will help; if he doesn't, it probably won't hurt much). I also don't want to prep him if we're not supposed to. In the end, I decided to walk him through the basics. I really don't know much about the test, so I don't think I could possibly give away much.
What would you do?
Friday, September 26, 2008
It's Starting to Add Up
The other day I figured out exactly how many mpg my car gets: 31.6. Which is not bad. I'd originally estimated it at 32 based on the average miles I drove on a tank of gas and the fact that I have a 14 gallon tank. But on Wednesday, when I coasted into town on fumes, I completely filled the tank. The machine stopped at exactly 14 gallons. I looked at the odometer afterwards, before resetting it and noticed I'd gone 440 miles on one tank of gas. So, I did the math - long division, on paper, all by myself. I double-checked it on a calculator later and got 31.4 but, hey, I'm not a math whiz and there's the proof.
I've always loved numbers but because of a piss poor education, I've always done horribly in math. And its one of the reasons I want Dusty to do well in it. She doesn't have a super math whiz gene (few in our family do) but I want her set on the right track now. I don't want to her derail like I did.
Which is why I'm happy she's where she is. The school system instituted full-time gifted and talented teachers in EVERY school over the summer. We met Dusty's new G&T teacher this week and I am very pleased.
The teacher, Mrs. G, has been teaching at the school for a number of years so the environment, and many of the students, are familiar to her. She outlined how the G&T thing will work this year. Last year, Dusty worked with two part-time G&T teachers - both of them brilliant and capable but doing an impossible task. The two of them taught at four or five different schools on different days. I don't know how they pulled it off, but they did.
This year should be even better. Mrs. G explained that they have clustered the G&T students into certain classrooms. Which explains why Dusty is still with her BFF and her partner of the last two years, Nathan. All G&T kids. This cuts down on Mrs. G's workload because she doesn't have to be in every single classroom every week. But she does do that on occasion, especially when a teacher in a non-G&T cluster room discovers a possible G&T candidate.
Mrs. G and the classroom teacher co-plan their lessons and co-teach them. There are no pull-outs at this level. They co-teach and then break the classroom into groups for small group work. Mrs. G gets the G&T group, Mrs. J gets the other students.
Best of all, Mrs. G teaches an accelerated math class for 5th graders. It's a pull-out class and she's a math person so I feel really good that Dusty's in good hands. In all aspects.
Not only that, but Dusty will soon get Spanish lessons. Students at the closest high school have started a Spanish Club that will meet at Dusty's school on Monday afternoons. While the county continues to "consider" foreign language classes in the elementary schools, Dusty will get a change to learn a second language. She'll get a tiny step up.
At this point, I have zero complaints. Dusty's in very good hands.
I also learned - through Mrs. G - about the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. I'm considering signing Dusty up for the next testing date (which is in Feb or March). If she passes the test, which is given locally, she would qualify for a number of educational opportunities, classes, etc. that she wouldn't have access to otherwise. She won't run quite so far if she's not wearing the right shoes. I want to give her those shoes.
Meanwhile, I'm going to go back and check my long division work. While 31.6 is close, it's not 31.4. Maybe Dusty'll be able to point out my mistakes soon. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I only had kids so they could help me with my homework.
I've always loved numbers but because of a piss poor education, I've always done horribly in math. And its one of the reasons I want Dusty to do well in it. She doesn't have a super math whiz gene (few in our family do) but I want her set on the right track now. I don't want to her derail like I did.
Which is why I'm happy she's where she is. The school system instituted full-time gifted and talented teachers in EVERY school over the summer. We met Dusty's new G&T teacher this week and I am very pleased.
The teacher, Mrs. G, has been teaching at the school for a number of years so the environment, and many of the students, are familiar to her. She outlined how the G&T thing will work this year. Last year, Dusty worked with two part-time G&T teachers - both of them brilliant and capable but doing an impossible task. The two of them taught at four or five different schools on different days. I don't know how they pulled it off, but they did.
This year should be even better. Mrs. G explained that they have clustered the G&T students into certain classrooms. Which explains why Dusty is still with her BFF and her partner of the last two years, Nathan. All G&T kids. This cuts down on Mrs. G's workload because she doesn't have to be in every single classroom every week. But she does do that on occasion, especially when a teacher in a non-G&T cluster room discovers a possible G&T candidate.
Mrs. G and the classroom teacher co-plan their lessons and co-teach them. There are no pull-outs at this level. They co-teach and then break the classroom into groups for small group work. Mrs. G gets the G&T group, Mrs. J gets the other students.
Best of all, Mrs. G teaches an accelerated math class for 5th graders. It's a pull-out class and she's a math person so I feel really good that Dusty's in good hands. In all aspects.
Not only that, but Dusty will soon get Spanish lessons. Students at the closest high school have started a Spanish Club that will meet at Dusty's school on Monday afternoons. While the county continues to "consider" foreign language classes in the elementary schools, Dusty will get a change to learn a second language. She'll get a tiny step up.
At this point, I have zero complaints. Dusty's in very good hands.
I also learned - through Mrs. G - about the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. I'm considering signing Dusty up for the next testing date (which is in Feb or March). If she passes the test, which is given locally, she would qualify for a number of educational opportunities, classes, etc. that she wouldn't have access to otherwise. She won't run quite so far if she's not wearing the right shoes. I want to give her those shoes.
Meanwhile, I'm going to go back and check my long division work. While 31.6 is close, it's not 31.4. Maybe Dusty'll be able to point out my mistakes soon. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I only had kids so they could help me with my homework.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Social Economics of Giftedness
There's another article on gifted education in today's New York Times, this one citing an overwhelming difference between the number of students admitted to gifted programs in New York City public schools from wealthy districts and poverty-stricken districts. Nearly 40 percent of those admitted for next year came from the four wealthiest districts, while those in 14 districts with a poverty rate of 75 percent or more, accounting for more than 1/2 of total enrollment, account for only 14.6 percent of those admitted to gifted programs for 08/09. Read more here.
This kind of data is alarming, but not surprising. The article places the blame on the reliance on early childhood testing, which is very much affected by home environment and parental education/experience. The question is, what alternatives are there that would better encourage early intervention for gifted students of poverty-stricken households? Talk amongst yourselves.
This kind of data is alarming, but not surprising. The article places the blame on the reliance on early childhood testing, which is very much affected by home environment and parental education/experience. The question is, what alternatives are there that would better encourage early intervention for gifted students of poverty-stricken households? Talk amongst yourselves.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
News bulletin
The testing went well. Very well. Thanks so much to all who gave us advice and support. AJ was pleased with himself and we definitely have more ammunition for our quest in getting more services for AJ at school. And he's now eligible for a whole slew of classes that should be fun and exciting for him, if we can figure out how to get him there -- the commute, especially during the current construction season, is dreadful. But I'm glad we did it. AJ had fun and we're looking forward to seeing the full write-up when we get it in a couple of weeks. I'll write more in a day or two when I have time to both digest and write. Happy Saturday, all!
[cross posted at spynotes.wordpress.com
[cross posted at spynotes.wordpress.com
Testing Day
Today's the day. I've tried to prepare AJ for the testing situation, but not for the actual tests --we don't really know exactly how those will work anyhow. But AJ hasn't ever been evaluated individually before and has never been alone with a strange adult without a parent or teacher he knows well in the room. We wanted to do what we can to make sure he feels comfortable with the situation and, hopefully, to make sure he has fun.
We told him that we didn't know exactly what the test was going to be like. I told him that he'd be in a room with a doctor that we didn't know, but that he or she was someone he should trust and talk to and that we'd be right outside and he should answer all his/her questions as best he can. We talked through the types of things he might be asked to do -- draw a picture of a person with all the details he thinks of, look at patterns and figure out what comes next, etc. These are all things he likes to do and he's excited to try some new ones. I also told him that there may be some questions that are really easy and some that are really hard and that they may keep trying to ask him questions until he can't answer them. I wanted to make sure that he didn't feel bad when he didn't know the answers. Sometimes he shuts down in frustration and embarrassment when he can't do things, particularly in front of people. I'm hoping being aware that they're expecting him to not know everything will help. We also let him know that if he doesn't understand anything, he should ask questions, and that they are also likely to just want to talk to him and find out more about him.
He's in a great mood this morning, excited about his adventure. It's a beautiful sunny day for a drive to the lake. I'll post later/tomorrow with our experiences.
We told him that we didn't know exactly what the test was going to be like. I told him that he'd be in a room with a doctor that we didn't know, but that he or she was someone he should trust and talk to and that we'd be right outside and he should answer all his/her questions as best he can. We talked through the types of things he might be asked to do -- draw a picture of a person with all the details he thinks of, look at patterns and figure out what comes next, etc. These are all things he likes to do and he's excited to try some new ones. I also told him that there may be some questions that are really easy and some that are really hard and that they may keep trying to ask him questions until he can't answer them. I wanted to make sure that he didn't feel bad when he didn't know the answers. Sometimes he shuts down in frustration and embarrassment when he can't do things, particularly in front of people. I'm hoping being aware that they're expecting him to not know everything will help. We also let him know that if he doesn't understand anything, he should ask questions, and that they are also likely to just want to talk to him and find out more about him.
He's in a great mood this morning, excited about his adventure. It's a beautiful sunny day for a drive to the lake. I'll post later/tomorrow with our experiences.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Testing, testing
While researching how IQ tests are given to children, I've learned that one of the tests used is called the W00dc0ck-J0hns0n Battery. I don't think any further comment is necessary, except to say that I'm very glad that it's not called the W00dc0ck-J0hns0n Tool.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Shape of Things To Come
An amazing thing happened recently. Dusty, my first grader, read out loud. To the class. This might not seem like such a big deal to you but it is a milestone reached. A year ago, Dusty started kindergarten. We knew she was smart. She’d taught herself to read by age four. She had already begun to read chapter books to herself the summer before kindergarten and had proven herself to be quite a talented artist as well.
At the beginning of that first school year, I approached her teacher and emailed the gifted and talented teacher. I explained that Dusty was smart, that I wanted her monitored and assessed as soon as possible. I know, to them, I probably sounded like a typical parent: convinced MY child was smarter than all the others. MY child was special. Please pay close attention to her! But I am not a hoverer. I just wanted to make sure that her needs are met. I didn’t want her to get lost in the shuffle like I was.
I was told that testing for the gifted and talented program happened in January. We’d have to wait. So we did. But we kept a close eye on things. Dusty’s teacher could tell she was smart but not to what degree. Why? One of the main ways of assessing her reading level was by listening to her read. Out loud. Something Dusty would not do. Not to her teacher, not to the reading specialist, not to the principal or her parents or her classmates. Occasionally she’d read out loud to the trash can but her teacher had to be paying attention at just the right moment. Blink and you’d miss it.
We hit a wall. Dusty started to complain about all the “baby work” they were doing in class, how she was bored. The math was “too easy”, the reading….don’t even go there!
At our parent/teacher conferences, we were assured that Dusty was fine. She seemed happy (and she was and still is) and was a full participant in the classroom. But. They were having a hard time figuring out where she really stood because she wouldn’t play the game by their rules. Not that I blame her but it was frustrating all the same.
Then January rolled around. Dusty was tested. She became more comfortable in the classroom. She opened up more (though still occasionally complaining about boredom and how easy the work was) and was given more challenging work.
Dusty was accepted into the G&T program for first grade. The first assessment of the year showed her to be reading at a fifth-grade level.
When the school year began, we met the G&T teachers and I have to say I was very impressed. I’d gone to a public school that had been full of long-term, burned out teachers with too many students. And, while these women not only job-shared but school-shared, they were full of enthusiasm and great ideas. They seemed really happy. They loved what they did. That in itself goes a long way to engendering a love of learning and an enthusiasm for school in children. Their upbeat attitude is clearly infectious.
And Dusty has really blossomed this year. The G&T teachers (one’s in her classroom on Tuesdays and the other on Wednesdays) co-teach with the classroom teacher and then break the class up into groups. The regular teacher works with one group and the G&T teacher works with the other group. The group that just happens to have Dusty and her intellectual counterpart, Nathan, in it. I get weekly emails from the teachers summarizing the lessons.
They take the regular classroom lesson and go as far as they can with it. The teacher challenges them to think in different ways. Here’s a recent lesson:
Language Arts Collab: Brave Stories ~This lesson provided a literature based creative writing experience in conjunction with on on-line Internet experience. After reading the story Brave Irene, by William Steig, the students discussed how brave Irene must have been to battle the harsh wind, snow, cold and darkness to deliver a gown to the duchess. They also viewed stories on the Internet written by children about times in their own lives when they had to be brave: http://comsewogue.k12.ny.us/~csinger/projects/braveirene/braveirene.htm. Students then brainstormed about times that they thought they displayed brave characteristics and what it meant to show courage. Students have started writing their own brave stories and will also be illustrating them on the computer.
Not only that, but I get periodic notices of classes in which Dusty can enroll. This past Saturday, she attended a Science with Toys class, with her dad, through the city’s Math & Science Center. Dusty came home with a battery powered motor and a bag full of cool stuff.
Last week was also the school’s Read-a-Thon. We documented everything Dusty read and everything we read to her every night on a chart. We pledged five cents per minute read (the proceeds go to pay for a mural in the school’s new library – opening in the spring). We logged 595 minutes!
The first day of the Read-a-Thon was a Read-In. Students were encouraged to bring in two books to share with their class. Dusty brought her two favorite Sock Monkey books. And it was one of those that she read to her class. Dusty! Reading out loud to her classmates! Amazing.
So, Dusty’s experience in school has been a good one. She will never have quite the disconnect that AJ does between intelligence/capability and emotional/chronological age but she will most likely always be a bit beyond her schoolmates. We do not have the dilemma that faces Harriet. She will remain where she is, in a well-funded public school with top-notch teachers (how we got so lucky, I do not know.). She’ll continue to carry the G&T label throughout her school career in the county in which we live. Whether her “gifts” will get sorted out later, I can only guess. She is strong in all subjects right now, but I have a feeling that reading, writing, and drawing will continue to be strengths, while math may get “hard” in a few years if we aren’t paying close attention to things. Not that “hard” is a bad thing. If she’s taught correctly, she may never have the issues I did with the subject.
And I haven’t heard Dusty use the word “bored” much this year. But this week the math unit will cover shapes.
To quote Dusty, “Shapes? I already know shapes.” Yes, and even though this is really shapes as pre-geometry I have to agree with Dusty. We already know this. So, no matter how great things are right now, we will have to stay ever-vigilant.
At the beginning of that first school year, I approached her teacher and emailed the gifted and talented teacher. I explained that Dusty was smart, that I wanted her monitored and assessed as soon as possible. I know, to them, I probably sounded like a typical parent: convinced MY child was smarter than all the others. MY child was special. Please pay close attention to her! But I am not a hoverer. I just wanted to make sure that her needs are met. I didn’t want her to get lost in the shuffle like I was.
I was told that testing for the gifted and talented program happened in January. We’d have to wait. So we did. But we kept a close eye on things. Dusty’s teacher could tell she was smart but not to what degree. Why? One of the main ways of assessing her reading level was by listening to her read. Out loud. Something Dusty would not do. Not to her teacher, not to the reading specialist, not to the principal or her parents or her classmates. Occasionally she’d read out loud to the trash can but her teacher had to be paying attention at just the right moment. Blink and you’d miss it.
We hit a wall. Dusty started to complain about all the “baby work” they were doing in class, how she was bored. The math was “too easy”, the reading….don’t even go there!
At our parent/teacher conferences, we were assured that Dusty was fine. She seemed happy (and she was and still is) and was a full participant in the classroom. But. They were having a hard time figuring out where she really stood because she wouldn’t play the game by their rules. Not that I blame her but it was frustrating all the same.
Then January rolled around. Dusty was tested. She became more comfortable in the classroom. She opened up more (though still occasionally complaining about boredom and how easy the work was) and was given more challenging work.
Dusty was accepted into the G&T program for first grade. The first assessment of the year showed her to be reading at a fifth-grade level.
When the school year began, we met the G&T teachers and I have to say I was very impressed. I’d gone to a public school that had been full of long-term, burned out teachers with too many students. And, while these women not only job-shared but school-shared, they were full of enthusiasm and great ideas. They seemed really happy. They loved what they did. That in itself goes a long way to engendering a love of learning and an enthusiasm for school in children. Their upbeat attitude is clearly infectious.
And Dusty has really blossomed this year. The G&T teachers (one’s in her classroom on Tuesdays and the other on Wednesdays) co-teach with the classroom teacher and then break the class up into groups. The regular teacher works with one group and the G&T teacher works with the other group. The group that just happens to have Dusty and her intellectual counterpart, Nathan, in it. I get weekly emails from the teachers summarizing the lessons.
They take the regular classroom lesson and go as far as they can with it. The teacher challenges them to think in different ways. Here’s a recent lesson:
Language Arts Collab: Brave Stories ~This lesson provided a literature based creative writing experience in conjunction with on on-line Internet experience. After reading the story Brave Irene, by William Steig, the students discussed how brave Irene must have been to battle the harsh wind, snow, cold and darkness to deliver a gown to the duchess. They also viewed stories on the Internet written by children about times in their own lives when they had to be brave: http://comsewogue.k12.ny.us/~csinger/projects/braveirene/braveirene.htm. Students then brainstormed about times that they thought they displayed brave characteristics and what it meant to show courage. Students have started writing their own brave stories and will also be illustrating them on the computer.
Not only that, but I get periodic notices of classes in which Dusty can enroll. This past Saturday, she attended a Science with Toys class, with her dad, through the city’s Math & Science Center. Dusty came home with a battery powered motor and a bag full of cool stuff.
Last week was also the school’s Read-a-Thon. We documented everything Dusty read and everything we read to her every night on a chart. We pledged five cents per minute read (the proceeds go to pay for a mural in the school’s new library – opening in the spring). We logged 595 minutes!
The first day of the Read-a-Thon was a Read-In. Students were encouraged to bring in two books to share with their class. Dusty brought her two favorite Sock Monkey books. And it was one of those that she read to her class. Dusty! Reading out loud to her classmates! Amazing.
So, Dusty’s experience in school has been a good one. She will never have quite the disconnect that AJ does between intelligence/capability and emotional/chronological age but she will most likely always be a bit beyond her schoolmates. We do not have the dilemma that faces Harriet. She will remain where she is, in a well-funded public school with top-notch teachers (how we got so lucky, I do not know.). She’ll continue to carry the G&T label throughout her school career in the county in which we live. Whether her “gifts” will get sorted out later, I can only guess. She is strong in all subjects right now, but I have a feeling that reading, writing, and drawing will continue to be strengths, while math may get “hard” in a few years if we aren’t paying close attention to things. Not that “hard” is a bad thing. If she’s taught correctly, she may never have the issues I did with the subject.
And I haven’t heard Dusty use the word “bored” much this year. But this week the math unit will cover shapes.
To quote Dusty, “Shapes? I already know shapes.” Yes, and even though this is really shapes as pre-geometry I have to agree with Dusty. We already know this. So, no matter how great things are right now, we will have to stay ever-vigilant.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
More adventures in public schools
In November, AJ recieved his first report card of the year and there were more than a few surprises. It has taken me a while to digest it all. This will be the first of what will no doubt be a series of posts on the challenges we are facing with making sure AJ's educational needs are met in a public school.
AJ's report card, while not bad, was not at all what we would have expected. [I wrote about this in detail at spynotes if you're interested, but will recap more succinctly here]. For example, AJ had been coming home from school for weeks complaining about how boring math was. In fact, the day we got his report card was parent visitation day. The first thing AJ did when I walked into the classroom was to drag me over to his desk, open to the back of his math book and say, "Look! See how easy this is?" So I'd been assuming that his teacher (who, I must reiterate, we think is fantastic) hadn't been giving him more challenging math assignments the way she'd been doing in reading. I chalked this up to the fact that either she had too much to do (AJ is in a class of 27 children) or AJ hiding his abilities. But it turns out that his teacher had repeatedly been trying to offer him challenges and he had been turning them down.
I'm not sure AJ was entirely sure why he was engaging in these two contradictory behaviors: begging for more challenging assignments at home; turning them down at school. But later, on a walk to school where AJ and I do our best talking, he was able to articulate it.
"AJ, did you know that when I was a little girl I had to do all my assignments by myself in my class too?"
"Really?"
"I loved having my own work. But I sometimes wished I could be with the other kids."
AJ stopped walking and stared at me. "That's exactly how it is for me."
We talked to his teacher for an hour about AJ's dual needs for challenge and for social engagement. She's very much on the same page as we are. We asked her to stop giving AJ a choice for assignments, because, I think, it's a choice he doesn't really want to have. He's too conflicted to make the decision. We also talked to AJ about how and why he should accept the challenge assignments, and how he will still be able to have time with his peers.
Most of our meeting with AJ's teacher was strategizing for the rest of the year. That part was all good. But at the end, she gave us a word of warning. "In second grade, it's going to be harder. There's much less individualization. You're going to have to be a real advocate for him."
"I'm fully prepared to be as much of a pain in the ass as I have to be."
"Good. You'll need to be."
All of this has returned us the the dilemma that we seem to revisit every year: is this the best place for AJ?
I've begun exploring options and will be writing about it here as I get the chance. First, I've been reading a couple of books on gifted kids. The first, Carol A. Strip's Helping Gifted Children Soar examines a variety of situations and possible solutions. I like that it emphasizes educational fit and I like its tone. There is less of the gifted child/parent as victim stance that turns me off of so much literature. The other book, which I haven't really gotten into yet, is Lisa Rivero's Creative Home Schooling for Gifted Children: A Resource Guide. The one thing I'm fairly certain of at this juncture is that I'm not planning on homeschooling AJ. I don't think it's a good idea for a fundamentally social kid who is also an only child. But I wanted to gain some insight on the homeschooling perspective, to get ideas about what I can do at home, and to come up with ideas that could be implemented for an individual kid working within a standard classroom.
I've also started sketching out options for the future.
1. Stay at current school, in current grade. This is the most likely scenario. AJ's happy there, the school has shown itself willing, if not always able, to help AJ. And it's free, which allows us to enroll AJ in extracurricular activities. If this happens, though, I want to get some kind of plan in place with the school so I don't have to go through this curriculum adjustment process every single year. It takes too long to get it going. AJ wasted two months doing math problems he knew cold 3-4 years ago. It's not fair to him to do this every year. I need to figure out how to get a plan in place that will move with AJ from class to class.
2. Stay at current school, pursue acceleration. Frankly, I've pretty much rejected this option. The school doesn't want to do it. AJ is very much a six-year old in everything but intellectual capacity. And he's demonstrated that he's becoming sort of bilingual in that he'll talk one way to his classmate friends and another way to teachers and us. He seems most comfortable these days with his friend next door, who is in fifth grade. They are much more compatible intellectually and enjoy many of the same things. I'm also not sure accelerating a year would help much. AJ's reading approximately 6 grade levels ahead and doing math at least 2 grades ahead (and I think this might be higher if I were better able to meet his mathematical needs).
3. Change schools. I've made a list of area schools, none closer than 7 miles, none farther than 20, that cater to the gifted or have a reputation for working well with accelerated curricula. I hope to start school visitations in late January/early February. The cons for these are both expense (how on earth would we pay for private school?) and also social (playdates would be rare if his friends live far away). But working under the assumption that scholarships may be possible and relatives might help us out, we're going to investigate anyway.
4. Thinking outside the box. I don't know if the school would go for this at all, but one possibility I'd wondered about was whether AJ could be in the regular classroom for part of the day and homeschooling or doing extra-curricular activities at his level for part of the day. Or perhaps just add extra curricular activities outside school. Can we find a mentoring program? Is there someone at the middle school who could help us with materials? The Center for the Gifted at Northwestern offers online courses. Could he do these at school in lieu of standard curriculum?
The other question we have is about testing. I'm generally opposed to testing, especially at this age. It's less reliable when kids are younger. It's expensive. It labels the kid. I don't see the point unless it's going to get us somewhere. The school will test at the end of second grade, if we can wait that long. But some schools and extra curricular programs will require testing. We need to decide whether it's worth it to us.
That's where things stand. I plan on trying to schedule a meeting with AJ's teacher as soon as I can to follow up on some things we talked about at our conference, namely the possibility of trying to find a child in another class to read with him occasionally so he's not by himself and also to fill her in on his vacation math escapades. Wish us luck.
AJ's report card, while not bad, was not at all what we would have expected. [I wrote about this in detail at spynotes if you're interested, but will recap more succinctly here]. For example, AJ had been coming home from school for weeks complaining about how boring math was. In fact, the day we got his report card was parent visitation day. The first thing AJ did when I walked into the classroom was to drag me over to his desk, open to the back of his math book and say, "Look! See how easy this is?" So I'd been assuming that his teacher (who, I must reiterate, we think is fantastic) hadn't been giving him more challenging math assignments the way she'd been doing in reading. I chalked this up to the fact that either she had too much to do (AJ is in a class of 27 children) or AJ hiding his abilities. But it turns out that his teacher had repeatedly been trying to offer him challenges and he had been turning them down.
I'm not sure AJ was entirely sure why he was engaging in these two contradictory behaviors: begging for more challenging assignments at home; turning them down at school. But later, on a walk to school where AJ and I do our best talking, he was able to articulate it.
"AJ, did you know that when I was a little girl I had to do all my assignments by myself in my class too?"
"Really?"
"I loved having my own work. But I sometimes wished I could be with the other kids."
AJ stopped walking and stared at me. "That's exactly how it is for me."
We talked to his teacher for an hour about AJ's dual needs for challenge and for social engagement. She's very much on the same page as we are. We asked her to stop giving AJ a choice for assignments, because, I think, it's a choice he doesn't really want to have. He's too conflicted to make the decision. We also talked to AJ about how and why he should accept the challenge assignments, and how he will still be able to have time with his peers.
Most of our meeting with AJ's teacher was strategizing for the rest of the year. That part was all good. But at the end, she gave us a word of warning. "In second grade, it's going to be harder. There's much less individualization. You're going to have to be a real advocate for him."
"I'm fully prepared to be as much of a pain in the ass as I have to be."
"Good. You'll need to be."
All of this has returned us the the dilemma that we seem to revisit every year: is this the best place for AJ?
I've begun exploring options and will be writing about it here as I get the chance. First, I've been reading a couple of books on gifted kids. The first, Carol A. Strip's Helping Gifted Children Soar examines a variety of situations and possible solutions. I like that it emphasizes educational fit and I like its tone. There is less of the gifted child/parent as victim stance that turns me off of so much literature. The other book, which I haven't really gotten into yet, is Lisa Rivero's Creative Home Schooling for Gifted Children: A Resource Guide. The one thing I'm fairly certain of at this juncture is that I'm not planning on homeschooling AJ. I don't think it's a good idea for a fundamentally social kid who is also an only child. But I wanted to gain some insight on the homeschooling perspective, to get ideas about what I can do at home, and to come up with ideas that could be implemented for an individual kid working within a standard classroom.
I've also started sketching out options for the future.
1. Stay at current school, in current grade. This is the most likely scenario. AJ's happy there, the school has shown itself willing, if not always able, to help AJ. And it's free, which allows us to enroll AJ in extracurricular activities. If this happens, though, I want to get some kind of plan in place with the school so I don't have to go through this curriculum adjustment process every single year. It takes too long to get it going. AJ wasted two months doing math problems he knew cold 3-4 years ago. It's not fair to him to do this every year. I need to figure out how to get a plan in place that will move with AJ from class to class.
2. Stay at current school, pursue acceleration. Frankly, I've pretty much rejected this option. The school doesn't want to do it. AJ is very much a six-year old in everything but intellectual capacity. And he's demonstrated that he's becoming sort of bilingual in that he'll talk one way to his classmate friends and another way to teachers and us. He seems most comfortable these days with his friend next door, who is in fifth grade. They are much more compatible intellectually and enjoy many of the same things. I'm also not sure accelerating a year would help much. AJ's reading approximately 6 grade levels ahead and doing math at least 2 grades ahead (and I think this might be higher if I were better able to meet his mathematical needs).
3. Change schools. I've made a list of area schools, none closer than 7 miles, none farther than 20, that cater to the gifted or have a reputation for working well with accelerated curricula. I hope to start school visitations in late January/early February. The cons for these are both expense (how on earth would we pay for private school?) and also social (playdates would be rare if his friends live far away). But working under the assumption that scholarships may be possible and relatives might help us out, we're going to investigate anyway.
4. Thinking outside the box. I don't know if the school would go for this at all, but one possibility I'd wondered about was whether AJ could be in the regular classroom for part of the day and homeschooling or doing extra-curricular activities at his level for part of the day. Or perhaps just add extra curricular activities outside school. Can we find a mentoring program? Is there someone at the middle school who could help us with materials? The Center for the Gifted at Northwestern offers online courses. Could he do these at school in lieu of standard curriculum?
The other question we have is about testing. I'm generally opposed to testing, especially at this age. It's less reliable when kids are younger. It's expensive. It labels the kid. I don't see the point unless it's going to get us somewhere. The school will test at the end of second grade, if we can wait that long. But some schools and extra curricular programs will require testing. We need to decide whether it's worth it to us.
That's where things stand. I plan on trying to schedule a meeting with AJ's teacher as soon as I can to follow up on some things we talked about at our conference, namely the possibility of trying to find a child in another class to read with him occasionally so he's not by himself and also to fill her in on his vacation math escapades. Wish us luck.
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