Thanks for the advice, all! I'm not sure what the policy on responding to messages is, but I'm doing a one-by-one response here in one message. I hope that's okay. I certainly don't want to offend people who are offering such GREAT help to me!
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Dottie: The doc told me DS's scores, but we don't have the written report yet. With the low subtest (a 9/19) included, he got a 134. If we toss that one subtest, he scored 138. Not sure what the doc was basing his observations of HG/EG/PG on, now that you ask. He's the expert, and his comments didn't set off any alarm bells for me, so I just accepted what he said. (duh!) I'll ask him.
DS is very verbal. He was most consistent and high-scoring on the verbal part of the SB-V, without a doubt. Lots of 17/19s. Only the memory subtest tripped him up. I think he got a 14 there, which is probably enough to keep him out of YSP range on the verbal. But maybe that means the WISC would be more likely to show his strengths to his best advantage? Hmmm...
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J: You ask if things line up with my expectations. I'll repeat: I really have a hard time answering that!
If you asked me to hazard a guess 6 months ago, I'd have guessed DS was probably a vanilla gifted (just plain G or maybe MG) kid. EVERYTHING he's done, tested, demonstrated, etc. indicates that he's higher than that. The one thing I'm sure of now is that he's NOT level 2 or below!
As I understood Dr. Ruf's book, it seems that DS could be anything from level 3 to level 5. My gut says he was probably level 3-4 before homeschooling, where he now has a much greater opportunity for self-direction and the passion that flows from self-directed study. His dates on Dr. Ruf's checklist put him somewhere between a 3-5--he did most things earlier than the level 3s, and he didn't do everything that is listed as an "all level 5s do thus-and-so," so I guess I'd place my bets on level 4.
Here are the facts:
He enjoyed books and songs from birth, and held his head up to look around as soon as the epidural was out of his system. (Rough induced-from-zero birth experience!) By the time he was sitting up in his Boppy (assisted sitting), he was looking at board and cloth books with interest and indicating when we was ready to turn the pages by grunting and bouncing. He taught himself letters and numbers by working 2 puzzles (one with the alphabet and the numerals from 0-9, so 36 pieces, and one with his full name spelled out, so 18 pieces) for HOURS every day while he was about 13 months old. I told him the names for the letters and words that started with each letter just to keep ME from losing my mind with boredom! By 15 months, he knew every letter and number, even upside down and backwards, and could make most of the sounds for the letters, too. His patience was astonishing for anything he wanted to learn. Frustration was virtually never apparent...just constant, patient practice. He read his first "easy reader" book that he'd never seen before at 3y.7mo. He could identify every color in the 64-crayon box and the make and model of every car in the _Consumer Reports_ annual auto issue that he saw on the road by the time he was 2...and would correct us if we got either wrong. He could count to 10 in three languages with 1-to-1 correspondence before age 2 and say the alphabet in 3 languages then, too. By age 3 he had moved on to NASCAR (which no one in our family cares one whit about except him), and he had memorized every driver/car colors & numbers/sponsors/etc. for every car on the circuit. He was keyboarding by age 3. He sucked his thumb until age 3, when the dentist told him to stop because it was hurting his mouth; he stopped that day and never once put his thumb back in his mouth. He was writing and illustrating books of his own before age 4 (though the words weren't always legible to anyone but DS...). He grasped simple x+1 = 3 type algebra by age 4. I had a hard time pre-testing him for math for homeschooling this fall because he taught himself how to do the problems he'd never seen before as I was giving him the test.
So what does all of that mean?
There's so much overlap on dates on Dr. Ruf's lists, and I don't have anything/anyone to compare him to, so I'm just not sure. I wouldn't be surprised to find that with an appropriate learning environment--which he hasn't gotten (even from us) since he was an infant!--he might very well be a level 5. Or he might be a level 3, and I'm just reading Ruf all wrong.
I am pretty well persuaded that his achievement test scores were probably too high. I think I could have been wrong about DS by 1 standard deviation; I can't BELIEVE I could have been wrong by two! That's a whole lot of wrong! But I also think his SB-V was probably too low. He is a highly verbal kid. I'm pretty satisfied that DS's skill with patterns and puzzles just threw me (and the psychologist, BTW), and we gave him a test that didn't suit him. He's likely to test better on the WISC.
As for having a HG in public school...we are currently homeschooling, and it is the right choice for us for this year. I don't mean to say that no HG can go to public school. (Though Dr. Ruf's work would seem to indicate that a level 1 or 2 school is pretty unlikely to promote thriving for an HG or higher child, even with special adaptations...) But I agree completely with the psychologist that OUR HG+ cannot thrive in OUR school system, which does little to support gifted kids. Even with grade advancement--which would be a BIG fight to get--I'm not sure he'd do okay there. Homeschooling has been our saving grace this year!
My only hesitation with keeping up the homeschooling is really a selfish one: I'm trying to finish a novel, and I'm getting nowhere on it this year. But I think I'm coming to grips with that reality. It will just have to get done when it gets done.
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Trinity: I didn't know what the Davidson's policy for financial aid is, if there was a need-based component. Thanks for the help there. We're in that middle class dilemma: we almost certainly earn too much to qualify for need-based financial aid, but we don't earn enough to send DS to private school without decimating his college fund. We're not willing to do that when homeschooling is working about 90% great.
We may merely need to make some fairly minor course corrections (mainly to preserve the sanity of this introvert mom! LOL!) and keep going as we are now. There's a LOT we all like about homeschooling, and when DH and I were discussing other options for DS's education, DS jumped in with a heartfelt "I want to keep homeschooling!" argument. He's very happy.
I don't think we're simply defaulting to homeschooling. Especially in the light of the very helpful "deeper, not just faster" discussion in the calculus trap thread, I think homeschooling is probably DS's best option. If it weren't for my need for alone time and my novel, I don't think I'd have any question about it being the best option for our family.
So, in short, we're mostly doing as you suggest: covering our bases. I need evidence before I make decisions! So we're gathering it.
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So after reading everything you all wrote and thinking through what we need to know...I'm still on the fence about DS's taking the WISC. *sigh*
Homeschooling is certainly the most attractive option for us as far as getting a good education at a price we can afford. So any help we might get from YSP (financial and otherwise) might not be vital to us. We can afford to pay for the test...but I don't know that we need to.
I guess I have more thinking to do...
Thanks again! It's so nice to be able to walk through all this with people who GET IT and can offer such good help! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for indulging me and my babbling!
K-
