Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Will there ever be a right grade/ school?

DS6 made the move to 2nd grade 1 month ago. He is coasting by- especially in math. I KNOW he needs the writing instruction and language arts of 2nd grade. Socially, he is doing ok but he is very introverted and I'm not sure he is fitting in 100%. On the WISC-IV, his GAI was 143 with his PR score significantly higher than VC. He "gets" math concepts right away and can't seem to bear the practice and repetition that goes on in 2nd grade.

I feel like attending public school builds social skills and provides highly skilled teachers- I would love see him "find his place." I hate to doubt his intellectual capabilities- but I find it so difficult to understand why he can't relax and be patient with learning alongside his peers. It took effort to move him up the grade and I was hoping that would help his feelings about school.

For those that have struggled with school issues- any recommendations on which way to turn? Do we seek more challenge for him academically? (like going to another grade for math?) Or do we seek some counseling to help him deal with his feelings and intensity? I don't know many other parents of gifted kids (I've never brought up testing data with other parents because that would feel awkward) but I'm beginning to feel like were are hitting another education wall. I'm sorry to say it.... but I don't understand my own child and have limited experience.

My kids hate math repetition as well. It turns their favourite subject into dreary drudgery. Can your son be given 3rd grade math material? I'd definitely ask for this.

Also, imho, counseling never hurts. We've done private as well as in-school counselors. The intensity is just something you learn to live with, and it does ease up a little as they get older and more discerning as to what they respond to.

Hi, Hils,
Our DD started asking for 'more math' when she was a couple of years older than your DS, and she was lucky enough then to have a wonderful Montessori teacher who was happy to give her and a couple of other kids 'advanced' lessons that year. The next year, different teacher, nothing doing, so we still haven't found a perfect place for her, but have opted for extracurricular math enrichment. It's discussed here often, and there are some free sites, which is great. Our DD does IMACS, which we are lucky enough to have 'live' here, and she's been going to the math part for three years now and loves it. Also we've been doing EPGY on days when she has time. I'm not sure how any of it will end up fitting back into school placement, but I think it was the right thing to do for her. Hopefully she will be able to place or test out and/or do independent study if she gets back into a school that has traditional grade levels (we're still at Montessori for now, and lucky enough to be back with another great teacher, but even with a pretty small class and a philosophy of individual instruction, we couldn't realistically expect the teacher to really create a math program just for our DD especially with all the other positive stuff she's doing for DD). Good luck to you and your DS.

The only thing to mention is that it is very important eventually for kids to get their math facts down cold. It is extremely boring but there is no way around it. It will hinder them in higher level math.
With my second grader, he got the addition and subtraction math facts down mainly by flashcards and a few Kumon workbooks. We are working on multiplication facts, incredibly, since some kids in his regular second grade class are doing that.
He doesn't like it but we are chipping away at it.

are there any gifted options? My son is now in a gifted school and the repetition does not seem to be as extensive. They seem to move faster which keeps it from being drudgery. Skipping a grade gets to more appropriate level but not necessarily speed.

DeHe

What are your options? Can you move? Are there schools or towns near you or far away that you could get to?

We gave up the struggle and are at a school with flexible ability based grouping now, and it is worth every bit of the hardship to make it work. For our children the solution covers multiple grades and includes loving teachers to help with social/anxiety issues.

The answer to the question posed in the thread title is...



perhaps not. HG+ children are rare, statistically, and this means that unless you are fortunate enough to live in a densely populated area, your child is going to spend most of his/her childhood as something of a singularity.

This does NOT mean that it is okay to tell such a child to be something that s/he cannot be in order to make the adults and peers in his/her life more comfortable.

What can you do to make it better, instead of "right"?

This is what my DD's school was supposed to be like but once the administration was hired they turned into just grouping within classrooms for reading, and within a grade for math.

How do they do the grouping across grades and keep it flexible?

I agree with Howler that it's unlikely you'll find "the right" school - not only are HG+ kids statistically rare, they are also quite often very unique so even if you had a "bunch" of HG+ kids together in a cluster, it would be tough to put together a school program that met the needs of each child. It's also important to remember that not all schools are "equal" or the same, even within the same school district. For example, in our school district the neighborhood elementary schools are widely varying in quality of education as well as strengths and weaknesses and occasionally special programs. Although it's not something that's advertised, you can apply for a neighborhood exemption to attend an out-of-neighborhood school *if* the attendance at the school you want to go to isn't at 100% for the grade your child is in. If your district has charter schools that's another potential that's worth checking into, as well as private schools. I wouldn't let worries about tuition scare myself out of private school until you've talked with the school about aid and scholarships.

So for us, we've found that what worked best was digging in and researching all the school options we could find, then picking the schools that seemed to fit best for our kids. It's not a "perfect" fit, but it's a better fit than if we'd just defaulted to our neighborhood school and not stayed actively involved in advocating during elementary school. We also informally after-school (following our kids' lead) as a way of keeping them engaged with their passions.

polarbear

My ds' school does this (across multiple grade levels) in some subjects by scheduling a subject at the same time every day across all grades. In grammar they differentiate by having the kids work independently at their pace in leveled series textbooks. In subjects that are tackled together as a grade-level class students are encouraged (actively) to dig deeper and explore based on their abilities.

polarbear