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    #151743 03/22/13 02:34 PM
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    moomin Offline OP
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    gone

    Last edited by moomin; 08/09/14 09:39 AM. Reason: gone
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    Yeah, I don't see how skipping to 1st grade helps a kid whose lowest level of achievement is 5th. And skipping to 5th probably would be a non-starter, not only because of the usual prejudices and the extremity of the skip, but also because she'd have missed a huge swath of social studies and science exposure.

    I honestly don't see any institution having anything to offer her, though there may be places I'm not aware of that can. Homeschooling, on the other hand...

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    Wow. I just had a quick reread of your first post and while I know there's hope that changing environments might change her behaviour pattern, I would be very concerned that she's gong to run rings around everyone in a positive fashion ( like the Spanish school assessment day), and quickly develove to negative behaviours when she realizes just how far out of synch she is and just how slow everything moves. I am sure there are exceptions but I think that early elementary is worse for many gifted kids than preschool (unless it was very academic preschool). In a K classroom where she is supposed to be "learning" and free play is less of an option she is going to be forced to sit through hours of torture. And the older she gets the wider her gap is getting because of how fast she will be moving. Starting K is likely to highlight her difference even more than starting preschool. Um. And now I feel like I need to apologise for not having anything cheerful to say.

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    can you re-apply to the gifted school again and show them the latest assessment?

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    moomin - I was going to suggest that the gifted school probably don't want a kid that far out there, they may have just enough of a clue about how different she is to know she doesn't fit their program. Which is a plus, in a weird sort of way. It's better than being convinced that they know exactly what she's like and see it everyday....

    Our DD is not remotely as advanced as yours, but when we were changing schools we ended up going with the school where the principle said "Wow, I've never seen a report like that before, we've got no kids like her, we have no gifted program.... this is what we do for kids who are struggling, I guess we do something similar for her, in the other direction." It wasn't that reassuring, it hasn't worked brilliantly - but it was direct and honest and the school is working out far better for us so far than the high end private that thought they knew everything about gifted and yet had my then 5yr old DD curled up in a foetal position sobbing and begging not to go...

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    Have you read about the education of Terrance Tao?

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    You mentioned homeschooling -- does that mean it's a viable option for you?

    If so, I would urge you to strongly consider it. It doesn't sound like anything else would remotely serve her needs (unless some other school in your area pops out of the woodwork that's really different).

    Homeschooling could be really wonderful for your daughter, if you can make it work.

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    Originally Posted by moomin
    Homeschooling is not out of the question. It just isn't ideal for our family. If that compromise needs to be made, though, we CAN make it.

    I'm genuinely less concerned about fully meeting her academic needs, and more concerned with her being placed a stable and survivable environment with a tolerant teacher. Both my wife and I would have qualified for DYS as kids (we were both tested and identified by our school psychiatrists with IQs significantly higher than the DD's WPPSI score). I was placed in a public gifted school, but the curriculum there was pretty conventional, and my wife just muddled through the standard public school system with no accommodation or acceleration. We both felt like we had good and bad years, and we both went on to pursue advanced degrees in our fields.

    Neither of us felt wildly under served. The biggest problem that we've had so far is that DD's teachers are so committed to early identification and intervention that every out-of-the-ordinary thing that she does draws a huge (negative) reaction.

    We're not really trying to raise the next Terence Tao. We would much prefer that our DD take a more conventional path. Ironically, though, Dr. Gross is one of the folks our neuropsych has been in touch with about DD. She advised homeschooling.

    I'd probably go the homeschooling route too. While you as parents were able to get through public school without too many issues, the school system then and now were far too different to take the risk and hope that your daughter will be ok as well.

    Personally, I look at where will my kids be HAPPY. If your daughter isn't enjoying school and gets in trouble and it's just not a good scenario overall how would things be if you were homeschooling and she could explore whatever interest she may have since she obviously won't have problems with the grade standards?

    Now, I admit I am a little biased because I am seriously considering homeschooling our boys (4.5 and 3) K and 1st (if not longer). Though our reasons are a bit different. Aside from the need to up the academics for them, 4.5 will do better at home given his health issues and with the 3 year old we're tackling high functioning autism with giftedness and my hopes with homeschooling is get him to function well socially while at the same time be able to skip if needed. The way things are now he'd be held back and that just wouldn't work for him.

    So, as long as it is a possibility for you, I'd really look into homeschooling.

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    The reason I was suggesting reading about Terrance Tao's education is that his parents seemed to find an incredibly flexible path through what was an extremely "anti-elitist" schooling culture (he was educated in my city a few years before me, I can vouch for how many times my parents or I were told, in horrified tones, that I couldn't possibly do x,y,z because that would be elitist, bad and wrong). It's been a few years since I read the article, but I remember being struck that the success seemed to come down partly to the skills and manner of the parents and partly to finding the right primary school principle - who helped set in place a process that just kept going once it had started. I could be way off base there in my description.

    And I think we all struggle with feeling we are more concerned with our 5yr old having a normal happy childhood than their blazing an academic trailpath... But she is who she is and that is not sounding ( from what you have said here) like a child who is going to achieve a normal and happy childhood plonked in a standard K classroom - though you could luck out.

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    Originally Posted by moomin
    Both my wife and I would have qualified for DYS as kids (we were both tested and identified by our school psychiatrists with IQs significantly higher than the DD's WPPSI score).
    Just in case you're feeling that this shows your DD's IQ is significantly lower than yours and your wife's, I want to check that you know the way IQ is assessed has changed greatly since I was a child, and maybe since you were too (though I think if you're young parents this may not apply!). You can read the full details at Davidson or elsewhere I'm sure, but in a nutshell, at some point it changed from an attempt to be a true ratio (so an IQ of 200 meant the child had an "intellectual age" twice their chronological age) to being a normal distribution with SD 15. The effect is that high scores now are much rarer than they were then; the new test have ceilings lower than quite a few people scored back than.


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