Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments What are Wolf's options?

I had a realization today and it has been bugging me since then. By the end of next year (end of 5th grade) Wolf will be though all the curriculum necessary to start high school. We would have to do a three year skip on top of the one year skip he already has just to get him placed at his working level. He could start high school at age ten.

What do we do then? I think his current Independent Study teacher is retiring soon and she doesn't have high school curriculum anyway, although she might be able to get access to it. I'm trying to get everything together to send in his application to Davidson. No one knows what to do with him at this point. I've been intentionally slowing down his math progress (only 3 epgy sessions a week gets him through over a year of math a year), but now I'm wondering if there is any point.

He is in a k-8 independent study program with a district transfer right now. Regular brick and mortar school is out as an option for him until after elementary/high school (he's a very active and outspoken boy). The district he's in has NO gifted program, although the high school has IB. Our home district has paid lip service to GT and has a very basic pull out program in 3-8 (extra work on top of regular classes), not sure what they offer in high school, possibly a few AP options.

AP classes wouldn't phase him now so they probably won't be an issue in a year. The schools that I am aware of don't offer AP till Jr/Sr year though.

No one knows what to do with him, not even his current teacher. We simply dump information at him and watch as it gets soaked up and he begs for more. He has a district transfer because before K our home district threw up their hands (polite version of what happened). The teacher he has now basically said, "I have no idea, but I'll work with him."

The only areas he needs to actually work on to get to the end of 8th by the end of next year are writing (he'll answer verbally just fine, but ask him to write it and suddenly it turns into three word sentences; writing/typing take too long compared to the speed of his brain so he gets frustrated) and math. The math he has been intentionally slowed in. If I simply stop that he'll be through 8th math by the end of next school year with little to no problem.

I don't feel comfortable sending him to a high school campus and I'm not sure if any of the virtual programs will allow a 4 year difference in work level vs. age, especially for a kid just starting the program. He'd be going into 5th by age at the time he'll be ready for high school level work.

I was all well and good with "in the future." "High school at ten years old" is much more daunting.

What about the Stanford Online High School?

CFK, It's not the 2013-2014 school year, it's the next one. He's already taking history with the 8th graders and having no trouble with the workload. His teacher and I are working with him on the writing output and I'm pretty sure it will be up to snuff by the end of this year, much then less next.

Middle school much have really changed if you can take algebra and geometry! He'll probably be at least part way through algebra by the end of next school year though, so that shouldn't be an issue.

And I said that going on campus to high school at ten wasn't going to be an option. I'm glad we agree on that!

KJP, is Stanford Online High School like EPGY? Also, if it has anything more than minimal fees it won't be an option...

There is a vast difference in output between AP and 8th grade, which means focusing on output seems reasonable. Some students are ready for high school at 10 (or before) but to do high school in a regular classroom requires meeting the behavioral expectations as well as the work requirements.

Personally, I thought EPGY math covered the basics but wasn't very challenging. If he likes math, I'd suggest AoPS to provide some challenge and curriculum outside the basics. It's much more challenging than EPGY and offers multiple free options as well.

I also agree that middle school may have more options than you imagine. A local middle school has kids doing math through calculus and online AP courses even in 6th grade. It does get much easier after elementary.

I have no direct experience with Stanford OHS, but my friend's DD has taken some courses. The course format is a virtual classroom, with scheduled class times and lectures you attend by videoconference. There is the usual homework, quizzes, do-at-home but reasonably rigorous labs where appropriate, etc. The instructor holds office hours online.

I have heard praise and complaints about course quality- apparently it's not very consistent, but the good ones are very very good.

I believe they accept anyone ready for the work, and you can attend anything from one class to a full HS enrollment. They are rather expensive. I have no idea whether they do financial aid, but it never hurts to ask.

Hopefully someone on this board will have more information than I can give you!

What about going deeper and wider instead of accelerating? What I mean is, instead of going on to the next "grade level" math or whatever, go into more depth on math concepts that don't typically get covered in regular math (don't know enough math to give examples). Or, focus on World War I instead of going with the "world history". Science has endless possibilites that don't get covered in regular school. That way, he learns stuff but isn't so far ahead of his age mates in the regular school curriculum.

Or, is this what the Independent Studies teacher is doing?

Our middle school offers Algebra in 7th grade and Geometry in 8th grade. Then Algebra II in 9th, Pre-Calculus in 10th, AP Calculus AB in 11th, and AP Calculus in 12th.
I would definitely make sure he knows his math facts cold. So many kids get to higher level math and they are still adding or multiplying on their fingers.
For math, I've switched to workbooks from Brighter Child. I had them do Kumon at a younger age to improve math facts, some Singapore Math for Problem Solving, and now this Brighter Child for early Algebra.
Writing is really important. I think most boys hate it! My 4th grader in our local gifted program just wrote a little research paper on the desert. He wrote 6 paragraphs, each about one page long- it took him about an hour per paragraph. They supposedly did it in class, but he didn't so he did it at home.

While I don't have personal experience with the program, I believe from the information on their website that the Stanford Online High School is different than EPGY. It is also really expensive BUT there are financial aid/ scholarships. He could apply and see what happens.

I don't know anything about the study program Wolf has been in, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt - but here goes! It might also sound like I'm saying B&M schools are better than homeschool etc, and I'm not - it's just a list of the things I think that you can contemplate for Wolf - I think there are quite a few things between where he's at now and graduating from high school that can be fun and beneficial for him if you send him back to a B&M school.

I think that many times when we look at our children's education it's easiest to quantify "where" they are at by looking at the nuts-and-bolts core curriculums of Language Arts & Math - but really there is so much more that goes on in B&M schools, particularly once you get to middle and high school. For instance, has Wolf studied a foreign language yet? My ds12, 7th grade, is in his 2nd year of Spanish and he loves it. Is Wolf taking any kind of music lessons? Has he studied any programming yet? Those are all things that my children have studied *in* school.

There is also the component of having real live people in the room for having a discussion - a type of learning that's not necessarily terribly deep but it's out there as a potential push for thinking in a different direction than happens when you're taking virtual courses - and even if it's not up to the intellectual level a child is capable of, I still see that it's spurred ds12 on to think more about things he wouldn't have otherwise on his own, which I think is worth something. I'm sure I mangled up that explanation so completely that it doesn't make sense, but what I'm trying to say is that ds is getting different things out of not-so-high-level courses at school in things like social studies than he gets from the gifted out-of-grade-level courses he is taking outside of school online, and they both have their merits.

There is also (I think) a potential that when you have a child pacing quickly through the curriculum on their own they are potentially only focusing on the required curriculum, and there is a lot that kids who aren't racing through are getting "on the side" in the B&M classroom. For instance, in my ds' Spanish class, he isn't just learning how to speak and write Spanish, he's learned so much about culture in Spanish speaking countries around the world. He watches movies in Spanish. He has live conversations in Spanish. He hears his teacher speak on-the-fly in Spanish. I see him benefit from seeing the work that other students do in subjects like Social Studies and Science.

You mentioned that writing and typing are roadblocks for Wolf because he thinks quicker than he can output. My ds12 has the same challenge. Are you completely certain Wolf doesn't have either dysgraphia or an expressive language disorder? And whether or not that's the case, finding ways to cope with this challenge is extremely important once our kids hit middle school. Eventually they *have* to cope with it, and there are tons of ways to do so, but now is the time to really start focusing on trying to find the AT that is going to make it possible for Wolf to get his thoughts out in "written" expression ("written" can mean typing, voice-to-text, etc - but he needs to be able to do it independently, not with scribing and oral reports to a teacher). If you find that the words and ideas *still* aren't flowing out even after Wolf has found accommodations that should work for him (for example, he knows how to type and is proficient at it but still struggles summarizing a book or writing a multiple-paragraph story), then there may be more going on than just physical output issues, and now a *great* time to really work on written expression and tackling whatever challenges are there - before AP classes, before IB, before talent search online classes, etc.

My last suggestion - it may look like there are no choices/options for Wolf within your local schools, but there may be more than is obvious on the surface. While there might not be a "gifted" program, there may be classes grouped based on ability. There may be some amazing teachers and advisors who would love to work with a kid like Wolf. There may be cool after-school programs like robotics etc that Wolf could get excited about. The science lab may be amazingly well-equipped. There may be teachers who are passionate about what they teach - a biology teacher who really brings biology to life. There might be a wide *variety* of courses in subjects that Wolf loves.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Trust me, our brick and mortar schools are NOT where Wolf needs to be. I've cared for multiple children who have gone through the local school. I WISH we lived somewhere with a good school system set up for smart kids, but we simply don't and it's not in my ability to change that at the moment.

In his Independent Study program he is taking US History with a group of children (mostly 8th graders) as well as conversational Spanish and Study Hall. He's getting classroom face time and enrichment classes. We also work on sign language at home, he is in a good martial arts program and are looking into ways to fund music lessons.

As for depth rather than acceleration, Wolf works through the school book and we research everything he's interested in as we go along. With him is really is an issue of finding enough information to throw at him.

He can write, as in organize thoughts, create a properly structured paragraph, etc. He has done Nanowrimo now for three years and has had a college English professor tell me he writes better than students she has starting in her class. The problem is that he doesn't like to write and gives up on it. I have the same issue in that my typing doesn't come close to the speed of my thoughts. I've learned to deal with it over time, but I remember how screamingly frustrating it was as a child.

I really do appreciate all the suggestions. I'm flailing about trying to figure out what to do next. All of this is helping me think and sort it out.

I would agree with the pp to go broad. There is a world of knowledge out there - Ancient History, Latin, Chinese, music, sports, psychology. Check out your local college to see what books they have in the bookstore for these subjects. Try to avoid the subjects he will take in HS if he goes anyway... for example skip calculus, but go for code breaking or statistics.

I've been thinking about this for a few days, and the prior posts give some great advice. I have seen the math questions in a number of recent threads, and while my kids are not PG (and eldest is not even a "math type"), I have some thoughts about elementary age kids and math (feel free to comment/disagree):

- Bright kids can race through 5th to 6th grade level math, as it is mostly "mechanical", just going through the steps sort of math
- Kids, even very advanced ones, will slow down a bit when they reach math that requires more conceptual thinking
- When you reach middle/HS level math, there are math competitions that will allow the child to "go broader". For example, try MathCounts. If there is not a local school MathCounts, you can start one or just compete as an individual. If Wolf attends MathCounts at a local school, he may find some kids more on his level.
- Kids can "do" some high level math at a young age, but most don't really understand what they are doing. I had a babysitter who taught me calculus when I was in 5th grade (derivatives, not integrals). I could get the right answer, but I had no idea why I was doing it or how I could apply it to real life problems.

As others mentioned, there is often Algebra I in 7th and Geometry in 8th for accelerated students. In our district, if kids are more advanced than that, they are bussed to HS for math. HS math goes through Linear Algebra, and you can also take AP Stats. When you run through all of those courses, kids go to a local college for math (we are lucky that there are three 4 year colleges less than a mile from the HS).

Beyond the math, if it is possible for Wolf to attend a B&M school part-time, I think there could be some good resources as well as some good social interaction. If you are looking at ways to fund music lessons, the local school could help. Strings start in 4th grade and band in 5th in our district, and lessons are given in school and are free. I guess it depends upon which state you live in, but here homeschooled students can participate in the public school activities such as band, sports, clubs, etc. if they wish to do so.

Also, I don't completely understand his current situation with the history class - is it sort of like a homeschool co-op? What sort of assignments is he required to complete? Our 8th grade history is not differentiated, but all kids are expected to write a fair amount. There is a 10+ page research paper, and the kids must produce a visual to go along with the paper and do an oral presentation in front of the class. Is there work like that so he will be prepared for HS history classes?

Good luck - you'll figure out something that works.

Wolf is in an Independent Study program that has optional teacher led on campus classes. It is the equivalent of B&M 8th grade U.S. History class with the exception that the lower grade students are not expected to complete the in depth Constitution work/test. They are writing a research paper on one of the states (pretty sure it's going to end up at 10+ pages) and a book report on a historical novel.

Everyone's suggestions have been very helpful, thank you.