I'm updating our situation with DS8 after taking the very useful and insightful advice from forum members. To recap - DS8 is in Third Grade and always performed at an average/below average level (apart from in a few isolated areas). Because he was born the day before the cut off and because red shirting is very common in our area he would actually be a better fit age-wise with the year below. i.e. he is the youngest boy in third grade but would be the 8th oldest in second grade. Given this and the fact that he sometimes struggles academically we had him assessed by an educational psychologist to get advice on whether he should repeat third grade. That assessment showed he had an IQ in the 98th percentile and as a result the psych recommended against repeating.
We were surprised (to put it mildly) by this result and (to be honest) I'm still not sure I believe it. On the advice of Forum members we've had some further assessment for some type of learning disability that could be masking the high IQ but without uncovering anything. He's been assessed by a behavioural optometrist and found to have no vision issues. He's been seen by an OT for writing problems and found to be perfectly normal. I met with the learning support teacher at his school and asked about stealth dyslexia (because he needed a lot of remediation before he learnt to read). She was not the learning support teacher when he was doing reading recovery so she doesn't know him but she laughed out loud when I asked her about him and showed me his latest reading scores which put him apparently at a 7th grade level. This is not as advanced as it sounds as (when I pushed her) she said that what this meant was at the minimum level for 7th Grade and about 30% of the year at already at that level. So he's not way ahead but given that they have (apparently) 8 students in the year who can still barely read, they are not going to spend any time worrying about any problems he has. I also met with his class teacher who was polite and said she was 'mildly surprised' at his IQ score but couldn't give me any reason for him not doing better in class. She says he doesn't have any behavioural issues that would get in the way of his learning - he's sometimes a bit talkative but nothing major. I also talked to her and to the gifted and talented program coordinator about the gifted and talented pull-out program (1 day a fortnight plus some afterschool sessions, shared with 2 neighbouring schools). The cut-off IQ score for the program is 95% so on paper he would qualify but from talking to them about what is involved we all agreed that it didn't seem like the right thing for him (for a whole heap of reasons both academic and personal).
So, my questions are: is there anything we have missed? Or anything else we should test for? Or is it possible to have an IQ this high and perform at an average/below average level without there being a reason and without this being a problem? Should his IQ make any difference to whether or not he repeats a year or should we just ignore it and focus on the other factors that are relevant, like his grades and age? Or, if he has a high IQ and no learning disability, should we be challenging him more by putting him into programs like the gifted and talented one - even if he doesn't feel like he fits? Or should we just do nothing and forget about the test scores and let him find his own way?
