First Meeting with William's teacher

One positive about this blog now being private is I can process feelings without being afraid someone stumbling over my blog and being hurt by how I feel.

I scheduled a meeting with Liam's teacher to get an idea of how he is doing in school.

I showed up about 10 minutes before class ended.  Liam took one look at me and went into a screaming meltdown about wanting to take the bus.  It was awful.  All the 1st graders were staring at us. I did get to see the little girl he keeps mentioning, Ashlynne.  She sits next to him and brought over his notebook and bookbag.  I wanted to hug that sweet little girl.  Soon after the class left, he settled down.

Ironically, Mrs. Lee started off with how nothing about Liam sets him apart from the class.  I brought up the meltdown and said my fear is behavior like that at school as he did it in preschool.  She said he has not shown any issues with transition, dealing with change, or noise.

She does not see issues with his handwriting.  It is messy and below average in the class but does not think he needs accommodations.  However, when testing his reading level and reading comprehension, he could answer correctly orally but wrote something different on paper....a wrong answer, resulting in a lower reading level group.  Both of these things yell dysgraphia to me and need to be accommodated.  Otherwise I am liking the school, but I feel Liam's giftedness is hiding where he struggles.

He is reading at Level J, but his reading comprehension seems to be about the Level G area.  I did not ask how he compares to other children as that does not matter to me.  I just want to make sure he is working at a level that is challenging but not too hard.

A large part of the meeting consisted on how they will meet Liam's gifted needs.  They are pairing him for group work with one of the other AIG students, a little boy named Graham.  In addition, they are willing to allow him to test out of 1st grade material and work at a different level instead.  I suggested math as an area where he needs to be working at a different level.

I like his teacher and it is clear she wants the best for Liam but I am afraid she is missing the big picture when it comes to writing.