Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Advice for 1st grader

Hi all. This is going to be a little long and ramble-y, so I thank you in advance for any advice you can give.

We recently had my 1st grader (6.8 yo) tested on the advice of her school counselor--she was resisting going to school after loving it all her life, complaining about being bored, etc. She's always been very bright and I was highly gifted as a child (my husband is also very high achieving but not identified primarily because of his lower socio-economic background). Tl;dr it was not surprising to see that her verbal abilities are very high; Woodock-Johnson IV & WISC-V verbal-related scores are all 99th and higher. However! Her math and visual-related skills are only slightly above average and actually brought her Full Scale down to 129. Here are her subtest scores:

Similarities: 17
Vocab: 16
Blocks: 12
Visual puzzles: 13
Matrix Reasoning: 12
Figure Weights: 13
Digit span: 18
Picture span: 18
Coding: 11
Symbol Search: 15

So. My basic question is, how can I support a child with an uneven profile like this? Her working memory is exceptionally high (99.9th percentile), so I'm pretty confident she could do better in math given the right instruction or environment. I'm a verbal person myself, so I'm really not confident about my ability to make math fun and enriching for her in an afterschool way. And now I have a bunch of scattered questions:

Is it worth trying to push her more in math, or should I focus on supporting her in the areas where she clearly already excels?

I've read a lot over the last few years about the increasing sense that working memory is more predictive of success and ability in an academic environment than IQ; should I use her high score there (146) to push her school harder than I might otherwise, given her high but not exceptional Full Scale score?

Her scores were high enough to qualify her for our district's GATE program, but the full-time GATE program is full for next year (2nd grade). There's a pull-out option, but I really don't think once a week is going to meet her needs. I'm interested in exploring subject acceleration for her, but most of what I've run across relates to subject acceleration for math. Does anyone have experience with ELA subject acceleration?

Given her more or less average math abilities (currently!), would it be a mistake to consider whole grade acceleration?

If the school won't work with me, I'm also considering keeping her home for half a day to allow her to read and write at her own speed and according to her own interests (right now, the Titanic and the Tudor period!). Does anyone have experience doing half days at a public school?

Again, I know this is long and scattered, so thank you in advance for any thoughts!

my guess is working memory might be really helpful when learning things like arithmetic and the math facts, but not as helpful when it comes to algebra or geometry where abstract reasoning would be more helpful. I also think when people talk about "working memory" they are talking about two different things. My daughter had a relatively good working memory score (98th percentile I think), but she is also very unfocused becaase of ADHD. She can repeat numbers backwards but can't stay on task to follow directions. So the WISC shows good working memory, but the BRIEF (for executive functioning) shows poor working memory. Which is more important for academic success? Probably the BRIEF type of working memory. If I could get her to remember to turn in homework, that would be better than having her repeat 7 digits backwards. I just wanted to point out the difference. I think if you could do a subject acceleration for reading/writing that would probably meet her needs. My son's school ability groups the kids for reading/spelling, but if that fails, you could ask if you can send in advanced books. I think it's easier for schools to differentiate language arts than math, so that's why you hear more about math acceleration.

They do some differentiation in the classroom, but it's not really adequate to her needs. I volunteer in the classroom once a week at their literacy centers, so I can see the contrast first-hand--for example, I just went over today to help out at the table where the kids were writing stories based on sequencing cards. DD filled her page with a detailed, complex story that explored the emotions and motivations of the people on the cards and then moved on to the next one, while her classmates, even the higher achieving ones, wrote short, descriptive sentences. When she watches a movie, she immediately compares it to other ones she's watched ("Moana" is just like "Frozen" because XYZ") and explains its structure ("this is the montage", "this is the scary part, but I know it's going to be okay because it's just the climax").

We often talk about history; she remembers literally everything I tell her and makes connections between Marie Antoinette and Anne Boleyn. She comes home from school disgusted that her classmates don't know that there were no cars in George Washington's time. And so on.

The issue is that I just don't know what to do with a kid who's clearly bright but not anywhere near profoundly gifted and yet does seem to have noteworthy abilities in the humanities. Would jumping her up to 3rd or even 4th grade reading and writing even address the underlying problem? I don't want her to spend elementary school identifying main characters in slightly more difficult books.

As far as working memory and math, you may well be right. My understanding is that working relates strongly to the ability to recognize and use patterns, so it seems likely that there would be a correlation between strengths in both areas. It may be worth having her tested in again in a few years and see if her abilities even out in either direction.

Many parents dedicate themselves to supporting their child's growth through enrichment and special-interest activities, classes, and/or camps outside of school.

For example, as a starting place there are:
- crowd-sourced reading lists of recommended books,
- Davidson Database lists of resources including contests/competitions,
- Hoagies' Gifted Education Page Kids and Teens page,
- homeschool ideas, such as Favorite Things listed by Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (GHF).

The key is to ensure the areas of study are child-led (chosen by the child) not parent-pushed. You may wish to keep a list of books read and a list of activities enjoyed.

Unfortunately, many gifted kids do not receive appropriate academic/intellectual challenge at school, and are not in the company of academic/intellectual peers. Both are important to the child's development. Therefore parents may strive to provide appropriate challenge and academic/intellectual peers outside of school. If given the opportunity, kids will hopefully begin to seek out these challenges and peers.

Actually, fluid reasoning, on which she performed in the High Average range, correlates more closely to the ability to recognize and use patterns. Working memory (of the kind assessed on the WISC) is more like how many moving parts you can hold and manipulate in your head at once. It's a very handy strength to have for arithmetic manipulations, which can contribute to solving multi-step problems of many kinds, but it doesn't necessarily translate to the kind of sophisticated conceptual understanding or abstract reasoning necessary for math past arithmetic.

I would be a bit more hesitant about whole-grade acceleration, given both her cognitive profile and what you're seeing in grade-level math achievement. SSA in reading/writing might be a better fit. And though SSA might not put her at her instructional level for reading and reading comprehension, it may lessen the disparity, and give her other skills to work on, especially in writing and organization.

I have a 5.5 year old who is attending public kindergarten for half-days only, after homeschooling previously.

If your daughter's school is amenable and your family situation allows it, half days have provided a good compromise for my son that balances his access to a classroom environment (particularly given his social inclinations) and to material in his ZPD for areas of interest.

I think the key is to document--and have the school independently document--progress in the areas you teach at home (whether by tests, work samples, or some combination thereof.) This provides a nice record validating the efficacy of your work and the value of the arrangement in terms that are both meaningful and actionable to the school going forward.

My son homeschooled 3 years! The next year my son did half day at home and half at elementary school. It worked for our purposes for half a year.

It would have worked better at the middle or high school level because you have distinct class periods. At the elementary level a teacher might assign a social studies paper on say black history month famous person and he was doing social studies with them in the afternoon. But they might work on the paper during Language arts in the morning (but we had our own thing going in language arts at home and didn't know that the other kids were working on their papers during language arts). So he would miss out on important instructions and always felt a step or two behind. Communication should have been better.

Also, he was doing only afternoon classes with them. Science was one of the classes. So the school had a fancy science lab and each class was scheduled in once a week or every other week.of course that was in the morning (when we had other things planned). So he was torn between fun science or our home school activities.

Finally he just went to school full time.

I think this half school / half home is a really interesting option. I have so many questions! Was this something the school suggested or did you have to fight for it? Will your son continue half days after Kindergarten too? Do you know of any literature that I could use to advocate for this option? Thanks in advance for your feedback.

You might want to check your State laws and local school policies (often found online, on the school or district website). Print a copy and save it in a ring binder, as laws and policies can change over time.

Look for anything related to homeschool students being allowed to attend their local public school part-time or for selected classes.

This link provides tips for advocacy approaches for working with schools.

In some states/districts, partial homeschooling is an option for everyone. Students register as homeschoolers, and then take selected courses at school (usually up to some maximum percentage of the school day), with grades for those classes going onto their homeschool transcript. Under those circumstances, they don't sit for state exams. In other states/districts, students can register as partially enrolled, or with a modified day, in which case their homeschooled grades are reported back to the school for recording on the school transcript, and they usually do sit for state exams.