A friend of mine has a very bright grade one son who doesn't seem that bright. In other words, he seems like a typical little boy who hates to sit still and loves running around.
But when I've sat down with him, I've realized how bright he is, especially in math.
Now this little boy hates writing. Just hates it. He has always refused to colour, because he hates holding a pencil.
Today, during his grade one class, the teacher announced that she would be putting the children into the two math groups (easy and hard) based on whether or not they could write their numbers to 100.
Now my little friend can say the numbers to 100, but he hates writing. And he thought "the easy group" sounded much better than "the hard group". So he sat back and let himself get put into the easy group.
This infuriates me. Don't grade one teachers know that many little boys don't have great manual dexterity yet, and can't necessarily write? That doesn't mean they can't add or do basic patterning.
Nevertheless, he has now labelled himself, and unless that teacher takes the time with him that I did, she'll never realize how much he knows. What a waste.
Teacher should never have explained to them what she was going to do....just "Show me how well you write your numbers." and then she'd have to actually follow that up with a conversation or some other math work...not just writing numbers....BAD MOVE TEACHER!!
Besides, you don't tell the kids which group/class they are going into.
In 2nd grade, our teacher divided us into reading groups and asked us to name our groups. The boys in mine declared that Cheetahs were the fasted animals so I was in the Cheetah reading group. I don't remember the other groups' name. Tigers? Turtles?
Any way... when it was the Turtles turn for reading group I was sent downstairs to the Title I math teacher. I was the kid who was lousy at math!
You just described my son! After pulling my hair out, he was tested and found to have dyspraxia..with a 137 IQ. He is 14 yrs old now, and in all excelerated classes. If his teachers had graded him strictly on what he could write, he would have never passed ANY grade.
Bad move by the teacher! This happened to my son, only with reading. In grade one he couldn't put basic sounds together and was in the slow readers group. In grade two the teacher was awesome and helped him and it "clicked" for him and by the end of that year he was reading at a 6th grade reading level. It's all in how the teacher handles things.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
Stumble It!
Teacher should never have explained to them what she was going to do....just "Show me how well you write your numbers." and then she'd have to actually follow that up with a conversation or some other math work...not just writing numbers....BAD MOVE TEACHER!!