Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Hello

Hi, I'm new to this forum. I'm K, mom to A(4yo girl) and M (baby girl). My daughter A is gifted, and I'm having increasing difficulties relating to other parents of kids her age. I feel bad talking about her interests, what she's been doing, etc., because it feels like bragging. She's so far ahead, even compared with the other "gifted" kids her age. I've never met another child like her. I'd love to be a part of a community, even an online one, of people who "get it".

A reads all the time. I appreciated some of the chapter book suggestions in another thread. She reads a lot of non-fiction too, and is very interested in astronomy, dinosaurs, medicine, animals, and nature.

We just signed up for the Dreambox math program, and she loves it. I don't think she'd stop for meals if we let her keep playing. How long should we let her play?

She's in pre-K now, so not too much academics,but we're going to have problems with school at some point. We're considering testing to have a better idea of her academic needs.

She has started writing poetry, and she loves rhymes and word play.

Spelling and handwriting are the two areas she is not super ahead in. Her school does "creative spelling," and she hates it. She wants to know the proper spelling. I'm considering just teaching her old school spelling.

I'm leaning towards keeping her in K next year rather than pushing for grade 1 so that she can have another year of running around in princess dresses. Grade 1 has no play time, except for recess. I think she will be done with grade 1 math within a couple months anyway, and she's about at grade 3 for reading, so I don't know how much a single grade skip would help anyway. And then there's the writing, which is really not up to snuff for anything past grade K or 1.

I could go on and on, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Nice to "meet" you all!

Welcome! Will she be in K at the same school or moving to an elementary? If she is moving to elementary, you may have problems with her being disappointed with the level of work at "big kid" school.

Same school. She's in a pre-K through 12 private. The pre-K and K spend a LOT of time together, so I think she at least knows what to expect. There will be a little more academics next year, and she'll be full-day instead of half, but overall, it will be similar to this year. So she should know what to expect. She recently announced that she is ready for middle school (starts in 5th grade). She's not, but she does know she's ahead.

The class will be bigger though, about 15 kids instead of 5, so I don't know if differentiation will be as easily done as it is this year. We should have a chat with the K teacher.

Hello! I was just wondering if your daughter was happy this year in pre-k? I don't have any experience with this yet since my kids are 3.5 and 7 wks, but I would hesitate to have my son repeat a similar program with a longer day unless he really loved it and it was fairly open-ended. What did the teacher do for differentiation for your daughter this year?

Generally, she loves school. We had a problem with another girl in her class being mean to her (the school didn't want to call it bullying). So that was a huge problem, but they handled it well, and it's a lot better now. I can still see that she is stressed somewhat by the social dynamics and conflicts at school, but it's more normal type issues now.

A has complained a little bit about math being boring, and I don't think there's been a whole lot of differentiation there.

The teacher lets A help read the stories to the class. Sometimes the teacher sits one-on-one with A and has her read out loud, asks her questions, etc.

Every morning when the children do their writing, the teacher tries to have A do inventive spelling rather than the copying the other children are doing. She also has A write on other work. For example, if the children are working on numbers, A writes the numbers out as well sometimes.

The teacher has tried to get A making books. I don't know how well A has done with the writing part.

So, lots of writing. A's teacher knows we are considering pushing for a skip, so I think she is trying to get A writing. k is expected to write quite a bit by the end of the year.

There are no chapter books or easy readers in the room, but lots of picture books. A sometimes brings in books from home.

I don't think they spend a huge amount of time on reading and math. They play a lot. There's gym or movement every day. They also have science and Spanish. A misses computer, library, and art (usually), because they are in the afternoon., But next year she would be there for these. They do art in their classroom too, so she gets some of that. Sometimes she misses playground too, if it's in the afternoon. They have playtime (open work tome) quite a bit, and grade 1 wouldn't have this.

A also has a huge issue with not paying attention to what she is supposed to be doing. She watches what other kids are doing. Or she'll just stand in front of the sink for 10 minutes not washing her hands. She once sat on the potty for a good 15 minutes and then announced, "4 5s make 20!" She had been staring at the radiator grate. So she's thinking, but I'm not sure she's ready for the structure of grade 1.

We are considering having testing for A, IQ and academic progress. There is a gifted clinic near where we live where we could have this done, and get recommendations about her academic needs.

A's favorite part of school is getting to play dress up. She wouldn't get to do this in 1. Also, she is very young for her grade already. She will still be 4 in September.

Onion,

Your DD sounds exactly like my DD8 when she was at that age. My DD went to public school at 5 and grade skipped to 1st. Even with the grade skip, she got bored after a few months and we had to find ways to challenge her. We did some outside school challenges (kumon for 1.5 yrs) and she was progressing but boredom in school got worse. We had to advocate the school for in-school differentiation.

You should talk to the teachers and ask their recommendations as well as discuss your wish for differentiation. The best scenario would be for her to stay in the grade and do advance work. The grade skipping will work for now but in a few years, you may have to think about another grade skip. And when your DD compete in the talent search or competition, she will be competing against the grade level and not against age and she will have disadvantage.

My DD is happy that we grade skipped her. She wouldn't find friends in the same age class because they would not know when she talk about the books she read and stuff.

Best of luck.

I have an old for grade 5 yr old pre-k boy, and a toddler girl. I think a lot depnds on which teacher wants your kid in their class. I'm just going by what I remember thinking about my own time in school. For someone who's really outside of the box academically really homeschooling/private tutors just makes the most sense.. but, I'm not sure that learning to be at school isn't its own education. Which is necessary, the three Rs, and/or pacing, schedules, and responsibility? I afterschool the three Rs and let the teachers teach him conformity. I want to homeschool. We can do more, in less time, then play in the mud the rest of the day. I think I'm just being greedy and I want my own kids and don't want to share them at all.

He'll probably end up being skipped a time or two. I don't care. I don't know enough to micro manage that part. It's really up to the teachers to fit him into their program however they want. I make sure he's at school every day on time and fed, and he has to do any homework they send. They tried to give him a subject acceleration to kindergarten for language arts, but they said he's too immature and sent him back. I told them I don't care what they teach him at school, he has to listen to the teachers, and also I'm going to keep teaching him at home. It doesn't really line up with each other at all. The way I'm teaching him is called "scaffolding", that whatever a kid can do right now with your help, it means they're developmentally ready and will soon do it independantly. I just started a 3-ring notebook for history, and one for language arts. We're working through the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History. I read the page, he summarizes it, I write down the summary, he illustrates it. We're starting pre-book reports. He reads a book. He summarizes it. I write that down. I copy a great sentence from the book. He copied that sentence in his handwriting.

I'm aware that if I want my kid to participate in academic extra curriculars, like the elementary math olympiads, I'm going to have to do all the research and spearhead getting the club started at the school.

I would love for my kids to go to a Waldorf or Montessori school, or be radical unschoolers, or go to one of the handfull of pg charter classes for elementary school... where the first graders do hard work independantly and well. I just want it all for my kids, I guess.

Peter, how well was your daughter writing at 5? How is the differentiation going now?

We've thought about homeschooling, but I think DD would really miss school. She would not be happy with the idea at all.

Since her school is all on one campus pre-k - 12, I hope that in the long term, some combination of differentiation, full-grade acceleration, and subject acceleration could work. For example, if she were ready for algebra in 5th grade, she could just walk over to the HS building and take honors algebra. She would still run out of math classes eventually,but by then she'd be old enough to consider college classes, or Homeschool for math. ( My DH could teach advanced college level math).

There are public G&T schools iin our city, but I don't know if the schools in our part of the city would be different from the private school she is in already. They are open to the top 10%. There are a few highly selective top1% G&T programs, but only 1/3 of qualified applicants can even get a spot, through a lottery. The closest would be about an hour away, and I'd have to drive her, which wouldn't really be fair to her little sister. Or we could move closer and let my DH commute, but I don't think we could afford housing there. It gets complicated!

Onion,

Writing is her weakest part. She wrote some stories (about their summer, etc in school as part of 1st grade and it was a little above grade level (you could say 1-2 above grade for her age. But reading and Math were her forte and she is several grades above level.

One thing to consider about grade skipping. DD8 got EXPLORE sum of 76. That's DYS level. But as a 4th grader, she will not get an award from Duke or NUMATS. If she is in 3rd grade (age appropriate), she could have qualified.

She gets differentiation in Math only last year (i.e, doing Khan's academy on her own pace). This year, we moved to a different school district (me commuting >1 hr each way to work)that has dedicated GT program and she is doing 5th grade level Math and Language arts each morning. It's still not where she is but she is happy and we are staying at that level for now. The district has progressive GT program and they have more offering in middle and high schools.

We will reconsider advocating for more chalenges in a year or two.

Hi Onion!

Welcome! This forum has been such a huge help/comfort to me since I joined. The advice and BTDT experience is invaluable.

I'm not going to be much help with most of your questions as I'm just starting out myself with DS5 in K. DS5's birthday would not have made him a candidate for early admission but I considered keeping him out a year and just starting in 1st but chose against it for social reasons.

My son loves DreamBox and he could play forever if I didn't stop him. He tends to end up playing 30min-90mins most frequently around an hour. I'm so torn on the issue of time because it is so educational and an interest of his but I'm not a huge fan of screen time. I was hoping he would eventually tire of it but after a month of playing everyday there doesn't seem to be any slowing him down. I wish you good luck as you try to find a good balance for your DD.