Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Still in denial

I haven't posted here in forever. My son turns 10 next week - just finished 4th grade at a Title 1 school (many low income, English Language learners, etc). He has always been "top" in his grade, has been moved up a grade in math since about 1st grade. Always get's A's - even in 5th grade math this past year. When he is in 5th grade, they are planning on having him go to Middle School for 6th grade math. Obviously, he's doing well - but I still worry that they are overestimating him - that he just seems "smarter" because many of his peers are still lagging. I worry that when he does go to Middle school in the fall for math (a school that draws more kids from a wider geographical area), that he will struggle. Crazy, probably - anyone else have similar thoughts ?

I haven't gotten my DD tested and sometimes I doubt that I am right about her being gifted. She attends a public school and we do not have any gifted funding in our state so there is no advanced or acceleration. She gets 100 on all of her tests, her NWEA scores are 98/99 at every testing, she shows no growth because she is learning things she already knows somehow (I haven't been teaching her, she just knows a lot of stuff). Last night I asked her if she was excited about moving up to 4th grade and she said she was nervous about being bored all year long, which is the first time she has ever expressed this to me, although her 1st/2nd grade teacher (same teacher both years) told me she would finish her work quickly and distract others by talking, so she made her an enrichment packet to work on and keep her busy. Her 3rd grade teacher told me she would not do that. I told her I will talk to her 4th grade teacher and advocate for her to have the extra enrichment packet and that made her feel better. Yet I still find myself worrying that I am pushing giftedness onto her (probably because I receive so litte ... NONE... support from school that I start to question my own judgement because surely if a child were gifted they would acknowledge that.. but in truth, they won't).

Regarding your own son, even though he is in a Title 1 school I assume the curriculum has to be up to speed, so if he is completing that work with no problem or working a grade ahead with no problem, I am sure he is probably accelerated. If he is not struggling in 5th grade math this year, I would definitely let him go do the 6th grade math and at least give it a try. Better he tries and has to move backwards then never having the opportunity and being completely bored and under challenged.

It is hard not to worry when kids transition to middle school! And so much of this depends on the individual teachers/schools involved. We are a bit further along in what seems to be a similar scenario to yours. Our twins were in a Title 1 school for K-5, and from there moved into one of the academically strongest public middle schools in our state. They are now finishing 7th grade. We worried about a lot of things when they started middle school, but in hind sight the transition was quite smooth, even though most of the elementary schools feeding into the middle school had higher average standardized test scores, etc.. In fact, paradoxically, we think the Title 1/Special Needs 'R Us elementary worked remarkably well for our kids. Differentiating over a huge range was routine in the elementary, and this helped them to both recognize our kids' differences and prepare them well for middle school.

If anything, we've found the focus at the middle school to be on supporting the kids in becoming more independent and responsible, sometimes sacrificing academic depth in the process. (And this is a school that routinely wins academic team competitions in a variety of subjects at the state level.) I get the feeling this high level of student support is pretty standard in middle schools (I believe I've read that this was a consideration in the switch from "junior high" to "middle" schools a few years back.)

Best of luck!