Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Ever feel like it is E/e?

DS5 is on the wait list for the Neurolearning Clinic (gifted/dyslexia specialists) and has OT for sensory processing and retained reflexes. His giftedness was confirmed with an IQ test earlier this year. I understand that high ability/IQ score doesn't equal high achievement/good grades. I get it. It is just hard to see it in your own kid.

I sat in on his class today for his Christmas Party. At the beginning in circle the teacher went through each kid and did either sight words or letter sounds. Most kids are doing sight words but a few are still on sounds. When it was my son's turn the teacher (not his usual one) asked which sight words he was on (they are numbered by groups). He said he did not know. A bright teacher pleasing girl spoke up and said "He doesn't do words. He still does sounds". He went through the sounds very quickly with only one reversal that he quickly corrected.

Later they played a combined class game of musical chairs. So it was forty something kids shuffling around a small classroom with loud music. AKA sensory kid's nightmare. He is of course one of the first ones out, gets frustrated, and cries. He quickly recovers to cheer on friends and it was fine. Not ideal but I was glad he recovered quickly.

His teacher mentioned at the party that he needs to work on remembering his classmates' names. That for some reason he can't seem to remember them and I should work with him on that. I wanted to say "Sorry, we are too busy. He has OT exercises, plus OT HWT, plus the BOB books, song sheets, sign language sheets, and sight word sheets you send home". She is nice and I would never be that rude it is just...ugh. I get that it is weird that his fingers don't seem to work right when it comes to sign language and sight words seem new every time and the BOB books we patiently read with him every night are for four year olds. We are working on all of it.

I don't mean to make it sound like he was bad or it was a bad party. The kids had fun. I liked seeing him with friends. Seeing other little boys save him a seat and goof around was cute. He seemed like a normal little kindergartener. He was not the only one to cry over trivial things. Overall, he was gracious, kind, helpful and well behaved.

The whole experience made me see that what ever giftedness he has, it isn't going to shine in the classroom for a long long time. He isn't going to be a strong reader compared to his peers. He can't consistently write numbers 1-10 so arithmetic is a struggle. Writing is improving but he still avoids it if he can.

I am not really sure there is a solution. It is just sad. It seems like one E is in bold 20 pt. font and the other is a tiny e in 10 pt. font.

Sounds like it's been a rough go as a misfit for your DS.

In our house, we sometimes call it exceptionality whack-a-mole. Something pops up as crucial to address, we throw our energy into it, make progress, and then something else pops up. It's exhausting.

Do you have a class picture at home? Practicing the names of the kids in the class is important. Most teachers will assume that all kids know all other kids by name within the first week. When you reach December, and your kid doesn't know then names, this places him in a difficult spot both socially and academically. If you have a class picture, it can almost just be a casual dinnertime thing. "Hey, who is this kid? What's he like?" and have a discussion about each child. Point out physical features of each kid to make them easier to identify if remembering the face seems to be the struggle, or discuss the name if remembering the name is what's difficult.

My dyslexic son took ages to learn the names of his classmates, and it is still a problem for him as a teenager. The picture idea is a good one.

He took longer than his classmates to learn to read, and needed intensive phonics instruction to associate sounds and letters. He can read well now, and writing for him is a real strength as long as he has a computer to do the spellchecks for him. The phonics is still a weakness, but the ability to analyze and integrate ideas is his strength.

Your son may well surprise you with his gifts after he finishes with the foundation learning he needs to do.

Thank you for sharing this. I know exactly how you feel... exactly.

Early elementary has certainly been THAT kind of experience for us. Big E, tiny e, with the disabilities always in the way. But with time and enormous attention to remediating problems, for DS10 in 5th grade, the E's are pretty close to equal, with the gifted E coming out on top more and more of the time.

It will not always be as it is today. Children learn and grow.

BTW: This app can be customized to make flash cards for identifying pictures of friends: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/word-slapps-vocabulary/id413888079?mt=8

DeeDee

The name thing is kind of odd. It isn't from lack of interaction with the other kids. He remembers details about them. Santa came to the classroom during the party and the kids went up to tell him what they wanted. While they were waiting the girl next to my son leaned over and said "I can't remember what I want. I don't know what to say". He said "You want a kitten. One with long white fur. That is what you said when we talked about this in class."

So he remembers faces and details about them. "The boy that swallowed his tooth" "The boy that gets to watch scarey movies" "The girl that is allergic to milk"
I found this interesting
http://www.beatingdyslexia.com/memory-management-techniques.html

We will figure out something.

I know we need to focus on strengths and not just weaknesses. I know he will get through elementary and be fine. It is just sad that what constitutes "school" for young 2E kids is mostly focused on weaknesses.

FWIW, our educational system is very hung up these days on early reading instruction when in fact a lot of kids aren't ready. There is plenty of research that shows that actively teaching young children (under 8) to read doesn't confer a long term advantage and can even hurt by turning reading into a painful chore. (I am not talking here about kids who spontaneously read without instruction.) it sounds like they have your little guy working so hard!

BTW, my 10 yo dd with WISC VCI 166 didn't read until 7. She had minimal instruction because we unschool. She now reads at a high school level. She has no LDs, but just had her own unique time table for picking this up. I realize not everyone can or wants to homeschool, but it does seem like our schools are a lot about fitting square pegs of all dimensions into some pretty narrow round holes.

Me too.

I've abandoned the hope of in-school performance being in any way reflective of DS's cognition... I've just kind of let it go.

(the silver lining is that in spite of his inability to function in class, his teacher still says she can see the wheels in his head turning )

My now 16 year old son seemed the opposite of gifted until he was 11 or 12 years old (he has dyslexia and ADHD). Even now, he has major problems with much of the academic work of high school. But with the things he is good at, he is very very good, and that's what keeps me believing that it will be ok in the end.

Actually, I should qualify the "major problems" thing. He has difficulty doing as well in school as he feels he should. He is currently in an IB program that seems to focus exclusively on his weaknesses, so doing well (his definition of doing well is all As) is elusive. I'm pretty sure that when he gets to college and is able to focus on science, math, and engineering, he will do very well.

So my point is, that for some kids it takes a really long time to see the giftedness. You tend to hear about the 2e kids where the second exceptionality is hidden by the giftedness, but there are some kids where it is the other way around for a very long time.

I have another son whose level of intelligence is pretty much the same as the older one's, but he doesn't have the dyslexia part. Everything is really easy for him--he is 10 years old, in 6th grade (one year skip) and in Algebra I. We are probably going to be going for a second whole grade skip soon as he is not challenged at all (except in math, and even there he's not overly challenged). I'm mentioning this because I continually find it amazing how different the world is for my two sons just because of the dyslexia.

I'm glad you will be seeing the Eides. They are amazing.

I did feel like the disability e overshadowed the ability e in terms of time invested in working during the early years of elementary - there's no way around it, when a child has an LD like dyslexia they are going to need to work much harder than kids (gifted or not) who don't share the LD. I've been frustrated for my ds over it, and wish like heck he didn't have an LD, but I've never really felt sad about it - it is what it is. What I did that helped me feel better early on (and also helped my ds once he was a little older than your ds, and after he had a definite diagnosis, was to read stories about successful adults who'd struggled with dyslexia etc - you can find *tons* of those stories online, about people who are very familiar to most of us as extremely successful adults (the founder of Jet Blue, Charles Schwab, Patricia Polacco (sp?) (author), the actor who plays Harry Potter is dysgraphic, etc). Most of these adults had a tough time in school, some didn't have their disabilities recognized until they were adults. The key theme though is that their LDs didn't define them as adults. I've tried my best to take what I can learn from reading their stories to help my ds get through school as best as possible. I've been up front with him from late elementary on that it's simply going to take more work than it takes his non-LD peers. That isn't the way anyone would want it, but that's the way it is. Gradually over time I see some of the brighter side of having to push through an LD to get to the other side, of having to put in all that extra work. DS is at the point where he's making progress, progress that *he* can really see and own, and that's helping tremendously with his ability to see that he can shine in spite of it all. Middle school made a huge difference too, because now the world of classes has opened up and he's got a chance to take accelerated classes with teachers who are teaching subjects they are trained in, not just general education all bunched into one class/one teacher. That's helped put ds in situations where teachers get to know him and start really appreciating his intellect and not seeing just the struggles.

I think another tough part of early elementary is that it's a time when *many* parents (not just parents of 2e or LD kids) compare milestones, and also when many parents are convinced their children are amazingly gifted because their children started sounding out words before they got to kindy. And parents like to talk about how amazing their kids are when they are starting out in school (and in preschool). This part of parenting (the part where you're immersed in all of that) is going to fade into the background relatively quickly once the kids hit 2nd grade and beyond. Early reading doesn't necessarily predict amazing intelligence - there is a wide variety of ages at which kids are developmentally ready to start reading - even EG/PG kids. In your case, I really do suspect that there's something to your ds' struggles based on what you've written, but I think it's important to keep this in mind so that it's not so painful comparing what's up with your ds to other kids in the classroom. Chances are he's not the only one who might still be working on sounding out letters or early site words, and chances are there could be other high IQ kids in amongst the kids who are not great readers yet.

I don't know if this bothered anyone else, but the idea of the whole class sitting together (and with parents in the room) and reviewing where they are at in reading seems potentially embarassing for some of the kids - I know it would have bothered 2 out of 3 of my kids. When my kids were in K/1, reading was done in small groups so that similar-paced kids were together.

Anyway, I apologize - I had to post this in a hurry and I'm not sure it makes sense.... please know it's not always going to feel like E/e - the LD is *not* going to take away from the amazing person and the amazing thoughts and ideas that your ds holds inside, it's just going to make it tough for awhile to fit into the square peg of elementary school.

Hang in there,

polarbear

eta - just wanted to add that I think, for me, the most frustrating thing over the years is seeing how the LD e has impacted my ds' socially. He fits in really well socially at school and has friends now, but he felt very alone and different in early elementary, and it felt to me like the people you'd think would go out of their way to care about having kids like ds feel included (teachers and school staff) instead treated him as if there really was something "different" about him (rooted in personality, not LD). Getting him out of the school he was in helped tremendously with that, but even now, when he has a great school environment and has friends and is popular at school and things are rosy... he is still spending so much time on homework at night that he doesn't have the free time other kids have. He purposely chooses not to join many after-school group activities because his first thought is always "I won't have enough time to get my homework done"... so that's not exactly what I'd hoped and dreamed of for school and outside of school to look like for my kids. And that honestly still gets to me at times.

Re not remembering names - my ds never could remember names of his classmates. He finally remembers them now, in middle school, but otoh he's in a very small school and he's in the same classes with mostly the same kids all day. I think part of it is his LD, and part of it is what he's interested in. Even though he remembers their names now, I still see big differences in the types of things he notices at school vs what his sisters notice - they are much more socially aware, and that part of it (for my ds) I think is simply that what the other kids are doing just doesn't interest him as much, kwim? In any event, there were things in K/1 that I just didn't worry about as important for my kids and let it slide - I think that in this case, memorizing his classmates names might be one of them.