Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Intro and question

ha, yes - we're homeschooling strictly out of necessity - never in a MILLION years would i have thought i'd be doing this! the need for a triple-grade skip right off the top really pushed us in that direction.

we did our assessment in a couple of ways - our region has by-grade curriculum expectations posted online, so it was easy to check DD's performance against the standards.

reading level was easy, because though she was late to start for a kid like her at 5 (the psychologist determined she had been actively preventing herself from learning to read,) she went from zero words to reading chapter books aloud in a matter of weeks. i've kept an eye on her mastery through the Lexile level, but mainly we just let her read whatever she wants for pleasure, and i now can give her (appropriate) non-fiction materials for school that are essentially meant for adults.

for math, we used Mathletics as an assessment tool - they have a great online program which (though not a standalone curriculum) is really amazing for practice problems and getting a sense of where the gaps might be.

for stuff like spelling, i just got grade-level lists online (granted, like everything else, these vary) - and verbally asked her to try writing down how she would spell the words.

and this is where i got really lucky - an experienced grade-school teacher who had seen hundreds of kids volunteered to take a look at DD's work for us after we got talking at DD's dance studio one day. she'd noticed how different DD was than other kids (she's now accelerated 3+ years in dance, too) and was very interested in hearing more about her. we invited her over and even though by then we pretty much knew what we were getting into, it was such a great confirmation. it's rare to find a teacher who believes in acceleration these days, particularly in our neck of the woods where the watchwords are "in-grade enrichment" - which essentially means *more*, not *different*, or *faster*.

i often feel like i'm winging it, too! the nice thing is when they're young you have lots of time - especially given the pace these kids learn! without an external person measuring everything, it can feel a little scary, but the validation comes when you see them apply the skills they've learned - it's such a relief!