DD6 is definitely gifted, and our psychologist who did her IQ testing tells us that she needs to be in the amazing program for exceptional gifties that our DD11 is in. However, the psychologist also found an LD that is holding DD6 back on both the IQ test and the achievement test. Apparently DD6 doesn't visually process numbers and letters correctly. I have personally seen her describe numbers like 23 as 32, etc. This also means that she has trouble figuring out which math operator is what, so she adds when she should be subtracting, etc. She does a fantastic job with math orally, so we know she knows this stuff. It is also affecting her writing. Her reading is awesome, but I have definitely seen issues with her transposing letters as well. I think she was such an early reader that she has already learned how to deal with the LD in her reading, so it did not affect her scores.
The psychologist believes that this issue prevented her from doing well on the block design test, something about DD6 perceiving the blocks backwards???
Anyway, we already started her in school a year early, so while she just turned 6 a week ago, she is in first grade. She came home last week telling me that she "might be too big for first grade" because she already knows "this stuff".
We are trying to accomplish two things. Our short-term goal is to get her into their standard pullout gifted program while we figure out how to help her with the LD. Hopefully after we address the LD, we can retest her for the amazing gifted program. So our longer term goal is to address the LD so we can find out what her true potential is.
The immediate problem is that the school is planning to use the TerraNova to test her for the normal gifted pullout program any day now. I suspect she won't make the cut. Is there anything I can be doing right away to help her learn the math operators or anything else that may help?
Then, I'd like advice on what we should be doing in general to help her with the LD. The psychologist recommended a certain tutor who works with these kinds of kids, so we will likely do that, but any other ideas?
To give you a bit more background, DD11 also did not make it into the normal pullout gifted program the first time she was tested. That school also told us that she was not "that gifted" before she easily tested into the amazing all-gifted, all the time, program for exceptionally gifties. We had a terrible experience with DD11 because by the time we got her into the great program, she had given up on school. We are trying to avoid a similar situation with DD6, but I am feeling like we are on the same exact path :-(
Thanks in advance for any advice.
