Is she bored? Is it too hard? Is she not paying attention?

[amcal]

I want to preface this with saying that I have no ego involved in my children being labeled as intelligent. I don't need my children to be exceptional or gifted. I just want them to do their best and I'm fine with whatever the outcome.

That being said, my 6yo DD is in 1st grade. She did 2 years of preschool and a private kindergarten before moving to this school. She has always been considered "very bright". Those are the teachers words. She picked up school very easily. Never struggled with anything academically. She's an excellent reader, very conscientious and well behaved.

So, she is in the lowest reading group in her class. Not the remedial class but since they are combined classes (grades 1 and 2) there is remedial, a basic 1st grade, an advanced 1st grade and 2nd grade. My DD is in basic 1st grade. I was surprised by this because she is a very strong reader. She reads all the time and well beyond her reading level but, I figured the teacher did the assessment (she showed me) and that's where DD is so it's fine. But, DD has expressed that she likes to be at that level because it's easy. She's even said she was bored. She gets 100% on everything without trying. I was going to talk with the teacher later this month about this issue.

Well, the past two tests, she's started missing some very, very simple questions. Questions that we talked about and I know she knows and it's an open book test so there should be no reason for missing anything.

Then, again today she missed a very simple question on her math test. She missed something she's done 101 times. She can do it in her sleep.

I'm not making a huge issue out of it. I really don't care that she didn't get 100% but, my concern is the reason. She can't express why and I don't want to push her and make her feel bad. I've stressed to her that missing questions on a test isn't a big deal but, I've asked her if she can figure out why she missed them - is she distracted? Is she hurrying? Is she bored? Does she just think she knows it already so she's not really paying attention?

I'm not sure what to do. Generally, I wouldn't do anything but, missing the questions is really bothering her (she is a perfectionist) and, it's starting to happen more and more often. If I knew she just didn't understand or it was too hard, that would be different but, I know she knows the answers to the questions she is missing so I don't really know what to do.

I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.

[1xmom]

Have you talked to the teacher and asked how she is in class? If she is paying attention or is simply bored?

[Tapioca]

I wonder if she's anxious about doing well and dealing with it by shutting down.

[Heavenly]

My daughter had sort of a similar situation. She started school for the first time this year (we homeschooled) so I knew what level she was at. She was already halfway through grade 1 work and she started in school at the beginning of Grade 1. She is reading at an early grade 2 level but she started telling the teacher and me that she couldn't do it. She also started saying she couldn't do her other work. The teacher gave her easier work and DD was happy because it was easy and she could just zip through it and then have free time. Thankfully with her she started to get bored and told the teacher that she COULD do the harder work. The teacher kept her at the lower level for awhile and recently moved her up and she is doing great. It is possible your daughter is just doing what's easy and not really trying. With her starting to miss answers that could be because she is getting really bored and doesn't care anymore. I would talk with the teacher and tell her that you have concerns with DD's work and wonder if you could meet with her to discuss the assessment she did. Maybe she would be willing to do another assessment or maybe you could meet with her and DD so that DD can show her the work that she actually is capable of. Good luck!

[MattBronsil]

I can speak from my own personal experience on this. When I was in Junior High, I left Montessori and went into traditional schooling. The purpose of testing was meaningless to me - it didn't really show what I learned in practical applications.

Material I knew - I would slip up on because I didn't care. I knew I knew it. Imagine a parallel here. Imagine if someone gave you a sheet of 300 division problems and told you to do them. Your incentive will be to get a good grade. As an adult, do you REALLY care? I can almost guarantee you will mess up on some because who cares if you get a good grade? A sheet of division problems has no real application in the world AND you don't have to prove to yourself that you know these things. You would just try to get it done and give them back the paper.

Until schools start assessing learning with means other than tests, this is going to be the norm for many bright students.

Just my own experience.
Matt

[mom2ponygirl]

My daughter has the same pattern when the material is too easy. It has to be difficult enough to be engaging to eliminate most of the careless errors. You might check for some articles on hoagiesgifted.org or gt-cybersource.

You might try some harder, more complex work at home and see what her response is to it.

[GuildJenn]

It's interesting that she's the one upset by them. If she were just not seeing the point, then I wonder if she would be the one worrying about missing the questions.

I wonder if it's her test-taking skills that need bolstering? Maybe she has a hard time performing under pressure, or keeping track of the time, or not getting distracted. I would try some pretend tests with her at home (if she's into it) and practice: two deep breaths before you start, one deep breath between each question, slow down and read the question, etc.

I also wonder if being put in the lower reading group due to a single test (!) has affected her perception of testing in general. It might start to feel like each test is very high-stakes. I myself would definitely talk to the teacher about re-evaluating her reading... I think being at the wrong level is stressful even when it makes it "easy."

One other really simple thought: maybe she needs glasses?

Anyways just some thoughts.

[Zach'smom]

It sounds like your daughter is bored. When material is too easy for my first grade ds he will buzz through it fast without really looking at it. He then makes stupid mistakes. His teacher recognized this right away and adjusted his work. He does much better when he is challenged.

I am surprised that your teacher hasn't moved your daughter to a new reading level. Teachers are constantly evaluating reading in first grade and adjusting reading levels accordingly. It should be really obvious to the teacher if your daughters reading level is too easy/hard for her.

[Mizelenius]

I think she's bored, too. Maybe she's upset that she got some answers wrong, but she's 6 . . .while she's taking the test (and is bored) she isn't thinking, "Oh no! When I get these results back and some are wrong, I'll be upset, so I better do my best and concentrate!" She's probably thinking about other things since the test doesn't engage her.

We just got back from DD's school (we are going to HS but we picked up her report card). The teacher showed us that she gave her tests to check her reading level. In each level, if DD got something wrong, it was ONLY the easy questions, but the higher-level comprehension questions were correct. Thankfully, the teacher saw that and knew that DD was comprehending, so she kept giving her the next level to see at what point she got the higher-level questions wrong as well.

Have you considered grade skipping? Although, like I said, we are going to start HSing, we skipped DD this year and it was the best decision we made.