Thank you for the warm welcome. You are so right ebeth - I have been staring at these scores and trying to make sense of them. The tester said he's in the 99.9th percentile, and I've been going buggy trying to figure out what exactly that means for school, parenting, and life in general. What kind of beautiful little person do we have?
I always knew he was bright. He read at two years 3 months (11 3-letter words), memorized the alphabet sounds at 19 months, and by 2 had learned all the planets (in order), continents, and everything else I could feed his little brain. He didn't start to have school problems until age 4, when his private Montessori school allowed him to start Kindergarten. They let most kids start K at that age, so that wasn't unusual.
His teacher said he wouldn't do the worksheets, would play with his pencil, talk, or sit and goof off. She said he knew the material and was very smart. But he would always be the last one done with any assignment. His handwriting was awful. I could always pick out which drawing was his, as it was the most scribbly and "babyish" looking. (I always praised his work however, keeping this observation to myself)
I just figured he didn't like to draw. Big deal. As a toddler, he'd take the crayons out of the box, name all the colors, count them, put them in the box, repeat. Never liked to draw.
Now we have found that his visual/motor integration is at around age 5.0 (he's 6.5). Hence the 11 on the block design (which is average, but his drawing and writing are below his age) Since it's so much lower than every other ability, it's acting like a learning disability. So says the tester.
After Montessori Kindergarten, he went to public Kindergarten. He was already working at the first grade level, despite the worksheet/drawing/writing issue. They said they'd give him work at his ability level. This was not true. He pretty much was babysat for a year. At the beginnging of the year his teacher had said his messing around was just a maturity issue, by the end of the year she suggested we see a doctor. The sheets where he had to color the circles, or circle the things with the letter A drove him nuts. There were tears over homework. He refused to do the work, but we forced him, even if it took a long time. His sister (20 months younger) begged to do his homework, as it was the same as the work she did in preschool. We seriously considered it...
So we brought him back to his Montessori school. He's in first grade now, having lost a year. But that's ok, as they let the kids work at their own pace. His teacher now is amazing and wonderful, and we are lucky to have her.
I took my son to the pediatrician to get a referral for IQ testing, and possible neurological testing (my husband has a rare form of epilepsy, so neurological issues were a possibility). I told the doc he could read at two, that ADD (he seemed like he had the innatention kind) and giftedness mimic each other sometimes. He was only interested in ADD, and gave me forms to fill out.
So we paid for independent testing, and learned exactly what was going on. He can concentrate just fine, as long as something is interesting. I knew this, but with two teachers telling me it may be ADD, I got worried.
That was Friday, and I'm now trying to digest the information. I've been searching the web, trying to learn what highly gifted means. The tester told us the public schools are pretty much out, even the GATE programs in our district are little more than extra problems at the end of normal lessons in regular classrooms. Montessori school ends at 2nd grade (next year) and the only other options are two private schools - one that has a very regimented curriculum, and one that teachers and parents have warned us against.
So that's how I ended up here, trying to get a grasp on what is up with my beautiful babies.
