Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advocating for a child with a lopsided profile

How would you advocate for your child if the child is very highly gifted in either math or language arts, but only mildly/moderately gifted in the other one? Skipping a grade doesn't seem to be the answer, since the child would be far beyond the curriculum and would still lack a peer group in the next grade up in the area of strength, but would barely be "high average" in the area of weakness.

In my case, DS6 is performing at a 4th-5th grade level in math, and the school has no idea what to do with him. We're supplementing at home with a math curriculum, so he is at least learning something, but it's frustrating that we don't seem to have any options other than this. I've had to resort to telling him to treat his school math class as extra handwriting practice (which he does need), just so he still cooperates and completes his work.

For my DD10 there was talk of grade or subject acceleration when she was ID'd. There were a number of reasons that grade acceleration wasn't a good fit, but subject acceleration in math was discussed. The school decided not to subject accelerate her for multiple reasons. One is that the math classes for the grade above were at different times than the math block in her grade, so she would miss something else. They also expressed concern about what would happen when she was in 5th grade, and there was no one at the school to teach her the next level above (sigh). They were concerned that at that point she'd have to work all alone, and they didn't like the potential isolation. (For her not such a concern, she's super social, so she wouldn't be missing an opportunity to learn social skills or anything like that-she'd just have been learning to work on her own... also a valuable skill!) I was ready to be totally on top of what was happening as 2nd grade was a mess for her (when she was ID'd). But I ended up not having to, as the teacher pulled her and two or three other kids across the grade to work on special projects. She loved it so much and was so happy that it quickly became a non-issue. They took the skills that the grade was learning and applied them through project based learning type projects. Maybe something like that would be an option?

Unfortunately, the school doesn't offer subject acceleration, since all of the grades take math at different times. I wish they would pull DS for special projects, but they won't start doing anything at all like that until 2nd grade. They occasionally supplement his in-class work with more advanced worksheets, but those are still few and far between.

Some of the problems might disappear by 3rd grade, since DS would be eligible for the school's gifted program. But, I hate the idea of him sitting around and learning nothing for another 1.5 years. Also, since the gifted program is really a bright, compliant, high-achiever program, I'm not convinced that it will solve any problems.

Navigating the school stuff would have been so much easier if DS were a little less gifted in math, a little more gifted in language arts, and a bit more mature. At least then the grade skip would have been more ideal.

Some possible solutions are

*negotiate with the school to allow you to send in math work for him
*negotiate that he does online math during math class (Khan Academy comes to mind)
*the school may be able to do an individual math pullout for him during math class or have someone come in and teach him a separate lesson within his classroom during math class. My son's former elementary did things like this for him by having an AmeriCorps volunteer (who is now a licensed teacher) shadow and instruct him individually within the classroom. They offer subject acceleration within the classroom by having the GT coordinator come into the classroom during math and teach him a different lesson.

Math is SO difficult to differentiate, acceleration is necessary. Figuring out how to make it happen - and within the school's budget and policies - can be difficult.

However, if your son continues to accelerate in math, you may end up in increasingly more difficult situations. I choose to subject accelerate my son and now every year gets more tentative and difficult.

My son was doing 4th grade math in 1st grade, similar to your son but I don't think mine was advanced as yours. My son is 9 years old now, would be 4th grade by age. He is homeschooled, registered as an ungraded student. He's doing Algebra 2 now. :faint: After he gets through Geometry, he will be past what I am able to teach him. I've already exhausted the local virtual charter school - which is wonderful for elementary and middle students but not good for us for their high school policies. I'm attempting to slow his acceleration by offering electives and introducing AP studies. My son's profile is extremely advanced in grammar/reading, age-appropriate writing (so a dramatic lag there), immature, and ADHD. Grade skip was not a viable option for him.