Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Is it time for a change?

First time poster,but I've read on and off for years.
I'm looking for some advice on my dd10, 5th grade. Am I over-reacting? Am I missing something? Is there something else I should be doing. Input welcome.

My dd was identified in K as gifted. Not really a surprise as she taught herself to read at 3 or 4 and has always been very clever. District recommended a transfer to a gifted classroom, which we did, and she did very well for several years. Always scored 95-99 Percentile rank on MAP math; and a 99 PR in reading.Beginning of 3rd grade her MAP dropped to 80-something, but I wasn't worried and she moved back to her usual place at the end of year.

Same drop in 4th grade (Note- nope, no math over the summer at our house, just lots of pool time and lots of reading, which she loves.) I figured it was summer slide and she would move back to her zone by the end of the year. A few weeks in however, her teacher advised us she was moving dd down a level in math, assuring us that it was the same material, only taught at a slower pace. After a week of duplicate material, she'll be back on track. The reason for the move... our dd wasn't paying attention in class and the teacher had to reteach her, taking up class time. I'm generally easy-going, so I was fine with this.Until the end of year MAP showed no progress at all for the year. oh-oh. DD never did homework at home, always on the bus, and did fine on tests. She's not a big fan of math- never has been. Mainly because it takes her away from doing something more fun (reading, legos, running around, friends, etc)

So, before 5th grade, I wanted to avoid the summer drop, so we did workbooks at home (5th through 7th grade seemed to match up with her). Beginning of year MAP showed no drop... same as where she was end of 3rd grade. I expressed my concern to her teacher about math and she assures me that there will be growth this year...that sometimes kids just drop off on percentile rank in late elementary school. A few months later I hear that they want to drop her another level- same reason as before. so now she's out of the gifted groups for maths and into grade level math. After a week she hates it and we discuss with teachers and they move her back up and her work is much improved (100% on next two tests). Fast forward a few months and they want to move her back down. The reason- she is going too fast, making careless errors and not showing her work and still not paying attention. And when she is stuck on something, she doesn't ask for help.

My question- doesn't this sound like a valid reason to move someone down? I disagreed with their logic and asked to have her move back. Nope, they said. What do you think? DD hates being in the lower group as her friends are in the upper levels. I know she is capable of the work, but she is really doubting herself now.

Now she rushes through everything, something that we work on.Teachers always complain about her reading too fast, but she never misses any comprehension. She did struggle remembering her math facts. I figure it was me not practicing much with her (most things she hears once or twice and gets, so I was taken aback that we had to do math facts more often.) We practiced and she got them. Another tidbit, her Cogat (taken several times) is an E profile. 140SAS on verbal and 110s on Q and NV. Not the highest on quantitative, but above average. I am sure on the low end for her gifted classroom where there are some math whizzes.

Now, she is a emotionally sensitive kid, and gets quite shaken when she makes a mistake... but I stress that mistakes are good and how we learn and she recovers. She's emotional over other things, too- she's always been sensitive. That may play into their decision. She wants to learn math on her own next year. She says her current class is too easy, but she is not good enough for the next level. Teacher says she should focus on her strengths. I say, try harder.

So I feel like pulling her from her k-8 gifted school as I feel they have low expectations for her for math. I want her to struggle a bit with it and put some extra work in. They seem content at putting her at a level where there isn't a challenge.

Your thoughts?

I am a little concerned that, if her CogAT profile is legit (and it seems that it may be, since it lines up with classroom experience), she may be presenting with a second exceptionality. The transition that happens mathematically at 3rd/4th grade is that they move on from basic arithmetic facts to problem solving and using those facts. You mention that she struggled to acquire automaticity with math facts, and report a significant relative weakness in quantitative and nonverbal reasoning, only slightly above average, which suggests that there may be a true vulnerability with regard to mathematical thinking. The difference between her verbal and nonverbal/quantitative abilities is not insubstantial. In particular, the reports of making careless errors and not paying attention in math (in a child who, I take it, is normally age-appropriate in attention) suggest that she may not be as automatic in math facts as she appears to be when math facts are assessed in isolation. The presentation teachers report is consistent with a child who must expend a significant amount of cognition on basic calculations, which means that sometimes she can't devote enough cognition to problem solving, because she's busy multiplying and dividing, and other times that she loses the basic facts because she is using her thought processes on the new, more sophisticated math skills.

The sense that math is both too hard and too easy at the same time is telling.

I would suggest that, rather than either allowing her to be moved down in math, or fighting the placement per se, you might consider requesting a special education evaluation for a possible 2e.

Thank you for the suggestion! I was considering this, but also thought it would be suggested by the school. Would this be something the school would provide or would I ask her pediatrician? I'm not sure if she has age-appropriate attention. If she's interested, she'll focus all day.. but if not, it's more of a challenge.
I'm not familiar with special education evaluations. What specifically would I ask for? Is there a certain test?

Lots of things you said really ring true and gives me lots to think about.
This certainly sounds like her. She has little patience for anything redundant, yet gets frustrated if she doesn't instantly understand something.
A math disability. I don't know about them, but will definitely look into it. Not as sure about the abstract material. She generally gets abstract concepts.


Confidence is definitely an issue now, and agree I need to get to the bottom of this ASAP. How would you recommend I assess reasoning? Is it just being able to explain why ?


We do have several after school math and learning places nearby. Is there someplace you would recommend? Once she got over the fact that she had to do some math each day over the summer, it wasn't really a hassle. I let her pick her topics each day and do as many as she wanted. Some days it was the minimum of 2 pages, other days 10. And I should have mentioned, that sometimes she does long division to settle herself when stressed.


I agree. And I feel blessed that there are people who can help me figure this out!

The school could have suggested it, but it appears that their response to the situation, at the moment, is to move her down a level in math. You have a right to request an evaluation from the school, at no cost to you. Some families have found that route to be effective. Other families have found that going through their PCP (sometimes insurance covers part of it) gives them more control over the selection of a qualified and sympathetic evaluator, possibly one with experience with 2e. Full disclosure: I work in the public schools as a school psychologist; I feel that I generate a pretty respectable evaluation. =) But that won't necessarily be the case with every psychologist, either school-based or clinic-based.

If you choose to request a special education evaluation through the schools, you would write a letter to the director of special education in your district, requesting an evaluation, listing your specific concerns (academic progress in math, attention, possible twice exceptionality). Normally, the district responds within two weeks with either a notice of refusal to act, which should include reasons for doing so, or a request for consent to evaluate, which should list specific tests or categories of tests. In your DD's case, these should, at a minimum, include a comprehensive measure of cognition (IQ test), comprehensive measure of academic achievement, assessments of attention and behavior (most likely rating scales), and a classroom observation.

Commonly-used instruments:
1. cognition: WISC-V, SBV, KABC-II, DAS-II, WJIVCOG
2. achievement: WIAT-III, KTEA-3, WJIVACH
3. attention/behavior/executive function scales: BASC-2, CBCL/ASEBA, BRIEF, DKEFS (direct measure)

If you happen to be in an RTI or MTSS state, the district may respond first with interventions, or data on her academic progress that indicates there is no need for interventions. That will be trickier. We can talk about that if it turns out to be the situation.

DD9 has ADHD and we just went the evaluation route. The school behaved in a ridiculous fashion and refused to test her for math, stating that her math achievement scores are very high. And that is true--she does very well on a test similar to MAP but it takes her literally days to do that test to get that score. I tried to get the school to at least test her for fluency and they refused, stating their objective is to not find out what her problem is, it is to determine if she qualifies for special education, which she does not, because she is not a failing student. (none of this is valid--students can have a learning disability and be diagnosed with a learning disability and qualify for school services or accommodations even if they are not failing).
When the school messed up the eval and disqualified her for services I requested an independent educational eval (paid for at school expense, which they have to do unless the school files a complaint against the parent and goes to a hearing) and took her to a major university to a neuropsych/educational psych. He gave her the Woodcock Johnson achievement and there was a huge gap between applied problems and fluency, indicating a problem with retrieving math facts from memory and processing issues (slow processing speed). I had tried to teach DD math facts like multiplication, and for a while she is rather automatic with them, but then "loses" them. She may know 8X4 easily one minute but then you ask her 10 min. later and she scratches her head and it takes 10 sec. for her to figure it out. He said that she should be using some sort of cheat sheet with math facts or a calculator and she should be placed at the correct conceptual level. Also, since she is slow, she should do a reduced number of problems, just enough to show mastery.

She is on medication for ADHD and it seems to help quite a bit in terms of processing speed but doesn't completely correct the problem.

I'm not sure if any of this applies to your DD--it doesn't sound like she's slow the way mine is, but thought I'd throw it out there.

As others have mentioned, she may have 2E issues so an evaluation can't hurt. At the same time, her 110 COGAT on the quantitative and nonverbal sections can explain her need for double teaching time in math when among a group of GT kids. The timing makes sense also. At the elementary school that my kids attended, which had one mostly separate GT class per grade from 1st grade onward, usually 4th and sometimes 5th grade was when a few of the GT kids moved into regular math and a couple of the non-GT kids moved into GT math. In the teacher's defense, it can be very damaging to a student's self-esteem to constantly require reteaching while all the other students moved on. Of course, the teacher may be lazy or else just not willing to take up class time to reteach your DD.

One thing that might be helpful to keep in mind is that, as best as I understand it - experts chime in here! - computational math and math fluency call on quite different abilities than conceptual math. There have been many discussions on this board of children who are much stronger in one vs. the other. Perhaps looking separately at the different skills involved in your DD's math may bring some patterns to light in terms of what is too hard and what is too easy? LDs can also affect one without the other; rapid retrieval of math facts seems particularly susceptible to a range of challenges, from slow processing speed to memory issues. Dyslexia or dysgraphia can affect the ability to correctly read a problem and/ or write a response, even when the math is well understood. Dyscalcula or NVLD would affect math skills more directly.

So, it's not uncommon around here to find children for whom school math is both too easy and too hard at the same time: for example, it might be conceptually too simple, but at the same time they cannot access their math facts quickly and finish their work on time.

In terms of the CogAT keep in mind that it is a timed test at least the 3rd grade and up versions, and she may have simply failed to answer some of the questions, bringing her score way down. I was horrified by DD's quant CogAT score. Her MAP-like test score for math was 99th percentile, and her CogAT quant score was barely 50th percentile. Then I realized she left literally half of the questions blank on the CogAT (on the score report, it shows the number of questions that were attempted).

This is all so very helpful. Blackcat, your dd sounds like mine when she was learning the facts. Knew them one minute, and then lost them. She's much better now. We actually went through them last night (after not feeling the need for awhile)and I was pleased at her knowledge- although she was not as quick as I would have expected. Everything else she does is at double-time. I know her MAP reading results have had a note saying it was done in less time than expected and should be reviewed. Of course it's always 99 percentile, so being fast doesn't seem to affect her score there. It may however, in math.

I've also gone over her classroom math tests. Seems like problems she got wrong were with not attempted, or she made a simple math error somewhere (sometimes just not being able to read her own writing) that affected the answer. She always had the concept right, even with word problems.

I'm going to ask for an evaluation from the school, although talking with some other Moms, I feel like they may not be interested because she's not failing math.

I will review her Cogat scores too.
Thanks! And keep the ideas coming. They are so helpful.