SD8 and school

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SD8 is in 3rd grade. For the

SD8 is in 3rd grade. For the last 2 years she has been placed in a "special" class of only 15 students, her teacher, and a teaching assistant. BS9 is also in 3rd grade, 32 students, and 1 teacher. You can see the difference. I work with both children equally. BS9 is testing at 5th grade Reading/Writing and beginning 4th grade Math.

This "special" class is a sort of program offered to 2nd & 3rd graders whom struggle very much socially. This program will not be offered next year and SD8 will be placed in a 4th grade class with 30+ students and only 1 teacher. This worries me.

Our school grades based on the 1-4 number scale:

1- Above standard
2- Standard
3- Below Standard
4- I dont even know but obviously it is not good.

SD8 receives 3 & 4 on just about everything. As I know I shouldn't really judge anything based on standardized testing, SD8 is testing at mid 1st grade level in Reading Comprehension and Word usage skills, and 2nd grade Math.

The classes are working on writing a lot of "essay" type things and forming paragraphs. SD8 is still writing like a 1st grader:
The dog ran. Ran fast. He stopped. The end.

When asked to read a story and answer the questions about the story she simply flips to a page in the story and directly copies any sentence.
Q: What happened after Steve left the house?
A: Steve said, "Let's go."

Instead of actually finding the main points in the stories and the actual event that happened after Steve left the house this is how she answers. Every time.

I have spoke with her teacher and asked about tutoring. The teacher said it would not be a bad idea to get a Math tutor, but says the Reading comprehension thing is more of a developmental skill. I wonder about this. I can't see how it is at all acceptable to put a child in 4th grade who can't even understand the main idea of a story or still writes as if she is 5. I wonder what will happen when/if she is placed in 4th grade, without so much one on one help from her teachers.

SD8 does seem to be a pretty bright girl. (At 8 she has managed to master manipulation.) I wonder if she really is struggling or if she is just being lazy and not wanting to do her work. I just don't know what to do. Everyday is a fight at homework time. I really am concerned about next year because if she is struggling then I would think holding her back a grade may help, but it doesn't sound like the teacher has any intention on doing so.

What does by your husband

What does by your husband think about it? Does he want her held back? It sounds to me like she needs it, and if dh wants it he can probably push the school.

DH is pretty much convinced

DH is pretty much convinced that she is just being lazy and not doing it correctly simply because she doesn't want to. When I do homework with her it is literally an hour of fighting. I had DH sit quietly in the other room and listen to what was going on one day. SD8 thought he had left for work. It was insane. One question was 8x_=24. I had her go through her 8 multiplication table. She knows 8x3=24. But throwing a fit screaming because she doesn't know what goes in the blank. The next day DH came home early from work. He sat down and did homework with SD8. It was done literally in maybe 5 minutes, no questions asked. I don't know if that assignment was just easier for her than the previous one or if she behaved and completed it simply because DH was sitting right there. That is why it is so difficult for me to judge. It's not just me obviously. I can't just say she is just giving me a hard time, therefore she should do all homework with DH because all the work she completes at school with her teacher she is failing as well.

Report cards come home tomorrow. I figured I would post today and see if I could get some input before then.

You should probably ask the

You should probably ask the teacher how long these homework assignments take. If SD is taking longer than the alloted time, I recommend you both stop, and take a break. The fact that she is performing well with your DH and not with you suggests to me that her problem is more behavioral and not developmental. With my SS I tried to engage him more. Ask SD to explain the problem to you and not the other way around. Look at it from the child's perspective. Kids equate homework with punishment. At this age kids tend to push their boundaries and comprehension skills is a VERY difficult concept to grasp. I remember myself having a hard time with it.

During the summer break, I highly recommend getting these activity books to help SD hone and refresh what she has learned.

"The fact that she is

"The fact that she is performing well with your DH and not with you suggests to me that her problem is more behavioral and not developmental."

The fact that it is not just with me, it is also with her teachers, is what bothers me.
She is failing tests at school and in class assignments as well.

I purchased a lot of those books last summer, plus our school sends some home with the kids on the last day. On top of all that SD8 did attend summer school last summer.

My ss11 is the same way....

My ss11 is the same way.... And with him its a combination of being on the slower side mentally and extreme laziness. He has been just barely squeeking by to pass each grade since kindergarten.

He is reading at a level 40 right now....50 is where he should have started 5th grade and a 60 is where he should be by the end of the year. So he is almost through 5th grade and reading at the level that a 4th grader should be reading on the first day of the year. He has tutors and we work with him at home. When he puts the effort in he makes progress....not great progress but he does learn. But when he isn't pushed, he cl gets no where on his own.

I think he needs to be held back, but SD is only one year behind him and I think the emotional toll of being in the same grade as her is worse than making him struggle to keep up (she is very mean and nasty so she won't do make his life an living hell). Also, since he is so lazy, he will just lower his standards to whatever the minimum he gets away with. We could move him back to 1st grade and he would still not finish his work and have the least complete assignment in the class.

I am concerned about that

I am concerned about that kind of as well. SD8 and BS9 are both in 3rd grade. I also worry that if DH pushes to hold her back she will be super pissed because BS9 will be moving to 4th grade.

I'm concerned about how much

I'm concerned about how much focus it sounds like there is on her test scores and 'levels.' Schools can be bad about teaching test-taking instead of, for example, actual reading. If she's already having reading comprehension issues, that kind of approach can really add to the confusion and frustration. Her response to reading a story and answering questions-finding and copying the appropriate sentence-really makes me think this might be a concern.

Do you guys read to her at home? I would really recommend it, if you don't. Getting to hear a story and discuss it afterwords (in a far more natural way than answering a series of low-level questions) should help her comprehension, and the exposure to a variety of interesting stories can help bolster her motivation and interest in reading against the frustration of school and testing. Also, most children around that age can understand books at a much higher level than they can read them.

She should also be reading daily on her own--books she chooses for herself, preferably. It would be good for someone to read those with her on occasion, as well.

As stated in my original

As stated in my original post: " As I know I shouldn't really judge anything based on standardized testing, SD8 is testing at mid 1st grade level in Reading Comprehension and Word usage skills, and 2nd grade Math."

____________

I realize they are standardized test. They prove absolutely nothing about a person. Schools don't generally look at it the same way, but that's beside the point. Whether it's an actual test or just plain classwork this kid is failing miserable and I don't know if it's because she actually doesn't understand or if it's because she just simply doesn't want to do the work.

We do read at home. A LOT. We go to the library at least once a week. Last summer I was on a garage sale mission of finding good books for BS9 and SD8 because they both like to read. I probably bought 200 books for the both of them to share. SD8 enjoys reading. That is exactly why this whole thing is so darn confusing. Her actual reading level is a 38 which is right where she should be, 3rd grade. It's the other stuff she is failing.

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