A's on his papers but can't do any of it for me?

You know better than anyone else when something isnt right. Similar situation with my child last year. We felt he was being pushed through the school without much concern over whether or not he was getting an education.

Sitting in the classroom confirmed my suspicions. I had to see :shock: it for myself & stop trusting the system to work on its own through goodwill.

If your child has more than one teacher set up a group meeting to discuss your concerns & let them know you will be stopping in to observe the class. They arent doing your child any favors by doing the work for them. What will happen next year or when another teacher is assigned? Your child will be so far behind their peers and lost.

Always trust your instincts on these things-you know when something doesnt seem right. Good luck!

I see this all the time — not only with tutoring students, but with entire classrooms full of kids who have “passed” a certain topic or level but who look at it as if it were written in Chinese. This is especially fierce in math and second languages.
Yes, talk to the teachers, but don’t expect them to change their styles too easily. They go around with blinders and are thoroughly convinced that they are “teaching” and that this silly game does some good.
Also, teachers are under huge pressure to “coiver the material” and to “get up to grade level”, neither of which actually teaches the kids anything.
I keep harping on the fact that teaching and learning absolutely must involve a reasonable amount of retention — if you “forget” it in two months, then you haven’t ever really learned it in the first place, have you?
You would do best to tutor your child yourself as well, finding out what he actually *can* do (much less than the school is claiming, obviously) and starting from there.

Amen. What they said.

And bravo to you for not being satisfied with a grade.

Does the kiddo know what it is like to *know* something?

Hi

I do have another meeting set up on Monday. This will be the 3rd this year. The school told me that I could sit in his class if I want to but that I should be prepared that he will probaly not do the work if I am there. I think that is the dumbest thing I have heard. He would love for me to see him work. He tells me he wants to be able to read to me. Any suggestion on how to respond to the school over that statement.

Thanks
Michele

I would ask them why they believe this to be true, and just how you can find out what he is doing and learning. Let’s see, they said that you should be prepared for him not to do the work if you *are* there… perhaps because he doens’t do the work when you aren’t there either?
I would say that I am sincerely concerned that he is not learning the material and that if you had a single tiny shred of evidence that what was on those papers had spent any time in his head, … hmm… no I wouldn’t, I’d just think that :-)
I’d say I was sercioulsy concerned that the papers you are seeing are not reflecting what he is learning, since he is not able to tell you anything about the material, or even read this work he is supposed to have done, and that you would like a way for you to find out if and whaty he is learning; that you would appreciate it if you could observe, and would they please let you know just what happens differently (if it does) when you are there from when you aren’t. I”d also find a way to ask a student — just “hey, is this how much help the teachers give the kids usually?” as if to say, “hey, this is the way its usually done, right?”
I have seen lots of students learn to copy phrases from books — they learn to answer the questions at the back by looking for the longest words in the question in the bold face text. Then they copy the sentence with the word in it. Especially for the “high low” texts, this often looks like the right answer — but as you’ve noticed, they may not even have read *any* of it even when they were copying it. It could have been in Sanskrit.

Sorry to say but I’ve seen it too. Teachers under too much pressure to have kids get ‘good’ grades or even better yet - one teacher went over the ITBS test material with her students before the testing week so her class’s scores would reflect her great teaching!!! Another school I know where the classroom teachers pretty much refuse to refer kids to LD help because teh LD teacher has them doing work way, way, way below their skills levels (so that they are ‘successful’ in the LD class)

My guess is you’ve got big trouble. 1. The teacher doesn’t know any better 2. teacher knows no other way to have kids succeed other than cheat for them. You can fight but it won’t easy and meanwhile your child will be losing everyday. Do have an alternative teacher, school or homeschool option?

Hang in there

Michele,
Check out my post under “inclusion, a good thing?”
This could be your answer to why your son is bring home A’s but yet can’t do the work for you.
Take care hun,
LAN