Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Enrichment options for Science for GIA 148 kid?

My DS7 is in 1st grade at a very academic private school in miam. His teacher called me in to say his academics are fine, he is 5th in a class of 18, but he fidgets, doesn't focus, talks to other kids, has to be redirected to do his work. Current school may be one of the best and most academically chanllenging schools in Miami.

Concerned, i had him tested with Wisc IV:
Vci. 136
Pri. 143
Wmi. 110
Psi. 97

FSIQ 132
GAI 148

I know this is a very academic school, but with scores so high, i would have expected him to be way above his class.

He doesn't realy enjoy reading, but he looooooovess for me to read to him. Now, i'm a single mom who works full time, so i cant really read to him all day or homeschool..

He loves science, space, mythbusters, animals, man vs wild, all sciency stuff.

I am debating whether to register him at our elementary public school full time gifted program.. Maybe they will be able to focus on his interests and come up with an answer to my mistery?

I've also been searching for apps or books that might enrich his experience, specially in science, but which are not basically an encyclopedia, because of the reading. Videos would be amazing!!!

What would you recommend?

I realize his GIA is high enough to qualify him as a Davidson Youth, but, in all honesty, I cant afford to give him any more tests for achievement or otherwise.. They are just too expensive for my single-mom working-for-a-nonprofit life.

Thank you for your recommendations!

I'm sure that you will get some good advice, but I would encourage you to edit out identifying info. (i.e. name of school and city). I would guess you wouldn't potentially want others to be able to figure out who you are and know your son's WISC results. Good luck!

Will do. Thanks!

I'm sure others will chime in too, but I will respond to some of your questions. Others on this board have helped me to understand that giftedness looks different in each kid, and it isn't so easy to say that GAI =1xx, and so kid will be doing y. We homeschool, so I don't know for sure, but I actually think my EG/PG daughter would be doing very nicely at the prestigious and challenging private schools in my area, but I don't think she would be hitting anything out of the park. She is introverted, cautious, and perfectionistic. She is also slow and cautious. My son, on the other hand, who hasn't been tested but is likely also HG+, might have a different set of issues. He is high-energy, out of the box, gotta question authority in any form, school is boring so let me get it over with as fast as possible. Bright? Extremely. Creative? Hell, yeah. A good student? Again, I don't know for sure, but I imagine not so much. Bottom line -- HG+ does not necessarily equal being a super high achiever.

As for achievement tests, if the school won't administer, you could always have him take the EXPLORE next year.

Good luck!

Pandrade, when our ds was your ds' age we supplemented science with lots of trips to museums, keeping a wide variety of high-level books around the house that he could choose to pick up and read when and if he wanted to (he rarely did this with us watching him - if we were around, he wanted us to read to him, and we did that - a lot!). You can also find a lot of science experiments online that often only use very inexpensive items that you might already have around the house - google "science fair projects".

Re your ds' achievement in school - I'll second everything gabalyn mentioned, and add one more thing. My EG ds had a similar but slightly larger discrepancy between VIQ/PRI and PSI. His WM was slightly higher, but also lower than his PRI/VIQ scores. We knew he was danged smart going into elementary school but he never was a high achiever, and by the time he was in 2nd grade we were hearing from his teacher that he was not paying attention, daydreaming etc. She was convinced he had ADHD... but really what was happening was he had an LD. I would look very closely at what's going on at school - ie, when is he fidgeting, what does he say about school, what type of work does he dive into and complete easily vs are there types of schoolwork that he avoids or complains about? LDs can be mirrored in IQ scores when you see discrepancies such as this - I'm not saying your ds *has* an LD but only that it is one possibility for why there is such a large discrepancy. If he does have an LD, that difference in abilities might be causing him a lot of frustration and could be the reason he's not at the top of his class.

FWIW, my ds was never at the "top" of his class in elementary school - those early years were focused on learning (for us) how to best give him the accommodations and remediation he needed to compensate for his LD. Once we'd gotten through that, and once he was in middle school - he bubbled right up there to the top of his class. So I wouldn't necessarily say that it's easy to tell if the reason you're seeing him not succeed in the classroom is simply because he's so out there in ability, because he's just a quirky kid who's not driven by that high-achievement mentality, or something in his ability profile is holding him back. If you have a chance to, I'd ask the person who gave him the WISC what his/her impressions are re what might be causing the discrepancies in scores.

Re schools - I'd definitely take the scores you have and *talk* to the public HG school. See what their thoughts are, and whether or not you feel like it might be a good fit. So much depends on individual school, it's impossible for any of us who aren't in your school district to really give relevant advice about schools. I know that in our school district the HG+ school did make some accommodations in general that would have possibly helped a child who was slower in output (lower PSI) than other schools might have thought to do... otoh, there were things about our HG+ school that I felt would have been a bad fit for our ds so we chose not to go there. Instead we put our ds in an academically challenging private school where we are able to work with the school staff to make sure ds has the accommodations he needs, and where we have a very understanding staff. At the end of the day, having teachers who are willing to work with you and who care about your child sometimes means more than the label on a school, and the only way to know what's best for your child and your family is to get out there and research all the options that are available where you live.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - another idea re science enrichment - our ds really enjoys taking science courses through CTY. They can be very pricey, but the cost to test through the talent search is not expensive at all, and they do offer financial aid for students who qualify for their courses. I'm not trying to promote CTY - I use it as an example because it's the talent search that was promoted through our school district so that's how we landed there. I suspect you'll find the same is true of other talent search programs also (EPGY offers group options which cost around $100 for 10 months of whatever classes you want to take - if I remember correctly). Our state also has "homeschool" programs that you can take advantage of when you have your children enrolled in private school, and we've used that to help fund our ds' online enrichment courses... so dig around a bit, you might be able to find something online that he'd enjoy.

This sounds EXACTLY like my dd (fsiq 149) and as a result her teacher doesn't see her as gifted. It's frustrating because she is such a different kid at home than at school.

I'd suggest looking into the BrainPop app as it has videos on a wide range of subjects with some good depth in science. Each video has a quiz associated which is a nice way for your kid to gauge whether they followed the video or not. After having Amazon prime for shipping savings, we recently realized it also includes access to a wide range of television series, of note are quite a few science themed ones like How Stuff Works.

My DS7 is also a video junkie, and spends much time looking for math and science videos; part of it is he has a corrected vision problem and partly I think because he is more extraverted he enjoys seeing/hearing other peoploe tell him things. So, if you haven't had your son's vision checked, it could be one area of impact on his reading interest level.

As to the WISC results from what I've seen, average PSI and WMI are almost "standard" discrepancies for a large number of gifted kids which is why the GAI index exists.

I have only personal experience to relate, but I think there may be something to the working memory being a better predictor of academic performance thing. My son's FSIQ is exactly the same as your son's, 132, but his GAI is lower (mostly due to a weaker VCI), and he has always been far and away the best student in every class (and grade!) of his school...but it seems obvious that your son's verbal skills (and PSI) are greater. It seems to me that personality would play a role in all this, too.

ETA: My son's working memory yielded his highest score (on WISC-IV) by far.