Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Defensive Grade-Skippers?

While we're on the topic of feeling defensive about our educational choices, I have to admit that sometimes I feel defensive about DS having skipped to first grade.

Here's an example:

When DS was still in K, I was chatting with another mom who was going on about how far ahead her daughter was in K and how bored she was and how the curriculum was watered down. DS' grade skip was in the works, but not finalized and I hadn't mentioned it to anyone there, but I asked her if she had ever considered having her daughter skip a grade. She gave me a shocked look and said, "No! I would never do that to her!" I asked her what she meant by that and she said it would be "social suicide" to skip a grade.

I have also had professional educators tell me that my son would be in trouble by 3rd grade because he will have "missed phonics".

Now I have already thought about social issues and possible gaps in DS' education and I think that in his case it will not be a problem but still, when people confront me with these things, I feel like I have to go over it all again in my head and make sure I've made the best choice. It's hard to have people questioning your decision all the time!

Cathy

Yes. I do a lot of listening and don't argue. It doesn't do any good anyway. Still, it bugs me. Then, when I see some debate on the issue online, all those arguments I've been holding in come out!

That missed phonics thing is a great one. Where does that come from?

I had to think for a minute yesterday because somewhere I read kids shouldn't read small font for any length of time text until after age 8. I actually think it was on a GT homeschooling newsgroup. I momentarily wondered if DS7 was going to be scarred for life, because he regularly reads 1-2 hours a day out of long chapter books. Of course, if it were hurting him or difficult for him, would he being doing it? He is not known for his amazing work ethic.

And I think Dottie's point about really listening why people make the choices they do is a really good one. I have always tried to understand things from the other person's perspective. I think this is very difficult for some people to do. Most parents want what's best for their children, and if they make some really unorthodox decision, it is probably after much soul searching.

Ah. My approach is more, "Thank you for you input." Then I just continue doing whatever I want to do I'm not good with verbal sparring. It happens too fast for me. I would rather go away and think about what was said and respond in writing if a response is necessary.

I know what you mean! I often question myself when I come across factoids like that. Do most parents do this? Does it mean I'm some kind of hyper parent?

Ha! Well, if so, I'm right there with you!

I'm also not great at verbal sparring. I'm usually so surprised by it, that I have to collect my thoughts so I'm not overtaken with my rampant emotionalism. "Thank you for your input" has come in handy many times!

Actually it works pretty well. Sometimes, the person even seems to realize that she's put her foot in her mouth...and starts backpedalling.

When you're involved in advocacy, it's always tempting to use these opportunities to educate. Unfortunately, opinionated people are rarely open to being educated.

When I am dealing with our principal the scenario usually goes like this:

1. I make a request and give my reasons for it.
2. She has reasons not to give me what I am requesting.
3. I listen to her reasons politely and go away.
4. A few days later, I return and say, "I thought about what you said last week. I understand that you are saying XYZ but..." I shared "A Nation Deceived" with her this way and also DS' IQ and achievement scores.
5. I leave the information with her.
6. She eventually comes around to giving me what I asked for.

Maybe I just wear her down... I have quoted board policy, given her legal documents, scholarly papers, letters from doctors and psychologists, etc.

By the way, it has taken me three years to learn how to deal with her in a civilized manner. Our first encounter was not pretty!

Having to advocate for your children over a medical issue is a trial by fire, Dottie. I have been very close to bailing out of the school system many times. Even though we are still in PS at the moment, I have a lot of sympathy for homeschoolers.

...And I have a lot of sympathy for grade-skippers!

To tell you the truth, we picked HSing over grade-skipping in part because it seemed easier on all of us. None of that messy "you think you're so smart" nonsense for DS to deal with. No more advocacy issues for me to have to handle (badly!). etc.

Sometimes I feel like a coward, taking the easy way out. I think you all have the really hard row to hoe!

I am going to my mirror now to repeat 100 times, "I appreciate your input" without gritted teeth. It's a good skill to learn, and one I need to master!

Kriston, there is no easy way out. Raising kids is hard, whether they're GT or otherwise. I would never think you are a coward for homeschooling.

Well, thanks, Cathy, and I agree that there's no easy way with HG+ kids. No matter what you choose to do--grade-skip, HS, keep 'em at grade level and enrich like crazy, etc.--it's all hard!

I'm definitely playing to my strengths by HSing instead of to my weaknesses, as I would be if I were having advocate incessantly, and there's wisdom to that, I suppose.

But I just really admire parents of grade-skippers. I don't think there's much about that that's easy on you. Many blessings upon you!!!

I use "skip" so casually that it annoys people, I'm sure. It is NOT a casual decision on my part. But I want to get people thinking. When mom's complain about dull work at school, I say "Maybe you should consider a skip". When a kid has a behavioral problem,"Perhaps evaluate a skip". When the gifted program is threatened with big budget cuts, "I'll just skip DS until he's appropriately challenged". I really do hate the BOX of public education grade levels, and believe ability levels would be preferable in all circumstances. I do think that the more it's suggested, discussed, the more it's considered and done and maybe we can break away from the box bit by bit.

I really like that, Cym! Anything that keeps GT education from being some dirty little secret that we have to whisper about makes me happy!

I have to say I have learned a tremendous amount about respecting other people's decisions while perusing this forum. I am trying to recover from my "say whatever i think" attitude. One of DS4's preschool classmates will be 5 before kindergarten, so I was talking about k with her mom. She said she was going to keep her in preschool for another year. This, even though her mom also said that every day when her brother goes to school, she asks why can't i go to school every day? Her mom also said she's way too bossy right now to go to kindergarten. This little girl is extremely bright, IMHO, so I was shocked and said "she is soooo ready for kindergarten!" Then I realized that if I wanted people to respect my educational decisions, I'd better respect theirs too. So I quickly added, "but of course you have to trust your instincts." It still bugs me though!

I have always viewed grade-skipping as fabulous, and I wish I had been grade skipped when I was in grade school. So anyway, I'm on board about getting the word out about grade skipping and other options for gifted kids, but I'm still figuring out how to not step on toes...

If you figure it out, let me know, would you?

I have no regrets about one grade skip each kid (yet). It's a very natural fit. I think another skip would be good for at least the younger two, but may end up as finishing HS early.
Yes, others look at you funny ("How could she do that to her kids?" type look). It's a small town and I try not to alienate people, so mostly I don't debate them but just listen and be polite (UNLESS they solicit my opinion/response!)

Just yesterday I was talking to one mom. Her son was reading Harry Potter in Kindergarten. I knew he was highly gifted and a good candidate for a skip back then (birthday a few days after the cut-off), but the parents were "turned off" by the whole gifted idea. Fast forward to 5th grade...mom is beside herself, kid is failing or getting Ds and gets books confiscated because he only wants to read. I suggest she get him tested (he was screened in K and entered into gifted program). He scored in PG range this time. Mom said to me, "Why didn't anyone tell me this could be why we've had problems?" She was so upset that it had taken this long to figure out what's been making her son miserable and awful. Boredom! Disgust! Of course I suggested the skip idea...

My heart goes out to you and that mom. I had friends trying to tell me that DS 'had special educational needs' due to giftedness, when DS was in 1st grade and my gifted denial just couldn't see it. I thought that they were being 'nice.'

Be glad that it's only 5th grade, and not High School! I promise that if she deals with it now, she will get those result she is looking for, or at least a whopping improvement. DS didn't get the gradeskip until 5th grade - so It isn't to late - but yes - it's not an ideal situation!

Am I defensive about DS's single grade skip, on top of his summer birthday. I'm sure I am, as it's been really tough on him all the way around - socially and organizationally and financially. I sure wish the PS had gone ahead in 2nd grade while we were having all those meetings! But we had a meeting with the Middle School Guidance counselor recently, and he assured us that no one will question the current placement. Yippee! And as itchy as the post-gradeskip fit is, it's about 1000 times better than the pre-gradeskip road we were on.

Grinity

So True MON!
welcome!
Start a new topic and introduce yourselves, OK?
Grinity

Just as an aside, your saying, "Welcome Master," Dottie, makes me think of "I Dream of Jeannie." I think I prefer MON to Master! More Jamaican, less enforced bondage.

LOL!

The skipping k didn't seem to make as many waves as sending our dd to a charter gifted school. But when I was checking to see if there were any equally good options closer to home I made the mistake of asking a friend about one... I forgot the stink between us last year over the skip. If I have to hear one more time about the kid in her son's kindergarten class who is a "good reader" ... HEY, that ship sailed. Good for him. He isn't my responsibility.

Of course that isn't what I said... I've started taking the same approach to dealing with people on school stuff as I do most conversations with my mother in law. I just come across as though I agree generically with whatever she's saying and then go about doing things as I planned. I'm the least likely person to avoid confrontation - frankly as a debater I usually enjoy it. but it isn't worth it.

But the PHONICS thing. What's up with that? I heard that from a parent at the gifted school that her kid would be made to go back and do the whole k year over because our school didn't do phonics with her. Honestly do I need to be concerned. DD6 is in 1st, skipped k, and today is reading another American Girl Mystery book (amazon lists as 5th grade level, i think 4th). so if she was never taught phonics will this hurt her?

If we do early entry for dd4 into K in the fall - I think all hell will break loose. I think because people could see what dd#1 was reading in pre-school they didn't say much. but with #2 it isn't as obvious... dd#1 birthday was dec, dd#2 birthday is in jan - so we are talking about a REALLY big early entry... which I've driven you crazy asking about. I'm still not sure. It looks likely the public school will accept her... but I'm not sure if she should go now or skip k all together. but that's not the topic here :-)

My dd8 bombed the Phonetics section of her Stanford Achievement Test (4 out of 9 on Phonetic Analysis - Vowels) yet for her free time reading at school she is reading The Fellowship of the Ring. It doesn't seem that phonics is critical for advanced readers.

My dd was reading chapter books when she started 1st grade. Her 2nd grade teacher told me that she is an outstanding reader (currently reads about 8th grade level).

She learned to read with what some call "whole language" approach. Basically she has a great memory and just memorized a whole lot of words. In second grade, her teacher started using a phonics system (don't know which one). At first I was uneasy with the idea, but it has actually been a good experience for her.

She was not asked to start reading books below her level, and by learning phonics she can actually tackle books way above her grade level. I don't think learning phonics is by itself a bad thing. I see it as a back up system. If you don't know a word, you can figure it out.

I agree that phonics is not needed for kids who are already reading well.

Our school teaches phonics coding in 1st grade which is used through approximately fourth grade. Our daughter skipped from PS 2nd to 3rd at this school. Lucky for her, ds was in 1st and could help her with the portions of her homework that still required coding. Neither kid ever used it for help in reading, but it is the way our school teaches reading. Worst case (if she didn�t have ds), she would have had lower grades in LA for the early elementary years, but the phonics focus dissolves by 5th grade.

Speaking of phonics, I saw �Hooked on Phonics for Babies� yesterday at Sam�s Club.

I definitely understand how phonics can help with decoding, but it never stuck with my kids.

I have a friend whose GT son (Definitely MG, very probably HG+, but probably also somewhere on the light end of the autism spectrum...or something) was reading well, but the teacher wanted to keep him from joining the GT enrichment group because he didn't have all the phonics down.

Mom: "Why does he need the phonics?"
Teacher: "So he can read."
M: "He can't read?"
T: "No, he reads well above grade level."
M: "Uh-huh. So he doesn't need the phonics."
T: "No, he must have mastery of them if he's going to be in the GT group."
M: "So he can read?"
T: "Yes."

She was so fed up with this ridiculous illogic and all the time she had to spend advocating that she finally yanked him and HSd him.

Hard to blame her!!!

I would have done the same.......sheesh!

I find this all interesting because DD8 at 4 seemed to learn how to read by phonics..sounding out the letters of the words and then her reading exploded.
DD5 has never really been able to sound out the words well, so I did Dolch flashcards for a few days, and then,, reading.
Clearly she memorizes the words and has more difficulty trying to sound them out, yet scored high in decoding.
Don't know what this means, if anything.

I

I don�t worry about decoding as long as comprehension measures are high.

Hey Debbie,

while you are here. My friend noticed C-dog can't touch right hand to raised left knee and vice versa.
Then she showed me she can't draw the infinity sign from left to right and vice versa, only from top to bottom.
She said it was some mid-line vision issue, but she is so physically strong and coordinated, she probably won't be able to get therapy. what do you think?

I

Hey Incog,
You have me confused with Debbie who is the OT here.

So many new people joined at once seemingly that I still get some people (or at least their children mixed up) too!

Debbie, where are you?

ooops sorry.
Do you know anything delbows?

I

Hey incog - when my DS10 was having some problems, I had a teacher ask me about possible mid-line issues. That wasn't what his problem was (his is the visual stuff) but I did find this website that might help you.

http://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/sn_visual.asp

Thanks so much, I'm going to check it out now.

I

Sorry Incog,
My kids (my daughter at least) have auditory perception difficulties, while visual perception is strength. I haven�t researched the visual issues.

No problem. I'm keeping an eye out for the auditory thing for her sister. She scored 99th percentile in every single sub-category for the WIAT except for listening comprehension and spelling where she was in the 70th percentile.....kind of weird, huh?

Incog

At the very least, I would think that visual perception is a strength and auditory abilities a relative weakness, especially taking into consideration the above info and that she learned to read by sight.

True, I probably shouldn't worry about it, it just seemed really out of line with the rest of her scores, but as Dottie says, it's just one test from one day.