Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Test for 5 yr old

Hello,
i just figured out this forum today and find it extremely useful. I have a 5 yr old in kindergarten who is really advanced in math (i am sure he does 2 grade math) and also strong in vocabs - mainly writing - he loves to write stories and journals. I would like him to get him into some tests. Can someone recommend what tests should i have him test and where they are available. I see a lot of acronyms as scat, WSII etc and i am not clear how to proceed. Any guidance would greatly help.

aagift,
Welcome - I'm so glad you found us!

If you haven't been to http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/gifted_101.htm, I reccomend a cyber-visit to the mothership of gifted info.

The identification process info is here:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/identification.htm

Testing info here:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/testing.htm

Enjoy! And come here for your various questions and concerns. It always helps someone, hopefully you!

Smiles and Giggles,
Grinity

Welcome!

I had my 5yo tested with the WPPSI last fall. I'd be careful with that test due to ceiling issues; my ds hit 5 ceilings, so the test didn't tell us nearly as much as it could have.

When does he turn six? If it's not too long, you may want to wait and use the WISC, which has a higher ceiling. Otherwise, I'd probably go with the Stanford-Binet 5.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone. I am amazed by the support.

He would turn 6 in august. Is it worth waiting till then to take the WISC. How and where do i get WISC or WPPSI. google search doesn't seem to be very useful. I will live in bay area CA i am sure there should be something around not sure where.

I would wait. The WPPSI's low ceilings may get in your child's way, and that probably won't be such an issue with the WISC.

Have you checked the Hoagie's websites that Grinity suggested? They even list testers who are experienced with GT kids there, along with their contact info. Look there first!

Well, that kind of depends. Are you looking to get him accommodations in school -- extra reading or math or anything? If so, it might be worth getting it done now, so you have some scores in hand when you go to the school. It takes a looong time for some schools to get moving with changes, so if you're looking to get some changes at school, it will probably take a while. Getting the testing done now would give you a chance to talk to the school before summer rolls around. And if your child *does* hit ceilings on the test, he's obviously pretty quick!

If you're testing just because you'd like a better idea of where he is, then you may as well wait, in my opinion, and continue doing what you're doing with him.



You might want to try calling the psychology departments at local big name universities; they might be able to point you in the right direction. Otherwise, There are a few testers listed on the Hoagies website, which Grinity listed above. The ones in California aren't really in your area, though ...

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/psychologists.htm#uca

Glad you found us!

We did WPPSI and WJ-III for achievement. If you don't need the results till summer than wait. If you need the numbers to start planning for next school year now than you may give it a shot.

Both tests are given by psychologist. Check to Hoagie's site but we were not lucky with that one - long waiting list and didn't even use tests accepted by DYS.

Before you make an appointment make sure that they use a test(s) you want. It may be wise to start shopping around now, because like I said the waiting list may be enormous. Google psychologist, gifted, evaluation and your state and see what you come up with. You can also call gifted schools in CA and ask them whom they use for evaluations.

Good luck

We did SB-5 at 4yrs 9 months and the WJ-III at age 5 yrs 1 month. We didn't wait until because we were trying to determine where my son should go to school. Personally I needed a good reason to pull my son from daycare and pay the much high Montessori tuition. I also think that it will help us get an edge to skip K. My son also hit many ceilings on the SB-5 but it did us great insight on his strengths.

I am a public school teacher with an endorsement in GT. However, I have been in the general education classroom for 15 years. I have used my training to work with my advanced fourth graders, but my school is beginning to move back to identifying students for a yet to be determined program. I know that I could recognize a gifted kindergarten student, but we have to have a formal ID in place.
This is where you come in. As parents, I hear you talking about IQ tests, but what did your schools use for ID? Were you given any checklists that were included in the ID process or was just formal testing used?
I feel very comfortable identifying the intermediate child and defending that placement, but have to admit that I have little experience with the younger students and that part of this process worries me.
Since I am the only teacher in my building with "formal" training in gifted education, I am the person being looked to for this guidance and that is ONE scary thought since it has been so long since I have really dealt with "gifted education" per se.
What would you, as parents, be comfortable with the school using in the ID procedure? (Of course, then we have to come up with the best programming model.)
I love teaching and find it a challenge to meet the needs of all students, but this task is really taking me out of my comfort zone!!!
I would really appreciate any insight you have as parents of gifted children.

Good for you Ducky!
There is a terrific book on the identification of gifted children, that is research based and fun to read, part of the Sally Reis edited series. I've given a link, but please go to hoagiesgifted.com before you go to amazon to look, ok? Identification of Students for Gifted and Talented Programs (Essential Readings in Gifted Education Series) by Joseph S. Renzulli and Sally M. Reis (Paperback - Mar 6, 2004)
Buy new: $29.95


I also reccomend that you join the Educators Guild.

Seems to me that my fanticy for ID would be to try to match ID to the services that can be scraped together. For example, if you can convinse the school to let all the strongest K readers go to mrs. x's room during reading time and have a reading group together, or even let some of them go to 1, 2, or 3 grade for reading group, then use the reading assesment you have, just keep going after the ususal stopping point with kids who reach the ceiling of the test. I don't want my child to be labled in K, only recognised for his skills and learning needs. I'd never want a label if I could get the services without them!

Bring the 1,2,and 3 grade end of year Math scope and sequences down to kindy, and see what some of the brightest kids can do with them. If you try to teach them, how quickly will they pick it up. Or you can pull a small group out and teach them something fun from the upper grade levels, what you use with the advanced 4th graders - and ask the children if it was fun. As an experienced teacher you will be good at 'adjusting down' if you are losing them, but look for the child who doesn't need that. The key thing in my mind to make sure you have a program for them when you make the ID.

You can start the ID just by sending a letter home asking the parents if they think that the worksheets that their child brings home look "too hard, too easy, or just about right." The other children know, you can ask them to nominate each other for "which child here needs harder school work?"

Good luck!
Grinity

Wow! Maybe I am not as out of the loop as I thought. Renzulli and Reis for ID goes back to my endorsement days. Something tells me that not much has changed there. You are right that the kids can tell you who the really strong students are, unfortunately I don't think that is going to be allowed as part of the process. (One of my fourth graders informed his parents the other day that a student should have made one of our academic teams because he is SO smart. The mother worried, too, as we discussed what he might have done to keep him off.) It seems that he was so upset at not knowing some of the skills, he keep getting sick and leaving. HE DIDN' T finish the test!!! (He is now on the team after a little teacher intervention. All I shared was the opinion of the other kids, with a little data from test scores.) Our math lessons have taken a little turn, too, since these kids now have a need for division in their problem solving.

I totally agree that the "label" isn't the important part, the programming is. However, the state of Indiana now requires that we identify the "High Ability" learner from grades k-12. I am researching what that really means, but from what I can tell it mandates ID, but does not say anything specific about services. Our state gifted association conference is next week and I am hoping to gain more insight there.

I taught our pull out program when I came here---until it was soooooo watered down from monetary cuts that assigned me half time to another program. I decided that I would be able to utilize my talents in the general ed classroom much better than where I was. The program was eventually deemed a waste and eliminated altogether.

There is no way that we will hire any new staff (too bad), so we have to figure out what the staff will accept and implement. I am pretty sure that my grade will probably cluster with the "high ability" in my room. My teaching partner may not like that, but it is really already being done--it just isn't stated as such. The decision will be who else gets grouped in the mix. Honestly, I would love to have the below level with them. Perfect for peer tutoring and also giving some extra adult assistance to work with the groups so I could focus on the specific needs of each one.

As I said, I love what I do and this is an exciting challenge to kind of go back to my roots, so to speak. I know that I have a lot of influence on upcoming decisions because of my background and want to make sure that the latest information is being used. It is important that we at least try to make this the best possible program to meet the needs of our top kids.

We just in-serviced today on our ISTEP+ scores with the focus on what mistakes were being made by those not passing........but the one point that was emphasized was that our GLARING problem is we were not bringing our top kids where they needed to be. (We are teaching to the middle and those not passing the test.) Surprise!!! Surprise!!!

I really appreciate your input and will be checking out the sources mentioned. I am sure that there will be MANY more questions as we tackle this in the next few months. Hopefully, there are some willing responders.

You asked for our personal experiences, so here's mine for my 6yo son. Though I don't know how helpful this will be...

Our state has a mandate to ID GT kids, but no services required.

My son was IDd as GT using the CogAT and the WJ3 after his kindergarten teacher IDd him for testing. (Normally GT testing isn't administered until 3rd grade unless requested for a specific student by a teacher or parent. I didn't know this, or I would have requested testing. Not publicized...)

After being IDd, he got only one pull-out session with the GT specialist and a packet of worksheets we could choose to do with him at home for "fun" (bleah!), but the kindergarten classroom teacher did far better than average with differentiation and it was only a half-day class, so my son did fine that year. Since the school sends out no test scores to parents--just a "he's in" letter--I didn't realize just *how* GT he was. I didn't go to the school to find out his scores, which showed him to be PG instead of MG as I had supposed, until he began having some boredom-related behavioral problems in 1st grade with a full-day class and a teacher who *didn't* differentiate. At all.

Ultimately, when faced with a school system that hates grade skipping, does no clustering, and has no GT service until 3rd grade (and then once a week in math only!), we chose to homeschool for the year rather than to try to swim upstream.

If you use testing to ID, I think *scores* should be sent to parents, and there should be an invitation to come in to speak with the GT coordinator (or principal or whomever is in charge of GT-related issues) so that the situation can be assessed.

But if you can do things other than testing to ID, then more power to you. Tests are certainly not the be-all-end-all of GT assessment...

I think it's possible--although not necessarily ideal--to adequately serve even HG+ kids in public school with some combination of grade skips, subject acceleration, clustering, and differentiation...provided the administration is supportive and the classroom teacher is on board. It sounds like you may have both those going for you! That would be good!

On a personal note, thank you for caring so much! You're clearly one of the good guys, and it's so nice that you're out there taking your time to do this right and really help these kids.

You rock!

I do want the personal experiences. They have been tried and tested.

Who did the testing? Was this done by the teacher? We do not have "normed" tests in place for our Kindergarten and 1st grades. Those are my "testing" concern grades. Were the parents allowed to "nominate" the child for the testing pool or just the classroom teachers? If you could design the method of notification for the parents, what would you involve?

This is where we are after several years with NOTHING formal in our corporation. We now have to address parent notification and even program awareness. This really is where it is great to have the input of someone in the been there/ done that category. Your input is priceless and will be carefully looked at as we pull this together. In all honesty, at this point, if we took this directly to our parents they would think we were nuts unless they are one of those who has sought outside programs for their child.

When I was working with ID as the GT teacher, I only had formal ID on 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. I know the data that we have for 3rd grade will be ADEQUATE, not great. Second grade has very little formal data, but it should be doable. I still think that the process needs to include some informal assessments. That is one of the areas that I am totally lost on, but know that the resource is out there. But then, who do we give those assessments to? Classroom teachers? Parents?

I truly believe that GT involves so much beyond traditional classroom. Thinking skills are key to that child being ready to use all of the "STUFF" they know so naturally. I really spent the first part of my curriculum with the fourth graders learning to accept different answers and realizing it was okay to be wrong occasionally. (In actuality, I was probably rebelling against my own educational upbringing where the occasional teacher would point out that "DUCKY" missed something.) I wanted my students to understand that bright didn't mean perfect and that there could be workable solutions besides their own.

Not sure, but definitely *not* the classroom teacher. It was clearly someone trained in psych testing. The school tests twice a year, every year: Oct. and March, so they may have a testing company on retainer? Sorry I don't know more!


Yes, parents can nominate, though the process is more involved for parental nomination than for teacher nomination. (I'm sure this is to keep EVERYONE from nominating their kids for testing, which makes fiscal sense, provided the process for parental nomination isn't so onerous that no parent can actually get his/her child tested!)

The parent has to meet with the classroom teacher. Technically, the teacher does not have to agree that the child should be tested, but I don't know how that plays out in real life. I have a sneaking suspicion that if the parents says "test" and the teacher says "no," the teacher's opinion would win out. But I'm a wee bit cynical about our school, so I may not be being fair there.

After the teacher meeting, I think the parent also has to meet wth the GT coordinator. That's when the official decision is made to test or not, and I think the GT coordinator gets the final say about testing before 3rd grade, but I may be wrong here. It's possible that even if the teacher and GTC do their best to talk the parent out of testing, it still gets done if mom and dad stick to their guns.

I wouldn't call this the ideal situation! There's not a lot of teamwork in evidence between parent and teacher, at least not from the few cases I've seen. If the teacher doesn't want to see GTness, it's probably going to be denied.

Case in point: The mom of one boy I KNOW is GT (probably MG, but maybe more in math) met with the same 1st grade teacher my son started with this year. This teacher is not GT-friendly, and she brought to the meeting every paper that the child had made any mistakes on to "prove" that the boy wasn't *that* smart. Ugh. (And never mind that the teacher could only produce 3 pages and the mistakes were of the "missing comma" variety...) As far as I know, he has not been tested yet, though maybe he's up for the March testing.

I would hope your school's process will be a bit less...prickly!


Parents should certainly see the scores, though whether in a letter or at a meeting doesn't much matter to me. (I know there's a 30-day deadline for notification in my state, required by law, so I think that's why they send the "he's in" letter without scores.)

I think an invitation to meet with whomever is handling the GT screening process should be offered regardless of the scores to discuss the results and how the school will serve the child's needs. This would be a good time to start building that team feeling between parent--who may be a bit freaked out by the results!--and school.

As for the informal assessments: do you have to choose between parents and teachers? Could you have both do informal assessments? Is there a problem there?

BTW, I spent the majority of every semester that I taught freshman college English (at I.U.!) teaching my students that just because someone's opinion gets published in a book, it doesn't mean it's right; that it's good to think for yourself; and that considering the position of others and <gasp> changing your mind about your own postion was a sign of being a thinking person, not the sin of being "wrong."

That you started this process with 4th graders is marvelous!

This is definitely in the file to keep close at hand as we move forward. Thanks for being so thorough.

In most states GT falls under the "Special Education" umbrella. You have made me wonder if the same guidelines for parent request of testing apply for this as the other areas. It is mandatory to honor a parent request for testing within the traditional realms of Sp. Ed.
I am not even sure if our special education coop would do our testing or if they consider this to be outside their involvement?

You have given me some questions to ask the higher ups!!!!

I'm kind of surprised that my response helped, but I'm glad it did. Maybe now others will chime in with their experiences, too?

It seems like the special ed resource could be potential testers--better than nothing--though I'm always wary about the notion of people not trained in working with GT kids doing the testing. A tester needs to be pretty skilled at knowing when the child is getting the answers wrong because the questions are too hard and when they're getting them wrong because they're too easy! There's a big difference between looking for LDs and looking for GTs, and that's not even getting into looking for GT kids >with< LDs!

The ideal would certainly be an experienced GT tester who knows what to look for and how to approach a GT kid, especially one who's already bored, frustrated, annoyed, etc.

Bedtime at last...

Hi Ducky!
this has been a fun conversation!

Here's the link: http://www.educatorsguild.org/

So Ducky,
How much can you spend per 100 hundred children? Do you have a child in mind that you are trying to accomidate? What brand of NCLB tests does your school use, and can you get ahold of them to use as 'above level tests?' Do you have someone who can administer a WISC IV individual IQ test?

Do you have a kindergarden screening before the children start school? We do. At the end of the process, DS was so thrilled and excited, our last stop said: "It looks like your child is certianlly ready of kindergarden."
My instant thought was, "It looks like he's ready to TEACH kindergarden!" but I just smiled. This is strange, because I was in such gifted denial - it was a sort of Freudian Mental Slip because it was the first time I could acknowledge how excited he was from being in the school environment - with all the posters on the wall, adults to met and figure out...I went right back to my trusting state of denial.

Anyway, what I wish was done was a few higher level questions thrown into the Kindergarden screening process, and the ones who scored the highest in reading, color naming, math that shows thinking. Does your district collect this data? If so, you can just modify what you are already collecting to create your screening pool. Take a look at Ruf's "Losing our minds, Gifted Children left behind," for more specifics of what young children may be able to do, and that yes, some early milestones are generally predictive of later giftedness - the ones that show problem solving skills.

In my case, nothing was done except clustering, and a summer birthday, which I think would have been great for the majority of gifted kids, but for my Highly gifted child just never was enough. Also he was highly asynchrounous: Able to think abstractly, but not much interested in writing the answers to his worksheet questions in 'full sentences' - plus some motor delays and an assertive personallity - elementary school didn't go well, and in meeting after meeting there way much hand wringing but little relief.

Personally, I think one of the changes that is about to occur, is that people will start to understand LOG, levels of giftedness. Part of what mades pull outs 'look bad' was that there has to be 10 to 15% of kids who were still grumpy from boredom and social isolation, which is how my son was in his cluster group, even with the summmer birthday, and the many many bright boys who were held back for 'immaturity' reasons in our town (Redshirting) "Gifted is a group with so much variability, both within the individual, and between the individual."

I would urge you, BTW, not to ask for the Highest and the Lowest kids.
1) our school did that for 2nd and 4th grade, and it created a really weird view of the world, remember if you pull off the top level of kids, they are going to be very aware of the differences, so have trouble socially, AND get a weird message about themselves. I think the 2nd layer, 120-125 IQish would make a much better group of peer-tutors, and develop a lot of satisfaction by being leaders and not having the first layer inhibiting them all the time.
2) It misses the chance for the kids who are only gifted in one area, but very strongly gifted, to be part of the flexible grouping within the class in their area. These kids may be excellent social companions even though they are not strong readers, or have handwriting delays, or trouble with memorizing math facts. Since your main interest is providing programing not a lable, leverage your efforts by including kids who have 2E "twice exceptionalities" or spiky profiles, but have the abstract thinking abilities in at least one area.


Love and More Love,
Grinity

I'm going to ask again about what kind of

((applause))
Sorry to hear about the early days, I had the same treatment! I think it's great that you spend time on meta-cognition! I also had that thing were when I finally had to work to succede at school, I thought that I had stopped being smart! It took me years to overcome my 'laziness.'

Smiles,
Grinity

I've never heard of ISETP+, but you can use it as a screener, even though way above level kids often are too bored to do well on this kind of test. If you can use old copies to bring the 3rd grade test to the first graders and see how they do at the begining of the first grade year on a test designed to measure kids at the end of 3rd grade, that will give you a cheap ID, and a more accurate way to find kids with 'special educational needs.'

Based on my personal experience, I would screen every trouble maker from K to 3, 'just to be sure.'

I don't want to be a downer, but a key problem is that you have funding, or at least political will for ID, but not for accomidation, so I think your first job is to start building interest in meeting the needs of the teachers who will get these clusters. BUT we all have to start somewhere. Actually - the parents themeselves might be a great source of support - once the children are IDed perhaps you can get the parents to come to school and do math or literature pull outs?

Smiles,
Grinity

ISTEP is the name of the grade-level testing in Indiana, Grinity. Just FYI. So everything you say is right on target--boredom, not necessarily a good screener, etc.

This is exactly what I hoped for. People with the kids impacted by our decisions to make ME think.
But oh my, Grinity, do you really think they would let us talk about how much we can spend per one hundred children? This will, my dear, be a non-budgeted endeavor. Now, understand, the state does have some grant money that they hand out, but this year that money was received in January. It must be spent by the end of July. I can do a little higher level thinking, but it doesn't take that to figure out that leaves nothing to start programming for the fall.
Our grant writer is heading our committee to get going. The first proposal was that we would identify in the fall to start programs in January to match the grant. I sent him my revised thoughts on that plan last week. This needs to happen this spring and start something this fall.
I teach in a semi rural setting and a fairly small school system. When I came here they were just starting a pull-out program for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. I was in two buildings. The larger one was my assignment for three days and the smaller one was the other two. You know how budgets are..... and we were in trouble on year number 5 of my career. Guess whose job was the first to be in the proposed cuts. (Here I am meeting with the coordinator arguing to increase the program and the superintendent is with the board eliminating it FIRST!!!) The building level administrators and coordinator SALVAGED the program to part time. Not great, but still something for the kids. (I also taught Title 1 reading for half the day after that decision. That may be where my penchant for the split I proposed came from.)
Although it was okay, I was not happy in the position once it was watered down so- time wise. I requested a move to the classroom.
My understanding, over the next few years (as the program was simply a stepping stone to something full time), the quality dwindled until the current superintendent insisted that it should just be eliminated.
We have pretty much ignored the GT or high ability as Indiana now wants to call the group, until the state stepped in with this new law. Any questions parents had were always sent my way. My former students are now parents and asking questions about THEIR program. It is really kind of cool having those "kids" reminding of the things that we did. It makes me feel like I did make a difference in their educations. But my answering questions and sending parents to outside sources was our involvement.
I know that you already are aware of this, but parents are usually much more in tune with the child's giftedness than the teachers involved. I can't tell you how many times I had to argue that it really didn't matter to me if the child was getting a D in history while in the regular classroom. While with me, he was the leader in the discussion on "whatever the days topic" or the one providing my latest challenge (before the days of internet) on where to find information on an adult type topic. His independent study was usually the most thorough and he had the most understanding of what he was to do. NO, I WILL NOT ASK THE PARENTS TO REMOVE HIM FROM THE PROGRAM.
"Why should the child have to come back to your room and do the paper with 50 addition problems? You are a "cluster teacher" and are supposed to be doing curriculum compacting!" It was constant with some teachers. I honestly felt like it was a punishment to be bright at times. I was expecting more out of them than they had ever produced and their classroom teachers, I swear, did more worksheets in that 2-3 hours than they did the rest of the week altogether.

Yes, there are times for complete sentences and sometimes my answer is, "Because I said so." Yet most of the time who cares? I am really just happy to get the thoughts down.
I had that discussion on getting others to change their ways with a fellow teacher today--one that UNDERSTANDS- and she simply ended with......what are you going to do???? (Probably pull my hair out.)

Wow!!! I had actually forgotten those headaches over the years!!

By the way, I am also quite sure that our definition will be very broad (probably too much so) if we end up clustering. Those with high ability in one area will definitely be part of the mix.

One thing that I am sure is going to have to happen is that more screening will have to be done prior to kindergarten entry. We have that all wrong right now too. We offer full day Kdg. to the neediest kids. Yet we wait until they are settled into the half day routine and then screen a couple of weeks into the year and totally change their schedule--sometimes including sections (classmates.) Just what I think you want to do to an adjusting kindergartner.
(One of these days I may decide that I don't have enough influence from the four walls of my classroom and go after that administration degree. By then, though, my ideas will probably be stale.)

Grinity--I am so glad that someone helped define ISTEP+. My stupidity was in thinking, that just because it IS MY LIFE right now and not in a positive way now that we have the results, everyone knows this test.
As achievement tests go, it does have a few little challenges called "applied skills." I can be a pretty good motivator when it comes to test time, so I truly believe that most of my best kids take the test VERY seriously--wish I could say the same on the other spectrum. I am even convinced that they have to do a little thinking on parts of it.
Want to see a sample? Check out the Indiana Dept. of Ed. website and the past two years of all the applied skills (the more challenging part of the test) are available online along with the scoring guides.

I sincerely doubt it!

I appreciate your whole post, but I wanted to comment on this particular item since it applies to my GS8. The reason to make complete sentences is so the child learns to communicate his thoughts to others who are reading it. If the child knows it, but does not know how to pass knowlege to others, what good is it, unless the child lives his life in solitary confinement? It is a stretch for some to communicate their ideas in more than a short phrase, especially when answering a question pertaining to a paragraph just read; but it's good practice that leads into being able to write complete essays or theme papers.

Grandma,
I know that it sounded like writing sentences was never important to me, but I am referring to the mundane times when a short answer is more than sufficient. I guarantee that correct grammar and being able to communicate in complete sentences are both more than trivial things to me. In fact, I have been told that correct grammar is referred to as "my name's English" because I do have such high expectations.
There are simply times, though, that sentences are not important to know if the child has a concept. G/T kids, especially, see through that sentence requirement as a time filler when it is used in that way. Essays and composition are totally different stories.
One example of the times that I would seldom require the students to write sentences is in English practice with certain skills. The book will generally tell the student to copy the sentence and then "underline the nouns." I find that I really get better results with focus if I simply have the kids write the nouns from those sentences.

Actually JD,
what I would love to see you doing is running a small school for the offspring of "your" students who have grown up and become parents...Neat thing is that you could 'teach' about 3 hours a day, and then offer babysitting for those who's parents can't do it themselves.

Other than that, I agree with casting the net broadly, particularly if there isn't money for actual programing - I'd go as far as to take the top 10% and any kid of any parent who asks. Then you can refine from there as you go - but essentially, if the school isn't providing money, you are going to have to organize the parents to cough it up. In the meantime you main job is going to be creating alliances with the teachers. Yes, it's difficult, but by pulling out a larger chunk, you will have less of an uphill battle. You want to find a way to avoid those interpersonal battles from the past...being the boss and doing the hiring is one way...being the coach and offering a hand to help the other teachers get training in another, KWIM?

Is your community the type that would pay for an afterschool program to give the really 'farthest out' kids some more individualized work?

Anyway, I'm delighted that you are here!
Wish you lived closer...
Grinity

That is an interesting concept. As I look back, I loved those "kids" and the years I spent with them. I'm sure that I would have a wonderful time with "their" kids.

I went to the Indiana G/T conference yesterday and got an entirely new perspective on the ID requirement. The net will have to be fairly broad to meet the guidelines of the new law. This is going to be a bigger challenge than I even thought. I can't wait to pass this on to the administration. (Although I like how it is going to direct us.)

Hopefully, in 2009, there will be some grant money that can be used in the classrooms. This year, the money has been used to allow teachers to embark on individual initiatives. The good thing is that the teachers involved want to be doing what they are. The bad part is that it is actually not impacting very many kids. In my building we have a first grade activity in writing, a sixth grade robotics program, an intermediate grade "space" study, and then I will take a group of intermediate students to the Indiana Dunes Learning Center for 3 days and 2 nights this summer. (I took a group up there last year and it was fabulous.) I am not sure that I would have done the same thing, but my principal made that request. The feedback from the kids and parents was very positive.

I am just not sure that our teachers are in the right mindset yet to realize that this is not just another attempt at a program. This is a law that is finally giving support to a group of kids that has been ignored. It is very likely that we are going to have several argue that we don't have that many kids that "fit the bill." We often are so focused on the state test for all that we do and the fact that was brought out at yesterday's conference on ID was that 66% of the high ability kids do not get a PASS+( the highest level) on the Language Arts section and 33% do not have that achievement on the math portion of the ISTEP+. (It might have been the reverse with those two subjects; I will have to check my notes. However, the impact is the same.)

I would like to say that my community is all willing to pay for additional programming, but I don't know that most can afford that. Our free and reduced lunch rate has climbed to well over 30%, so immediately we would leave out several kids with needs.

You have given me things to think about again, though. I do know that there will be many more questions as this program takes hold. I really appreciate the parental aspect of what all of you have shared. Too many times we lose sight of the parents in the role of education.

J_D, I didn't mean to imply you never made the children reply in complete sentences. The example you gave of copying a sentence, then underlining a noun or verb is a perfect example of something to drive a child to frustration; just writing down the word intended to be identified is a good solution.

I have a pet peeve about the average adult not being able to communicate in clear, concise sentences in writing. I'm a computer programmer/analyst, and sometimes when I'm trying to define what is being requested I wonder if we're even speaking the same language. And reading a sentence constructed with extremely poor grammar is worse than fingernails on a chalkboard, to me. What good is knowledge if we are not able to communicate it to others?

Why do you think so many high ability kids do not have high achievement scores on the ISTEP? What level of information does the average classroom curriculum present?

Hi JD!
This caught my eye. I wonder what is going on!
a) too bored to do well at age-mate level?
b) how are high ability kids defined?
c) really bad test?
d) really poor preperation?

How do your 4th graders do? I'll bet that proper motivation really makes a difference.

In the long run, clustering, and teaching the teachers how to pretest and compact will help lots of kids - looks like you will be the coach to inspire the teachers. Exciting challenges ahead!

((Although I'm pretty sure that your talents would be best used in that mini-school or afterschool program.))

Smiles,
Grinity

Grintity,
To be honest, I am not sure why. I would guess that a lot of the kids have no desire to put forth the effort on the test. Not that I think this is the answer, but the motivation used to come from the fact that one had to attend summer school or repeat the grade if they did not pass. That motivation is gone.

I am not quite sure how the high ability were identified in that study, but for anyone speaking of the state test in a poor light when they have that direct connection blew my mind.

The test is about the norm as far as achievement tests go, except the applied skills that I mentioned earlier (which you can see on the state site). My brightest often have to think about them, so I know that they require some thinking.

I think that the preparation has something to do with it, but I also know that motivation is a key. Most of my students fell right where I would expect with the exception of one and he was SICK while he was taking it that week and would not give in to feeling bad.

Yes, challenges. I love a good one and this may be the KING!!!

Okay, I like the mini-school and after school program. We will have to really explore that option. (However, I will have to give up my current after school teaching position with the Title I math program. I really like that too.)

Well, I am off to my other after school love..... a high school athletic event. This is where I get to reconnect with former students!!!