Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy new to board and feeling overwhelmed

Wow. I just registered here - and appreciate reading some other experiences! I have a 6 year old in 1st grade. He has been identified as gifted through both the CogAt and Stanford tests. (I think I have the names right - this is new to me.) We just got the Stanford results a few days ago. He has been complaining since we started in a new school district this year about how much he hates school. I'm so upset about how unhappy and frustrated he seems. He seems to be making friends ok, and teacher doesn't seem to think there is a big problem. He also says school is "too hard" - but the work he is bringing home is SOOOOO easy for him! He loves math, and at home on his own time has learned to add long numbers and do multiplication - yet his math assignments are 2+3, and 4+1. The reading he is assigned is "baby reading" according to him.

I suspect what he is finding "too hard" is the tedium of spending hours cutting up all the "ing" words on a sheet to glue them onto construction paper - when he could be reading chapter books! His school has what sounds like a pretty good gifted program, but not until 3rd grade. All the staff at the school keep telling me how wonderful his teacher is at meeting the needs of smart kids - but that's not my experience at all! I have spoken and met and emailed with her a number of times - gingerly, respectfully - about what I think he can be doing, and yet nothing seems to change.

Now, my boy is not very motivated, I'm afraid. He is not going to put forth effort to find harder work for himself. But I'm really worried that he is learning that he never has to work in school, that he's getting a horrible attitude toward school, and that by 3rd grade he will be unable/unwilling to put forth effort to work hard!!

I'm feeling a lot of pressure from the school not to rock the boat - he's fine, he's only in 1st grade, etc etc. So I'm feeling confused and conflicted about how hard I should be pushing here.

I'm planning a conference with his teacher and the school counselor now that we have his test results, and think that I will be more forceful than I have been before - specifically asking if he could perhaps be exempted from some of this easy easy stuff in favor of other activities. I've heard there are websites with math-at-your-own-pace; am wondering if there is something similar for reading.

I could use advice, though! Ideas for what kids might do within a classroom like this; opinions on how pushy I should be, and how to keep the relationship with the teachers/school positive; how to introduce this harder work to my son so that it seems fun, and not like a burden to him.

I don't feel like homeschooling is a good option for us! But I'm wondering if I'm doing him a disservice by keeping him in school. Ack!

Thanks for your help!
Susan

"Now, my boy is not very motivated, I'm afraid. He is not going to put forth effort to find harder work for himself. But I'm really worried that he is learning that he never has to work in school, that he's getting a horrible attitude toward school, and that by 3rd grade he will be unable/unwilling to put forth effort to work hard!!"

Susan, that is exactly how I feel! Our gifted programs don't start until third grade either and even though my son is only in kindergarten, the difference in his attitude toward school and school work between now and the start of the school year is amazing. It's heartbreaking really....what a let down to these little guys!

The school must recognize his advanced abilities if they are testing him. How did it come to be that they administered the Stanford-Binet? Did you have to push for that or were they willing at a simple request...or did they recommend it themselves?

I am not nearly as knowledgable as most in this forum but I do remember finding a lot of info about parent/teacher conferences and maintaining good parent-teacher relationships by googling it. It was really helpful before going to my first conference.

Good luck and I hope you'll stay around and keep us updated!

Hi Susan and AMDStreit,

I am one of the more militant parent advocates here so you may wish to defer my advice until you have heard from others who work with-in more flexible school districts. I didn�t start out angry, but our public school district was absolutely unyielding in their resistance to grade advance or even challenge my daughter when she was 6years old in 1st grade. They had even made her repeat K after graduating at the top of a private K (teacher told us privately) because she wasn�t quite old enough for 1st. Her scores were all over 100% on her report cards and she scored 98 percentile on the state test, yet she complained that school was �too hard�. You nailed the reason that your son tells you the same. They want to be good students and do what is expected, yet the mind numbing assignments sap their energy and eventually their drive. My daughter began to tell us that lunch and recess were her favorite times at school! We gave the district the benefit of the doubt for two years before we acted. I wouldn�t advise waiting that long. Grade advancement to a private school with a more challenging program was the solution for our daughter. I have no doubt that it was necessary and we have never second guessed ourselves on this decision.

If the teacher won�t accommodate your son after a couple polite requests, I would assume that she won�t without the involvement of the administration. If I were you, I would pursue an understanding with the principle. Most moms here state that the teacher is the most important adult to your child at school. That is probably true for K-2nd. In my opinion, as the child progresses, any one teacher has less impact, but an administrator with oversight may arrange the necessary accommodations regardless of the attitude of a particular teacher. If you can establish a relationship with the principle, it will take away a great deal of the uncertainty of whether or not your child will be challenged from year to year. I understand this is easier said than done.

Find out what the gifted program really consists of and evaluate whether or not it is what your son needs and whether it is worth waiting for. Our public district�s pull-out (beginning in 3rd also) does not offer advanced academics. Although their critical thinking and problem solving program would probably have worked for our daughter if combined with a grade skip, it would not have begun to address the needs of our son.

Susan S,
Welcome. I also left my son in a public school that just wasn't working for him for 3 years, trying my best to be an appropriate advocate for him - because I believed that I "just couldn't afford" homeschooling or private school. ((I will say that one of those years was wonderful, 3rd grade, where the classroom teacher totally "got him" - the rest of the time was very very bad. My son also wasn't willing to "come up with ways to challenge himself" - he is more interested in being an "in class anthropologist." ((Seeing what he could stir up and get away with.)) We had meeting after meething trying to understand what was "wrong" with him. The School Adults had many suggestions. We spend much money following them up. We have no answers. My son is also now 10. We switched him to a private school, he got his grade skip, and although he has come a long long way, he still isn't up to the school's standards about "getting homework in on time" "bringing one's materials" and to make matters worse, he had to leave behind good friends of 5 years standing. He misses seeing his "real" friends every day - and has to deal with their feelings of abandonment, but still, he says it's 100x better than last year. On the other hand going from 90seconds of homework per hight to 90 to 120 minutes of homework a night hasn't been fun for anyone.

So those are my credentials - here's my advice:
1) Tell us what books you are reading.
2) Try to figure out what the test scores "mean" - in terms of where in the range of giftedness you son fits.
3) Try to get a handle on where you son it at academically - build a resume of what kinds of work he can do. Work with him at home and see what academic level of work suits him in all the subject areas. If possible borrow some homework from kids who are 1, 2, 3 and 4 years ahead of him. Get lexile levels for the books he is reading at home.
4) figure out if you son is a candidate for grade skipping - if he's highly gifted he may need a two year jump. Read the Iowa Acceleration Guide Manual for more details.
5) Find a way for the gifted teacher of the 3rd grade program to meet your child and for you to sit in and watch what they are doing in the classroom. Many of us have found that 3 hours a week or less of a "pull-out" program is basically useless. Remember that Gifted programs tend to be aimed toward the majority of gifted children. The majority is clumped at the bottom of whatever range they are picking from. This is terrific if your child fits - can be a big dissapointment/waste of time if your child doesn't.
6) Join your state gifted association. Try to talk to someone from your state.
7) For negotiation tips read - Getting to Yes, but remember, you are not really "negotiating" anything with a public school - you are actually begging them to do their job properly. This should sound like a bad idea, because it is.
8) Get to know some real live homescoolers in your area. Keep at it until you meet someone you like. Remember what my mom said about blind dates? You may not like him, but perhaps you'll like his friends.
9)About acceleration v. in-class enrichment: During 4th grade my son recieved wonderful in-class enrichment. Our teacher made wild efforts and they saved his skin during 4th grade. In a way it was unfortunate, because it made a perfectly dreadful situation almost tolerable. We lost much valuable time in the process. We had to see for ourselves that a kid with Davidson type scores couldn't be accomidated "on the fly" in an age-mate classroom if he himself didn't have the drive to "make the most" of his opportunities. I don't feel that my child should be denied an appropriate fair education because he's more interested in following his own lead than in "doing more dumb school work." The public school dissagreed. In their minds a good grade skip candidate is an eager beaver who wants to go above and beyond in every subject, also organized, and neat, and what my son would call "a goody-two-shoes."

You can't leave a child in a hostile school environment for 3 years and expect them to want to be a goody-two-shoes. If they did, they would have the opposite problem of "dumbing themselves down" to please the teacher.

So - my advice: 1) Private message me with your son's IQ scores, listed in percentiles if possible or compare them to the Davidson Young Scholar site's criteria. If they are in that range, give up hope about "in class enrichment" with age-mates.

2)Start collecting that portfolio about what your district expects of children of various grades and what your child can do. In some way the test score are besides the point if you child is doing 4th grade math, then they are doing 4th grade math.

3) Look around at the private school alternatives, including faith based.

Best Wishes - I'm sorry this is such a long post, but it's such a long process!
Trinity

Do you have time to volunteer at his school? I find it that schools are much more willing to accomodate your needs if you yourself will come up with some ideas and get other parents of gifted kids to work with you. I know that some of us here will blurb that this is not how the system is supposed to work but I look at it this way - instead of working with my child at home on more diffucult topics so she/he is challenged (and challenged they have to be!) I would much rather do it during the school hours. If you get a gropu of a few motivated parents, you can create your own gifted pull out class. This solves the problem at least temporarily, until he gets to go to this "good" gifted class. Look up www.aleks.com, www.beestar.org, www.learningexpresslibrary.com - those are all either free or very inexpensive programs that can help you in such an endavour. But even making them read a more difficult book and discussing it will be motivating.
Good Luck,
Ania

P.S. And the fact that they do not want to go to school is never ending for some kids. My son was just home sick for a couple of days, and eventh ought his school challenges him and he is thriving, he made a comment, after watching science channel for a few hours - "I would learn more if I stayed home" :-)

What a lot of great advice! (although I have to admit it still seems overwhelming... :-) ). My son was in a fabulous school for Kindergarten that voluntarily tested him, and really did a great job of challenging him. So he took the CoGAT in K and was labeled "superior cognative." Then we moved - the new school district does not routinely test 1st graders, but I was concerned over what seemed to be NO challenges to him academically by Oct, so when I heard they were doing testing for 2nd graders, I asked if he could also be tested. They were reluctant, but did finally agree - but only Stanford Achievement for specific subjects, not any of the more general intelligence tests like the CoGAT.

I've been doing a lot of reading this week since his newer scores came in. There's a lot I don't know! I see there is a range of gifted kids, and suspect he is not at the top of this range - which may make my task a bit easier. On the other hand, he hasn't had much of a chance academically to show what he can do. In K they told me he read at the level of a mid-2nd grader. His most recent scores in 1st grade said his reading was at the level of a 3rd grader halfway through the year, and his math the level of a 3rd grader toward the beginnning of the year - but the school staff also told me not to put too much value on these estimates. I'm not sure what to think of that statement - why not?

I am miles from seriously considering whole-grade acceleration for him...but this morning we were chatting about his grades that just came out (all as high as they could be), and I asked if he'd like to go to 2nd grade for the rest of the year. He immediately said yes. When I asked why, he said it was so he would have a new teacher. I was fascinated. He has always been positive about the teacher, who is very entertaining in the classroom - but while she is a very nice person, and obviously very popular with most 1st graders, I've been very frustrated over the fact that she seems to keep making him do work WAY beneath him! It's hard to get my boy to talk about stuff like this, and I was unable to get more of an answer from him about his thoughts on his teacher - he had moved on to experimenting with cooking ingredients, mixing different amounts of salt/sugar, vinegar, etc.

I like the idea of really working to figure out what his levels are, so I am going to do some more reading and see if I can do that. And plan to go to my conference with many ideas to propose!
Susan

Hi Susan. Maybe your son feels that a new teacher will be more interesting and have new ideas, since this one keeps giving him the same old stuff.

We were reluctant to consider a full grade skip at first, but finally advocated for early entrance to first grade for our 5 year old. We used the Iowa Accerlation Scale Manual and some private testing to come to the decision. It might be something your son will need, if not now perhaps later, if he stays in the public school system. You can get the manual for $20 through Amazon. It is an objective way to look at a child to determine whether he would be successful with a whole grade acceleration. It gave us confidence in our decision. Good luck and welcome!