Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Help-- newly almost sole teacher for two kids

I'm a nanny and tutor to two boys who have been diagnosed on the spectrum. They're also both untested for giftedness, but I suspect both (the older is soon to be 11 and the younger is 6) are at least MG. This post is going to focus on SK11, since SK6 isn't having some of the behavioral problems at school (he's pretty laidback and doesn't really care if the work is "too easy.")

SK11 is currently in fourth grade at the local elementary school and his class (? I don't know what homework the other children receive) is apparently only working on math (basic multiplication of 2-digit numbers; long division; the very occasional word problem, but over the last 4 months or so he's only had 2 that I've seen) and literacy skills (spelling word likes "correct," "guide," etc., some bare-minimum vocabulary work in the form of looking up a few words in the dictionary and writing the definitions about once a month, and occasionally writing 3-sentence essays). His handwriting is awful, mostly because he hasn't built up his hand strength, and we (his parents and I) noted dyslexia/dysgraphia-like symptoms (for example he would spell guide out loud, G-U-I-etc., to me perfectly and then write "gduie") while he was working on school spelling words. Yesterday we worked on an 11-word list including "anaphylaxis" (included because he has life threatening allergies, as do most of his family members), "clarification," "pontificate," "alliteration," "exaggeration," "peninsula," "premonition," etc. He didn't misspell any of them when copying the words from the list, which is unusual, and then had no issue typing them into the computer afterwards to look up definitions on Merriam-Webster's website. He even volunteered sentences including some of the words he previously didn't know (e.g. "I need to clarify my thoughts") and, with little prompting, drew a picture of a peninsula, labeled it, and noted Florida is a peninsula.

He also had no trouble solving the (pretty lengthy and wordy) word problem I came up with for him-- a rates problem about my pet dog, as he's very fond of her and it would be motivating, and her fantastic food intake. This required him to read the problem over a few times searching for the necessary information, figure out a bit of unit conversion (hours to minutes-- nothing too wild but he hasn't done it before that I know of), and extrapolate implied information from what was given in the problem.

This was all accomplished in about an hour and a half, with 0 whining, and he managed not to get distracted despite SK6 running in circles around us playing with the dog and screeching. He was obviously exhausted by the end ('use this word in a sentence' and writing are very tiring for him-- some of his issues include poor working memory and difficulty using, for lack of a better term, his 'imagination' when called upon to do things like come up with unique sentence structure and content), but waited until I asked him if he'd like to write a story using the vocab words or be done to very politely say he'd prefer to stop working for the day.

This is like night and day compared to the usual experience. Most days he'd come home from school, have 4-5 drill problems for math ("Solve: 56x132. Use the square division method," etc.) and a list of around 6-7 words to copy down once or twice. That often takes us an hour, during which time he whines, repeatedly notes that he's hungry, has to use the bathroom, he's tired, "owww! my arm," etc. He'll pick up anything and everything off of the table to fidget with and turn in his hands; if asked if he's thinking about the problem, he'll blankly reply "What problem were we on?" so he's not using it as a thinking device. I know novelty may be part of this, but even tired he was pretty hyped about the prospect of doing science on Monday.

I don't know what to think, to be honest. Obviously he needs more practice on everything-- and a LOT more handwriting practice-- but he's way more engaged with harder and more top-down work. SK6 is going to be joining us on Monday to pick a science project for the next 2wks-1mth and we're going to work on learning proper scientific method, but I'm a little panicked about what's going to be developmentally appropriate. I was a PG child (graduated at 14yo) and note some of the same behaviors re: work which is much too easy in SK11 as I exhibited, but I'm leery of treating him too much according to my past experiences, since I was not on the spectrum.

TL;DR Teacher to two boys, 11 and 6. SK11 is getting work which is not developmentally appropriate at school, so parents are having me take over for the most part. Behavior change is astonishing from school work to harder word problems and spelling/vocab. How hard do I push him? What kind of science topics are developmentally appropriate? Should I also start doing at least a weekly history/geography lesson of some sort?

My son is moderately gifted with ADHD. He is 9 years old. When he has too-easy work, he has every behavior you listed, plus sitting and staring at an assignment and refusing to do it for hours on end.

I would suggest pushing academics, but at the same time, being prepared to provide accomodations. If he has dysgraphia, writing is exhausting and should be addressed completely separately from academics.

Finding the appropriate level of difficulty is always challenging, as the target is always changing. I would start presenting material without much worry about being developmentally appropriate and see what sticks.

I suggest think of tutoring not as fixing up deficits - like spelling and handwriting - but lighting a fire in him. You are likely his only opportunity for enrichment and acceleration. Don't squander the opportunity fussing about handwriting.

I suggest skipping to 6th grade math. 4th and 5th are very similar, but 6th grade introduces new topics like ratio and proportion. 7th and 8th grade are a slow progression into pre-algebra. Common Core math is an excruciatingly slow progression for a higher IQ child. Don't worry too much about gaps in learning (as long as he's still in public school). My son skipped 2nd, 3rd, most of 4th, he did 5th in 2 months, refused to participate in 6th and skipped straight to Algebra 1. He hasn't had any difficulties. His IQ is not particularly high, barely above Mensa cut-off and math is his weakest subject. I recommend IXL.com for math because you get access to all grade levels, 4K - 12 with one enrollment. This is great for figuring out where a student should be working. It's not unusual for a student to work in multiple grade levels at a time. Maybe a student is strong in geometry and does that at grade 10 but weak in calculations and does that at grade 5. That's normal and OK! IXL does not have an instruction component, it is only practice problems. Khan Academy is a fabulous resource for instruction (and it's free).

I'd point you to Khan Academy for science and history too.

You don't need to worry about a complete and balanced curriculum since he is getting his school needs met at public school. Pre-teaching can backfire hugely later, so hitting the topics schools don't cover well may benefit him much more. Computer programming? Keyboarding! Music. History. Talk to his parents because "afterschooling" can result in acceleration. That's what happened to my son! I afterschooled him in 4K-1st because he was bored and he accelerated so far he couldn't be integrated into a classroom anymore. (Oops). He is radically accelerated and homeschooled now. If his parents don't like that potential scenario, stick to electives.

Welcome!

It sounds as though you may be experiencing considerable "scope creep" in your job duties... from nanny to tutor to almost sole teacher.

My first thoughts are that you may need more information. Questions come to mind such as:
- How much of a partner do the parents want you to be, regarding their children's education?
- Do the children have an IEP/504 in school?
- Can assessments be done to determine whether an official dylexia/dysgraphia diagnosis is warranted?
- A child who is 11 in the 4th grade seems to be older than the average student in that grade. Was he held back a year? For example, some child are held back to gain a year of "maturity", to be one of oldest in the grade rather than one of the youngest, to work on remediation skills, or may be redshirted for sports.
- What is the overall goal of you tutoring these children? For example, light homework help? ... to provide academic enrichment activities? ... to keep them from falling behind? ... if they are known to be behind, to help them catch up? etc. Having an agreement on the goal(s) may help you clarify your role and choose curriculum/projects/activities.

Because you asked specifically about science projects, here are some potential sources:
- Gifted Homeschoolers Forum, List of Favorites
- Davidson Database, Resources, Browse by Subject, Science
- Hoagies' Gifted Education Page, Natural Science
- Hoagies' Gifted Education Page, Hot Topics! Science Sleuths
- Hoagies' Gifted Education Page, list of free online classes
- Old thread on this Discussion Forum, Science Fair

I would do my absolute best to influence the parents into getting sk11 tested. Without this it would be very hard to know how BEST to proceed, IMO.

He is bored at Maths but challenged by routine academic work POSSIBLY due to attention deficits but who really knows without clinically controlled testing?

Thanks everyone. Indigo-- yes, although it's not unwelcome. I really enjoy working with him. Both kids have 504s/IEPs (not sure which? Probably both, if that's possible. I had a 504 due to a physical disability which they share, but not an IEP). I believe SK11 was held back a year or entered a year late to allow him to develop some extra executive function / social skills.

I absolutely do not intend to focus too much on handwriting-- I was probably very mildly dysgraphic or had some related learning disability as a child, as I struggled with handwriting quality and physical ABILITY to write longhand until my second year or so of college. It was absolute torture going through cursive and writing drills! I don't see a problem with his handwriting for now except that he complains of pain, so I'm going to be working with him on building up hand/forearm strength a bit.

Currently the school has done some really egregious things with SK6 and SK11 both, and the parents are dealing with it with the assistance of legal counsel. The end plan may well be for me to take over teaching SK11, at least, full-time (Mom and Dad are both academics and have little to no time/energy to deal with his angst regarding homework). We're avoiding official diagnosis due to this issue with the school currently; parents' stated plan is to give the school enough rope to hang themselves with. As such, we're documenting his progress and what we do together at EVERY session. As a result of him not really learning anything at school besides social skills, though, parents and I agree that he needs to be getting that instruction at home-- so we're not going to be exclusively focused on maths and literacy, I'm hoping to pick up history/geography and some art as well. SK6 will likely join us for art and music since he's very talented in those areas. (I've played piano for about ten years, so thankfully that potentially complicated base is covered!)

Thanks for the tip on maths, sanne. I agree that he'd probably really enjoy ratios and some really basic probability stuff. I have a couple of my old 7th grade math books-- maybe we'll start on those Wednesday.

To clarify, also-- if you all have any literature resources which are appropriate for a kid who reads at a sixth-seventh grade level, but cries when he sees a bird catching and eating a butterfly, that would be great.

Parents want me looking for some kind of scope and sequence that makes some coherent sense so that we know when we're passing landmarks along the way, at least for documentation purposes.

The simplest solution to curriculum landmarks is to look up your state curriculum frameworks by grade, and use it as a rough checklist. E.g.,
the WA state frameworks (http://www.k12.wa.us/CurriculumInstruct/learningstandards.aspx)
the OR state frameworks (http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/results/?id=53).

Skunk, all the scope and sequence is done for you. Common Core. Poorly understand, fantastic resource. The website breaks down what students should learn in each grade. If you have trouble with the edutalk, google for "learning targets" or "I can statements" that are Common Core aligned. Common Core alignment is a reassurance that if a student switches schools, s/he won't have gaps in education. It's important (IMO) for potential acceleration, since some districts won't accelerate if there is any, single lagging skill. Common Core keeps the bases covered.

IXL is Common Core aligned but it has more depth and breadth than any other curriculum I'm aware of. Saxon is fantastic, although since there is quite a bit of repetition, Saxon isn't palatable unless the student is at a challenging level of work.

Reading lists can be tough, but I'm of the opinion that literature, reading, and writing skills can be taught without unleashing a stack of novels. Picking away at individual skills may work better. Perhaps analyzing haiku or choka poetry. They're dense, so there's plenty to discuss. It's opportunity to teach "reading between the lines", and they're short so composing them isn't articulately demanding on working memory and handwriting.

Handwriting without tears is excellent. Cursive is generally easier for dysgraphia.

Great Courses lectures are AMAZING. and expensive, but check the library since many have them. You may need to preview content. For example, Cultural Culinary History series does talk about war and starvation so sections may not be appropriate.

Story of the World Series is a fantastic introduction to history and it's available in audio CD. The activity book is lower level, the test books are higher level. These do not align with Common Core, they include a lot more content than CC.

Work portfolios are appropriate for scope/sequence/mastering skills. The public virtual school here uses 10 homework examples to grade per semester (for one of the grading options).

You might want to delete any details from the above posts which may make the children/family identifiable to those familiar with circumstances.

For reading at an advanced level, you might want to check the crowd-sourced book lists in the Recommended Resources forum.
This includes lists for kids approximately age 9-12 and 13+. The lists are composed of titles which parents of gifted kids recommended as being books which their children enjoyed at that age. Some, but not all, gifted children share the trait of deep empathy and are troubled by predation in nature and dystopia.

For curriculum, Michael Clay Thomas (Royal Fireworks Press) is one to consider.

At the sources listed upthread for possible science projects, one can also find English Language Arts: GHF, Davidson Database, Hoagies are good starting points. As long as the Common Core Standards for ELA are listed online, one might utilize them as a touch stone or checklist.

Before you spend much effort building up strength, take some time to observe how he holds his pencil, whether or not he seems to be gripping tightly, and his posture while he's writing. My dysgraphic ds had lots of wrist pain when writing before he had handwriting OT, but he had an odd pencil grip and he also hunched over his paper and held his wrist while writing - once he was taught a proper grip and how to sit while writing his wrist pain disappeared. His handwriting OT did include fine motor finger-strengthening exercises, which also seemed to help with control, but building up hand/forearm strength wasn't necessary and probably wouldn't have addressed the issue that was actually causing his wrist pain.

I don't want to quote the part of your reply that discusses the relationship between parents and school in case you want to delete it later, and I also realize you're a third-party in this equation so there's likely little influence you hold on this decision, but fwiw, it's easy sometimes for parents to get caught up in not exactly a battle, but basically being at odds with school for whatever reason (warranted or not). We dealt with an extremely inflexible school during our ds' early-mid elementary years, and had we stayed there, would have had to eventually resort to legal counsel - but the thing I learned from that is that sometimes as a parent you can get so caught up in the battle that you lost sight of realizing that the same amount of time and energy directed in a different direction can actually benefit your child more. We made the decision to take our ds out of his elementary school at the end of 5th grade - about the same age as your SK11. It wasn't only the best decision possible for him, but it also was a great decision for me (even though I didn't realize it until after we'd made the decision). My dh and I were caught up in the battle and I was spending so much time and effort just fighting that battle - which led to two huge issues: first, I didn't realize how much of my time and energy it was consuming, and second, my ds saw that we were basically at odds with the school, and he saw it as the school not being supportive of him (which it wasn't). His life was all-around soooo so much better just getting him (and us) out of that situation.

I only mention that here because it sounds like SKs' parents are very caught up in the battle, but they also appear to have some resources (as they are considering having you homeschool SK11, if I understand this correctly). They're momentarily not seeking a diagnosis because they don't want the school to know about it (also if I understand what you've written correctly). This seems to be putting the focus on the issues with the school, when the focus really needs to be on SK11 (and his sibling). If SK11 has issues or concerns that are pointing to needing an evaluation and/or diagnosis, it's not helping him to put it off while fighting with the school, and it's also losing an opportunity to obtain understanding which can help you (and others) in educating SK11. Sorry, hope that doesn't sound like I'm preaching or anything.... just a concern that my own family has gone through and having come out the other end of it (my ds is in high school now) - letting go of the battle with his public school and making the change for middle school was the single best thing we've probably ever done for him, aside from getting him accurate diagnoses so we had a good understanding of what his needs were and how to address them.

Best wishes,

polarbear