My daughter is a second grader who currently regularly speaks on her dislike of school and how boring it is. She came home with her fastbridge results for math and reading and she is scoring in the 99% country wide. I am having a hard time figuring out if this is exceptional as fast bridge seems to really be focused on students who are lacking, her work sheet just stated she’s “on track”. Do I need to request some intervention for more challenging work or this is a normal result? There are currently no talented/gifted programs that I know of but I have a feeling she needs a little more than what she is getting. Thank you for any input!
This is all normal for the FAST. I believe that the FAST test is adaptive as well (at least at older ages). Depending upon the 99% that could be country, state, or classroom. I would routinely have classes (at middle school) w a few kids 90% a few below 20% and the rest somewhere in between.
Either way, to be honest that asking for accelerated work is probably not worthwhile at this grade and, in all honesty, the teacher won’t have the time to do it.
Enrich her at home. Have her read and encourage her to help out her classmates at school. Try to work w her to self-advocate for something more challenging at school. If she has ideas for creative ways to complete assignments then help her out with that.
Quite frankly, it’s frustrating as a teacher to be asked by parents to do even more work to design advanced lessons for just one student. As the year goes by there may be more leveled activities and group work that could up the rigor of what she’s learning.
The truth of the matter though is that the teacher is most likely overwhelmed with the Sisyphean task of getting struggling students to even a Kindergarten level. It’s not necessarily fair to your kid, but that’s the reality of the system as it’s been designed.
@LearningLeader1
Thank you for engaging, I am really trying to figure out how to keep her interested in going to school at this point.
All that you said makes sense (she’s scoring 99% at district and country). She’s a voracious reader at home and we are always engaged, but I feel the school should be able to offer something? There are math and reading specialists that work one on one with underperforming students, could they be of any help? I know these are all questions I need to direct at my school, just looking for some ideas/insights on how to approach the situation. Thank you again!
@JosephGeorges
I can almost assure you that no actual math or reading specialist is being utilized in a one-on-one remedial intervention setting.
Maybe there are paras or something, but even then, an ideal tier 3 group is 3 students, and most schools have a quarter of the grade level on tier 3 (meaning way more than 3 students at a time).
@SkillDeveloper2
Yikes I might’ve misspoken, I do know there are specialists who pull students out of the classroom for extra support, just wondering if those could be utilized for different ends of the spectrum.
Usually this is required by US/state/district funding they’re almost always legally obligated to work with students with IEPs or students without IEPs that are low performing.
When I was a kid in the 90s my elementary school had a GT coordinator for this- but those positions have been almost systematically cut from schools across the country.
You can ask at your site, but that sort of thing is no longer available in public schools on account of the deliberate effort to break them over the last two decades.
Teachers are also not able to do this extra work since they’re now doing the work that half a dozen or more people would have done in the 90s.
@JosephGeorges
According to Google, 32 states have gifted/talented program policies. You can check with the school. Depending on the state, they may do an evaluation, have an IEP, have a program, something.
But at 2nd grade, getting 99% on Fastbridge doesn’t necessarily mean they’re gifted, just that they’re quite educated.
gifted programs tend to also really look at creativity and outside-the-box problem solving (things kids are not frequently educated on).
@SkillDeveloper2
Just looked - in NYS there is no mandatory program nor funding for it… I also completely agree with the testing results not meaning everything, hence reaching out here to understand better since it didn’t seem to be a big deal by the way it was presented. She is pretty clever and we’ll figure out how to keep her interested and motivated - for some background - she went to a forest waldorf school for early education and K so the transition to a desk in a classroom has been difficult.
The school is there to keep your kid occupied during the day so that you can work.
It wasn’t always this way, but that’s what people in charge have done to it.
It sucks and it’s also not the teacher’s fault.
At this age, as well, it honestly doesn’t seem to matter much according to research. Foster in a student a love of learning in a self-directed way or speak to the PTA to see if there is interest in a club or group with other parents.
@JosephGeorges
Helping other kids can be really rewarding! I’ve been teaching kids to read since I was 7 years old just because I was already a good reader and was constantly volunteering tips.
On the family report, “On Track” is the highest designation that they show. I’m not sure why that is, as in all reports designed for teachers/schools to look at there is a “College Pathway” designation that indicates that a student exceeds expectations. Your daughter performed exceptionally well on those assessments if she scored in the 99th percentile. That is literally the highest there is.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt to let your daughter’s teacher know that your daughter is expressing dislike and boredom of school. It can be difficult for a teacher to find activities to challenge gifted students during every single lesson, but they can and should make an attempt to at least do it when it’s possible. If the teacher says there is nothing they can do (which I really hope they don’t), ask if they have resources they can get for you so you can challenge your daughter at home.
@JosephGeorges
As a teacher (who has also given Fastbridge before) here are some things I would consider:
As another commenter said, Fastbridge is just another test for metrics. Most teachers do not use these computer assessments as a way to inform instruction for a multitude of reasons such as the first time doing a computer or tablet-based test where the adults in the room are not really allowed to help, and multiple-choice questions for second grade is not grade appropriate in my opinion - they should be more concerned with the process to getting the answer than the answer itself.
Fastbridge does have the ability to measure growth from the previous year or benchmark from previous years, and when teachers are really using this data it’s great - the downside is that many teachers are not taught how to effectively use this data in their instruction.
Consider this as well - as a gifted child you will often be asked to complete an assignment that may not be challenging enough but it will still count as a grade on your report card.
Also keep in mind that in 2nd grade the curriculum is pretty general. Teachers are usually just focusing on literacy and numeracy at this point and it takes time to get into subjects that are more challenging.
Another thing to consider is that you might want to keep her from completely checking out. Finding a way to keep her engaged with her current tasks will be essential so she doesn’t become a behavior problem at school. (Not suggesting she would, just giving food for thought!)