Are you smarter than a 2nd grader?

[buckytom]

my son was given a book report to do on a story that taught the meaning of 4 words: oxymoron, anagram, palindrome, and onomatopoeia.

i remembered three of them, but i wondered if this was 2nd grade material.

did the teacher make a mistake and give him a 5th grade book? is she testing him to see what he can do without discussing it with us?

he finished his book report, doing a really good job on it. it took a lot of work with him between dw and i, but when he finally read the whole 120 page book by himself, he ended up getting all of the concepts.

we are going to ask the teacher what''s up when we see her next week, but i wondered how many adults would know the definition of those 4 words.

are you smarter than a 2nd grader? or am i nuts?


or both...

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

Brazil Tom, I suspect the teacher is trying to "stretch" your intelligent son, I also suspect that's what they are payed for.In the UK the term Loco Parentis applies.
Ps what age are 2nd graders.

 

[Aunt Bea]

The value may be in having them learn to do some research, using the dictionary etc...

I think you and the DW should begin using these words in everyday conversation with him to increase the size of his smile. Similar to the word on Sesame Street.

Palindrome:

"Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog!" or racecar

and finally Palin-drome

Wasilla’s all I saw

 

[buckytom]

7 years old.

he's still my little boy. believes in santa claus, sits on my lap when he's scared or insecure around strangers, asks questions about everything.

if the teacher wanted to challenge him, she should have consulted with us.

i don't know. was it a mistake? is it normal education?

 

[Aunt Bea]

7 years old.

he's still my little boy. believes in santa claus, sits on my lap when he's scared or insecure around strangers, asks questions about everything.

if the teacher wanted to challenge him, she should have consulted with us.

i don't know. was it a mistake? is it normal education?

He has another life you can't even imagine!

He commutes to his office everyday and does battle with the mice, sort of a miniature rat race!

Kids always amaze me when they put on their game face!

 

[Barbara L]

my son was given a book report to do on a story that taught the meaning of 4 words: oxymoron, anagram, palindrome, and onomatopoeia.

i remembered three of them, but i wondered if this was 2nd grade material.

did the teacher make a mistake and give him a 5th grade book? is she testing him to see what he can do without discussing it with us?

he finished his book report, doing a really good job on it. it took a lot of work with him between dw and i, but when he finally read the whole 120 page book by himself, he ended up getting all of the concepts.

we are going to ask the teacher what''s up when we see her next week, but i wondered how many adults would know the definition of those 4 words.

are you smarter than a 2nd grader? or am i nuts?


or both...

7 years old.

he's still my little boy. believes in santa claus, sits on my lap when he's scared or insecure around strangers, asks questions about everything.

if the teacher wanted to challenge him, she should have consulted with us.

i don't know. was it a mistake? is it normal education?

Is he in an accelerated program? Was he struggling with the assignment or did it come easily to him? Is all his work at that level, or was that an unusual assignment? That is a lot more advanced than what my students learned in 2nd grade.

 

[jabbur]

My younger son was always the brightest in the class at that age and got bored easily. The teacher gave him a lot of extra work at higher levels to keep his interest. I found this out when I went to the school and he was reading "A Wrinkle in Time" and the other kids were reading Little Golden books. If he struggled with it and got frustrated, talk with the teacher. If he breezed through, assume you have a smart kid and go with the flow. If you're concerned it is never wrong to contact the teacher. Many have email that you can send a quick message about that assignment and see what she says.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Sounds like he did an awesome job, it may be he IS reading at a higher grade level, if so, it's completely acceptable to give him something that engages him. I was reading The Hobbit at 5 years old. In 6th grade, in order to find my reading level, I was given College Age reading comprehension tests, the highest the had, and blew them all away.

Go with it.

 

[GB]

I would guess that is normal these days Bucky. They are teaching kids stuff at such an early age. Rachel was learing about ventricles and different chanbers of the heart back in preschool was she was 3. In first grade they taught her about "subatizing" in math. Neither my wife nor I had any idea what that word was. Our first grader had to teach us.

 

[Alix]

I know them all, but I'm an LA teacher. I think its maybe a bit unusual for a grade 2 student, but I think its pretty cool that he got them all! I also think that's a pretty neat way to integrate some literary terms into a curriculum. He is not likely to forget any of those terms now that he's written a report on them.

I'm glad you were able to help him, and I hope you do go chat with the teacher about him. Its extremely important to keep those lines of communication open. I can't comment on what is de rigueur in the US for teaching but here in Canada, they can give your kids aptitude tests to see if they are eligible for either extra assistance or an accelerated program. Once they HAVE the test results they have to run it past the parents to modify the educational program (Individual Program or IP) for the student.

They tested both my kids in grade 3 for the accelerated program and I was plenty irritated about it. (It means extra money for the school) I fought for 7 years for my kids NOT to have to do any extra work because of their academic coding. I don't think its fair for my kids to do more than the standard because they're smart. They were welcome to choose to do any extra credit things they wished, but it was NOT to be made part of what they were initially graded on. Its only now that they are both in high school that I've been able to relax a bit and let them just run with their programs.

 

[buckytom]

thanks very much, everyone.

he's not in an accelerated program. we decided he should be a kid for a while longer. the accelerated students get twice as much homework, so we thought he was getting enough for now.

he struggled with the assignment at first, but that was just because he saw the task as daunting and wanted to hang out and play video games and watch cartoons. same as any homework, just about.

but dw stuck to ger guns and helped him start the book report. he wasn't really getting the concepts right away until he read through the book a second time, this time all by himself. then, as he started to understand things, he loved the story and the fact that he was doing a higher level of work. we couldn't get him to stop reading it that night to go to bed, lol.

ok, so thanks again for the advice. we didn't want to say anything to the teacher until after she grades his report. we didn't want to look like we were complaining in any way, just that we want to know her methodology for his education.

so, did anyone really know all 4 words? i couldn't remember onomotopoeia, but i'll never forget it now.

 

[Andy M.]

The fact that your son struggled then grew to understand and even enjoy reading about and understanding the concepts has set him on a path of enjoying learning and building his confidence in his ability to understand and succeed. I think this is the bigger lesson.

 

[Alix]

so, did anyone really know all 4 words? i couldn't remember onomotopoeia, but i'll never forget it now.

Onomatopoeia is my favorite of all those terms! Sizzle! Crackle! Smoooooth. Hmmm, notice how many of those are food terms?

 

[GB]

Onomatopoeia is one of, if not my favorite words. When my kids were young and they wanted soemthing I didn't want them to have I would tell them if they could spell Onomatopoeia then they could have whatever it was. I never had to pay up.

 

[Andy M.]

Onomatopoeia is one of, if not my favorite words. When my kids were young and they wanted soemthing I didn't want them to have I would tell them if they could spell Onomatopoeia then they could have whatever it was. I never had to pay up.

Not many words with 5 vowels in a row or 8 out of 12 letters a vowel.

 

[Barbara L]

so, did anyone really know all 4 words? i couldn't remember onomotopoeia, but i'll never forget it now.

Yes, I got them--I have always loved words (Linguistics was one of my favorite classes).

 

[babetoo]

i agree with you buckytom. find out what is going on. it is good he was able to do it. it could so easily go the other way, and turn him off. my son was always in the accelerated classes. he was way to bright even for them. he learned to my dismay , to do only what he had to do to get an A , no more , no less. he would often get an A for the subject and a C in effort. not a good scene. i don't have any idea how this affected his life or not. he blew off college, he is still an avid reader as am i. i would want to know what is going on, if i were you. kids seem to be smarter these days, my five year old great granddaughter is already reading.

 

[Dawgluver]

I think the teacher wanted to challenge your son, in a good way. He is obviously a good little reader! Are you happy overall with his teacher? I think it would be a great idea to talk to her, ask about the curriculum and expectations. His assignment does sound a bit unusual for a second grader, but your son was up for the challenge!

As an educator for almost 30 years, I'm amazed at seeing what kids are being taught nowadays! And don't worry about accelerated programs. The Talented and Gifted program teachers I have worked with don't necessarily give more homework, they encourage kids to think outside the box, with experiments, collaboration, and research.

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

7 years old.

he's still my little boy. believes in santa claus, sits on my lap when he's scared or insecure around strangers, asks questions about everything.

if the teacher wanted to challenge him, she should have consulted with us.

i don't know. was it a mistake? is it normal education?

Tom mate the relationship you have with your boy says everything, for me it is more relevant to his education and pastoral care.IMO Education has little value for society if the child is damaged by uncaring parenting.

 

[blissful]

When I was little--around your son's age. My grandmother would make all kinds of math problems for me, BIG numbers, and I'd add them or subtract them or whatever I was supposed to be learning at the time.
It taught me that the size of the number was not a barrier. I owned ALL numbers. (it probably had something to do with me feeling that I could get a math minor in college)

And I loved words. So Grandma would have me look up all kinds of words in her 7 inch thick dictionary that sat on the stand in her family room. LONG words, difficult words, words beyond my parents normal words. It was fun. I owned all words now--I was not afraid to figure them out, look them up, and use them. There are words I learned at the time that 40 years later, the adults I worked with, had never even heard, let alone understood them. They were too lazy to look them up or even admit they didn't understand the words.
So, I told my manager he was pusillanimous (a word I learned at a very young age). He was not offended, he had no idea what it meant.

Grandma gave me that dictionary, when I was in my late 30's. It sits here in my family room--it's one of my most prized possessions.

The point is--for me, from my experience, stretching your mind can open things up, for a lifetime of learning.

About the point of being assigned extra work (enrichment) to do at home (homework) by the schools and teachers. I raised 3 boys. I made plans for them every day. When the schools gave us 2 or 3 hours of homework or extra work (multiply that by 3 boys), it cut into me having the time to follow through on our family plans. Some parenting is more important than writing 6 book reports on their theme that week, and it annoyed me to no end. One kindergarten teacher sent home 6-12 pages of work to be done each night, it was ridiculous. It was like she was training paper pushers. Parents should support the teachers and schools as long as it doesn't take the whole 14 hours a day. Children have chores, they need play time, they need family time too.
School work should be done at school and it should not infringe on the rights of families. Parenting should be done at home. Now if you want to teach scholastics at home, more power to you, it's great stuff, very empowering.

I'm incredibly glad that my children are grown now. I'm tired of hearing how parents don't support teachers--I supported them with my volunteer work, I supported what they wanted to teach my children, I paid for them to teach, I worked on bulletin boards, colored books for them, bound books for them, helped with children in the classroom, I listened to them complain about children and about administration and about labor unions and their rights. If I had to do it all over again, I'd home school, no doubt.