So ive been lurking here for years, but this is my first post.My ds3.10 is in preschool(headstart) in a mixed age class 3 to 5. His teacher has him ability grouped with the prek kids for academic subjects. His initial brigance screen was perfect like 100 of 100. We have him in preschool to work on social emotional skills and that's going great! we really love the teacher and the program in general. The issue is that his teacher says if he's in her class again next year like he's suposed to be he will likely be in group in and of himself. For her to teach him anything new she'll need to individually differentiate, none of the other first year kids are where he is at all.
Also, in our district they've cut basically all gifted programing. There's one coordinator for the whole district, and as far as I can tell she doesn't have an office in the schools or anything, like she's contracted out. If you go to the gifted program page on the website it outlines how kids are identified and depending on what page you were on previously there is a link to the acceleration and early entrance policies.
The preschool is saying he is a good candidate for kindergarten. I tend to agree. All of us are skeptical that the school will take us seriously, but all you can do is try, right? So on the advice of the intervention specialist the school gave him the brigance screen that they give 5 year olds. He did poorly for him, missed the number 14 counting and his copywork was all a mess, and still scored 77 of 100 which is smack dab in the middle of what a five year old should get. He's in the top or above and in some areas well above across most areas of his school assesments.
He doesn't read but is showing every sign that he will soon. Ideally he won't start reading right now, because based on how fast he learns once he gets going, and certain similarities to me when I was his age I suspect that the progression from cvc words to sentences to chapter books will be very fast, and kindergarten will be a waste of his time.
So the teacher told me to call our local schools, give a little bit of background, and ask if they can test him for giftedness. I think they will say the only way to do that will be the early entrance referal, which has to come from his teacher or doctor because he's a may birthday.I think the idea is that asking directly about early entrance may give the school the wrong idea? The preschool is more than willing to do whatever they need to do.
So all in all its not such a mess, at least not yet, but I keep feeling like i'm missing something, that there are other ways to look at it that I haven't considered. My sisters both think I'm crazy and say they would never do that. My sister says if she had it to do over she would keep my sep bday niece(15) back a year. Most other people look at me like I have two heads when I talk about ds intelligence in terms of the problems it poses. I think they think I'm bragging or pushing. I'm so anxious over all this i almost can't bring my self to make the necessary phone calls.
Sorry I'm so ramble-ly.. but I will really appreciate any advice or suggestions.
thanks.
