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    parentologyco, Smartlady60, petercgeelan, eterpstra, Valib90
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    Joined: Oct 2011
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    Hi everyone!
    I'm really glad to have found this forum! My DH and I are beating our heads against the wall trying to figure out how to advocate for our DS...maybe you guys will have some insight. We have a very bright 5-year-old Kindergarten-aged son who started reading at 18 months, adding numbers in his head at 2 years (we've never seen him use his fingers for counting) and as I type he's reading his 5th grade brother's math textbook for fun. He understands it completely and has no problem completing the coursework. He's currently reading the Harry Potter books and loving them. But I digress...

    He started in preschool at age 3 and enjoyed the first year a lot although he learned very little academically. The next year he was too young to start kindergarten so we put him back in the same preschool class. He felt betrayed that he was repeating the same thing over again and acted out regularly. We compensated by teaching him lots of new stuff at home and told him to just enjoy the social part of school; the rest of the year went reasonably well since his teacher really loved him worked with him one-on-one as time permitted.

    We had him tested to see if he could attend our district's magnet school for GT kids and he was accepted. We were so relieved and hopeful that maybe this year his needs would finally be met. Not so much. There are 30 kids in his class and he's so bored he's getting in trouble daily for not paying attention and doing his own thing. He actually asked his teacher a couple of days ago for more challenging math work and she told him that she can't change the math curriculum just for him. She was very patronizing when she told me about his request but I made it very clear that she most definitely does need to make sure he's challenged. She did end up giving him some simple addition problems to work on, but right now at home he's obsessed with square roots and beginning on some basic algebra. He's getting very frustrated and sad that his teacher won't listen to him and won't call on him when he raises his hand to answer questions.

    He's very normal socially and developmentally...he gets along well with kids his own age and older kids, too. He's not especially mature for his age but not immature either. I don't know if grade skipping would be a good option or not, but I do know our district really dislikes the idea in general.

    Any ideas of how we can help him??

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    1) homeschool
    2) distance learning
    3) ask for a grade skip (It's worth trying)
    4) ask for him to be tested in every subject and placed in various grades throughout the day at his various levels.

    It's always personality plus classroom fit. Some kids can handle a poor fit classroom without acting out - some can't. Your is telling you that he's one of the ones who can't. Will he also turn out to have some ADHD? It's impossible to tell right now. Right now the keep is that he needs a good fit classroom.

    Set up a meeting with the teacher, then up the chain of command. It isn't always possible for a teacher to meet the needs of every kid who happens to be 5 years old, so you may have to try him in other classrooms. Usually teachers can differentiation up and down 3 years worth.

    Best Wishes, I know this isn't fun!
    Grinity


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    Welcome. I agree with Grinity (although I wouldn't be too quick to wonder about ADHD in a 5yo who's inattentive when underchallenged in a group of 30!) but also, how about the real basic first step - ask for a meeting with the teacher at a time when she can pay you her full attention. Take in a couple of the books he's been reading for pleasure at home, and a few sheets of maths work he's done for fun. Tell her you're worried about his diminishing enjoyment of school and concerned about the behaviour issues, and see whether you can come up with a plan between you. She may never have met a child as far advanced as he is, and perhaps just isn't realising how far she is from meeting his needs. Perhaps, if you help her see it, she may be on your (his!) side...


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    Sorry I'm just now responding...our family has been down with the most recent stomach ick going around. sick

    Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement! I've considered the homeschooling idea, but I'm not sure it would work for us (I taught secondary English before deciding to stay home with my kiddos). Although I actually do quite a bit of informal teaching with him on all sorts of topics, I don't know if he could/would accept me as full time teacher in addition to mommy.

    Our oldest son has ADHD and has benefited greatly from meds in the past. We're definitely keeping an eye on younger DS's behavior for signs of ADHD, but my gut is telling me his acting out in the classroom is largely boredom-related.

    My DH and I are meeting with his teacher on the 13th to talk to his teacher about everything. I'm thinking I'll put together a brief "portfolio" of things he's working on at home, just to give her an idea of what he's capable of doing. I truly hope she'll be open to exploring options with us.

    On a side note, I bought Genius Denied yesterday and I've already devoured half of it. Quite an eye-opener to say the least!

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    I could have written this post for our son. smile All the best for your teacher meeting - the portfolio really does help, but be prepared to hear things like "building good foundation" , "fine motor skills essential for development later", "age-related", "not what we are experiencing at school", "let him be a kid/don't push him" etc. And you will get more irritated and feel slightly befuddled and suddenly may wonder if you really are missing something/overreacting.

    DO NOT GIVE IN! Sure be polite and allow her the opportunity to tell you what she sees, and then use the school's own phrases (use their prospecus book/sheets and website correspondence to get some goodies) to show how you expect them to differentiate to meet his needs.

    And yes - isn't that book just amazing - I just finished it too!

    all the best for your meeting - and please let us know how it went


    Mom to 3 gorgeous boys: Aiden (8), Nathan (7) and Dylan (4)
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    So sorry to hear that things are going so poorly. If you dig around here you will see that...
    1) Kids who are learning nothing in school at age 5ish may,depending one their personality, be miserable and be poorly behaved.
    2) Giftedness isn't a one size fits all propositiion....but it is a one size fits most sort of thing. Consider the shape of the bell curve's Right hand tail...most kids at the cut off and fewer and fewer at higher and higher levels of unusualness. Some very unusually hightly kids have wonderfully advanced emotional maturity so they can deal with a poor fit situation but others are average 5 year olds. Look for the phrase LOG or Levels of giftedness. BTW it is perfectly possible for a parent to be a high LOG of giftedness and feel themselves to be stupid. The more one knows the more one may be aware of their human limitations.
    3) Some kids are gifted 'and.' This maybe a learning disability or AS or ADHD or OverExcitabilities or slow prossessing speed or low working memory. This can cause the child to be ill at ease or exhausted or difficult for a teacher to appreciate.

    You may have had an IQ test to qualify for this school. If the test was given by an educational psychologist call this person right away and get some insight.
    Call the teacher and set up a meeting ASAP. This doesn't work for everyone but some people would consider a visit to the principle and cry about how sad it made you to see how unhappy your child was and how your efforts didn't correct the situation. Schools seen to 'speak' social and emotional needs.

    It is a long shot.

    I would strongly urge you to visit some other schools and observe a variety of classrooms. You may find,for example, that it would take placement in 2nd or 3rd grade for your child to be learning even 20% new material. Most gifted people have very little idea what is normal developmental levels for small children because adults tend to collect friends and family from people who are generally of a similar IQ level...at least moresore than a classroom.

    Please let us know how things go.
    Grinity


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    Totally agree with Grinity.

    I'm in a similar boat with my 6-year-old eg/pg son. He's in kindergarten and been in two different gifted schools and he's still bored, though the current gifted school has only 30 kids from pre-k to 8th grade. I've also been told that he may be ADHD as well. We're waiting until the spring to see Dr. Lovecky. She wrote the Different Minds book, http://www.amazon.com/Different-Minds-Children-Asperger-Syndrome/dp/1853029645

    I don't want to homeschool either (and I used to teach history) but I see it as the lesser of two evils and as a last resort. I'm going to try to work with our public school district and see if we might be able to swing partial homeschooling and use the public schools for gym, art, music.

    Based on our experience, I've found gifted schools aimed at hg/mg kids and not for the eg/pg ones. My son is currently reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator; he already read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That's typical 4th grade reading, but there's no other kindergarter reading 4-5+ grades ahead at this gifted school. So he's starting to stand out and gets self conscious.

    Keep in mind your son's social and emotional issues. I saw this article and it reminded me of last year and what happened at the previous gifted school.
    (http://www.sengifted.org/archives/a...octor-fit-in-the-care-of-gifted-children)

    Gifted kids start to act out when their needs are unfilled. My son started to complain of stomach and other psychosomatic conditions at the last gifted school before we pulled him.

    I think as parents we want and expect a school to meet our child's needs, but the harsh reality is that this is not always the case with gifted children. Somewhere on Hoagies site I noticed that 90% of eg/pg kids get homeschooled at some point in their life, which isn't surprising.

    I saw this link on the contradictions of pg boys and laughed. How true!
    http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/my_pg_boys.htm


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    Former teachers who don't think you could homeschool -- perhaps you're picturing homeschool as too much like the classrooms that you have so much experience with? Maybe read up on unschooling and other varieties of homeschooling, to get an idea of how it could be different, especially for a highly motivated pg kid.

    (Just a thought. Maybe you already know all about it and still feel it's not for you.)

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    It's the thought of being stuck with my fussy, unmotivated pg child all day that makes me pause about homeschooling. Ugh. I'd also like to work full-time, but that's another issue.

    Yes, unschooling provides a fresh perspective. I'm a former teacher of history, but have since completed a library degree and see how Web 2.0 tools can revolutionize learning. Most schools are doing nothing with Web 2.0 or 3.0.

    I actually dislike textbooks, rote memorization, and the drill-kill approach; these were some of the reasons I left teaching.

    I think the trick to homeschooling any child, if there's any, is to find out what works for you and your child. As a former teacher, I like some (definitely not all) the social aspects from formal schooling.

    But the more I read, the more I see the unschool/ homeschool movement in a new light and how you can meet a child's social and academic needs better outside the structure of formal schooling. You start to see how unschoolers consider the community/ Internet as your oyster.


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    I highly second Colinsmum's approach. We've taken this approach with DS's teachers in K and 1st grade, scheduling meetings early in the year with both of them, and it has worked well.

    Gifted programs are set up for MG kids in the 98th/99th percentile, not HG/PG kids in 99.9th percentile; there aren't enough of the latter to fill a program. While good programs of any kind would ideally differentiate to accommodate a wide range of kids, I find that in most cases, we the parents have to advocate. Our school has been happy to accommodate DS, but only with us advocating for it and bringing his teachers onto our advocacy team. Hopefully you can bring your teacher onto your team by sitting down with her and sharing what he's currently doing and working with her on a plan to keep him challenged.


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