Yup, it's an Emerald post!
In Pre-k and Kindergarten, as her teachers will attest, Emerald struggled with behavioral problems. To be honest, the issues date back to the parents-day-out program she was in as a toddler as well. Either way, she was 50 pounds of sass in a 5 pound, glitter-encrusted satchel, and she was wreaking havoc wherever she went. Emotional outbursts, ceaseless arguing, over-the-top theatrics...she was exhausting.
Despite many behavioral plans, redirections, rewards and punishments, we were still struggling reigning in her exaggerated responses to every day events.
That's a nice way of saying she was completely nutbags, isn't it?
Don't get me wrong--the other side of it was that she was wildly and wonderfully creative, bright, loving, and funny. She does EVERYTHING with her own special Emerald flair, which is to say to the utter max. When she was good, she was very, very good; and when she was bad...well, you know the rest.
Last year in first grade, we had a bit of better success with her being under the care of the school counselor with a rigid behavioral intervention plan firmly in place, but she was still ending up in In School Suspension a minimum of once a week.
(Story time again! Last year, Emerald proudly said she "only" had a half day's worth of ISS that day, then asked me how old Daddy and I were when we first went to ISS. I pretended to think for a half a moment, then replied quiet honestly, "umm..NEVER!")
At the end of last year, Emerald was tested to see if she was Gifted and Talented (GT). I didn't hold out an excess of hope that she would do spectacularly; though I consider her intelligent, she missed the first day of testing due to illness, and rushed through the rest with little regard.
Toward the end of the summer, we received her results: she had gotten a score of 99% and was accepted into the Advanced Academics program.
We weren't really sure until the first Advanced Academics parents' meeting tonight what that actually entailed, what that looked like. Which bothers me just a touch, as it is eight weeks into the school year. Better late than never, so I won't complain.
I will try and relay as best I can what I learned tonight, though I am not certain how well exactly I will do.
The program is a way to give GT kids more challenging material while learning alongside their peers, without giving them extra work or projects they have to do at home.
The way the director explained it, a child that is given more and more work to keep them busy because they are finishing too quickly simply learns to take go painstakingly slowly so that they don't have to do extra. Basically, they get burned out by being bogged down. In Advanced Academics, they have the same amount of work as their classmates, but it is scaled to be more challenging for them.
In the past, the GT kids were separated into their own classroom, as they do with many special ed kids. Now, they have a system in place called the cluster classroom. They take a group of four to five GT students and put them in a class where the rest are general education, but the teacher is certified to teach the Advanced Academics. (I really want to abbreviate it so I don't have to type it out every time, but it just doesn't look right for me to put AA.) I am not really clear on the benefit of doing it this way over the other, but I also can't see a direct pitfall to it either, so I am not worrying about it excessively right now.
Within the program, they have certain tools that evaluate the child's specific abilities within each subject and that offers them adapted material at their level. For example, for mathematics they use a computer program called Reasoning Minds; for leadership and organizational skills, they use Leader in Me. Which is actually campus-wide, so I am not certain how that works either. It is based on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a book I was just not interested enough in to plow through. Maybe that's why I am not following all this brainy curriculum--not focused enough :-p
The kids also participate in activities such as Accelerated Reading, where you can earn points by reading books and taking quizzes that test your comprehension; the points can then be used for special treats at the end of the six weeks. For her classroom, if you meet your goal you get to watch the movie with the others that met their goals; second tier is popcorn, third a drink, fourth candy, fifth a pillow, sixth a blanket, and seventh a stuffed animal, all of which you can get with the movie. Emerald's allowed to skip the candy step as she isn't allowed the candy because of her diabetes.
Another activity she can choose to participate in is UIL. For her grade, she can compete in Storytelling, Creative Writing, or Chess. She really wanted to do chess, but you have to be a member of the chess club first and she missed the deadline to sign up. From my prompting, she signed up for Creative Writing, where you get five pictures and you have to write a story using any combination of them. To get her into the habit and practice, she has started keeping a daily writing journal at home where she can write anything from poetry, songs, journal entries, prayers, or stories. This has really helped with her atrocious handwriting and spelling, plus putting her thoughts down clearly.
Those in Advanced Academics this year will work together a few times. One, they are trying to get the campus to be a part of 30 Million Words, which is where the whole school tries to reach a combined total of reading 30 million words. The GT kids will direct and film commercials that will be played for the rest of the students recommending different books, reviewing books, and generally encouraging and advertising reading. The other is a fundraiser the Advanced Academics will organize and oversee to raise money for a charity, most likely Unicef. The final is a field trip to the State Park as a group.
For Emerald's grade, the Texas Performance Standards Project for the first semester is Animal Nation; for second semester it is Who's Who: A Study of Biography.
We also received information regarding Threshold Camp which is hosted at Hardin Simmons every summer for gifted and talented students.
They encouraged us to sign up with the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented (TAGT) which provides programs, seminars, resources, and support groups when you become a member.
All in all, it really seems to be helping her. Michael went to her Parent-Teacher conference last week to discuss how she was doing, and to get the results of some further testing we had them do for her. Her teacher reports that Emerald will occasionally have emotional outbursts but will often calm herself down fairly quickly; she has yet to get in any trouble this year so far. All of her marks are high, with Math and Reading being her two strongest areas; handwriting is her weakest. Her reading assessment suggested she was reading at a fifth grade level at a 98% comprehension level, which means that she needs to be reading harder books than we have been providing for her. So I got her started in on the "Chronicles of Narnia" series and "Harry Potter". She's all ready read and loved "Anne of Green Gables", so I also got her "The Secret Garden" and "Little Women". I don't want to turn her away from reading all together by pushing it too hard, so I'm trying to be chill about it. Which of course I'm not. But I am trying.
So that is where we are right now. We are keeping an eye on her. She is really very happy in her class with her friends; her main areas of interest are Science (she keeps talking about scientists that she has met, the science experiments she performs, research and observations and predictions. She wants to be a geologist when she grows up) and Math. Given the choice, she wants to read nonfiction as much as possible, but she is happy reading the "Minecraft Manual" eight thousand more times.
We'll see. I am very proud of my girl though :-)
--Andie
