Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Informal Poll of What Worked for Your Child

As I'm just starting on researching educational options for DS5 once we had a confirmation of G, I'm starting to see that there is such a wide range of what people are using for their child/ren. At the moment, DS's abilities are needing to catch up with the curriculum here so I'm not too concerned about his not being challenged. But I wonder if I'm just awaiting the day when we make a serious thought to switching schools if necessary, homeschooling, continue afterschooling, charters, magnet, IB, or other options. I'm already a bit unhappy about how little science he's gotten over the year, the K math that advances so slowly and is so repetitive, and our school's obsession with testing, scoring, and the drill method.

I'm curious, what ended up working best for your child at this time? What did you try that did not work out? If you don't mind sharing, when did you need to make a change (or multiple changes), and what general age or ability is your child? I have a feeling there have been a lot of changes with families throughout the educational system.

You've received great insight already from Portia.

In general, kiddos benefit from a stable, positive environment and having peers they can relate to with similar academic/intellectual ability, as well as one or more shared interests. Parents do not tend to change schools lightly.

Based on the information provided, rather than looking at schooling options you may wish to read up on advocacy for the day when having these skills may be useful.

Generally speaking, children with more rare intellectual profiles may be the significant outliers for whom many learning environments do not provide a good "fit" as there may not be exposure to new concepts and material for these students.

As mentioned on another thread, the Davidson database is a great repository of information.

While it's good for parents to be aware of the school's culture, many experts and experienced parents emphasize keeping the focus on the child's needs (rather than a parent's ability to imagine better circumstances).

A good resource for advocacy information is wrightslaw.com

Check the training program calendar and try to go to one if you can. It is actually a good value. Aside from getting a day of training from Pete Wright, you get three of his book as a part of the registration fee. I got From Emotions to Advocacy, All about IEPs and his Special Education Law textbook when I went to one last year.

I don't have a "what worked well" story, but I'll tell you my "what I wish I'd done" story.

If I could go back, I'd probably homeschool until 3rd grade when the gifted pull-out program started.

The kids I see who were homeschooled in the younger years just seem so confident and self-assured. It kind of makes me wonder if we don't put them in school too young.

Also, I think that K, 1st, and 2nd were the hardest grades in terms of accommodation because so much effort was put into the non-readers.

Funny because that is just what I did for my older son homeschooled 1-3 and part of 4. Worked great for him. He doesn't really learn faster, just is really serious and a deep thinker. 6-8th grade he has been in a special program that is a academy within a bigger school and that has worked for him.

What worked for my younger son was being a pretty easy going kid k-1st and having just the right 2nd grade teachers (he had two who team taught) and differentiated (not just lip service) reading/language arts and accelerated his math (just walked over to the third grade storage room and grabbed a text book, work book and test booklet and taught him third grade math during 2nd grade). His rate of learning is very fast and we did a grade skip after second grade. That worked for this year. Next year we are going to just try to survive 5th grade with differentiation and then homeschool 6-8th.

I have the same impression. I'm of the opinion that children should have much more freedom of movement and thought than conventional institutional settings allow.

Displaced, thanks for starting this thread. I, too, am eager to hear what arrangements others have found successful for their children.

I can't say that what we did worked well. But I can tell you brief synopsis of what we did.

-- Developmental preschool/daycare before K. This school let the kids play, explore, draw, paint, get dirty and play with each a other. They were aware that DS was reading at 3, and they were happy to leave him with books to read to himself, encouraged him to write his own stories while they other kids drew pictures. They did little to challenge him but was not bored. I didn't feel there was a huge reason to push him at this age.

-- K-3rd in the same public 'alternative' school his sister attended. I did look at 2 private schools, but the reason why we didn't go with either of them is a long post on it's own. His K, 1st and 3rd teacher were overall good. He didn't get a lot out of K academically, but it was only 1/2 day and I didn't worry he wasn't learning much IN school. The two kids who were high level readers were encouraged to use the scholastic AR program to challenge them. By 2nd & 3rd he was in classes with "gifted" clusters. He had many clashes with his 2nd grade teacher, partially because this teacher would only give him the advanced work when all the normal boring work was finished. My son had beautiful handwriting K-2nd, but it took him a long time to complete work and by 4th grade learned to sacrifice his handwriting for speed.

--4-6th Moved him to a different elementary (our local one) that had the dedicated gifted class. Part of the reason we kept him in the public system, because this program is known for being the best gifted program in the area. Same kids for 3 years, intellectual peers, teachers who are trained in gifted education. Math a year ahead, lots of reading, writing. And unfortunately a LOT of homework. 4th & 5th he had good teachers and he learned a lot, although there was a lot of homework. 6th grade was a disaster. Short answer for this was teacher incompatibility.

--7-8th Moved to the regular junior high. Had to push to get him into the humanities Honors programs because of problems in 6th, but since he tested gifted they were required to keep him in it. This was OK except for the boring science program. My son had an excellent Alegbra teacher in 7th grade. My son really only liked Math & Band in junior high.

- 9th High School.. Our high school is a high ranking academic school. Very rigorous, lots of AP's. He is in the honors track. Doing OK, not great. Has classes that are intellectually challenging but he underperforms.

If I could have done it differently, he would NOT have been in that 6th grade classroom. And even though he has been struggling with his Albegra II class this year, I wish I had pushed for more advanced math earlier.

What worked best for us so far was a public pre-K with an awesome teacher who differentiated for DD and let her use her abilities while still being a part of the group. DD may not have learned much (teacher once burst out in the car line with a joyous, "I actually taught your DD something today!"), but she was having a great time and making friends.

Coming in a close 2nd: homeschooling.

What's working okay for us now, but still needs work: Public school with G/T pull-outs for half the day, the rest of the day in homeroom with grade skip.

What failed: Same as above sans the grade skip.

What was a total disaster: Public K with one hour pull-out for enrichment per week, in class differentiation that either never materialized, or directly conflicted DD between her need for education and her need for socialization, and a teacher who was a hostile [fill in the blank with your favorite expletive].

We tried ps, which was adequate up to first grade, when we had topull him out to homeschool. That is going much much better and we are supplementing with actuall gifted classes on saturdays with a talent development program, which is very fun and satisfying.

What worked for my child:

Montessori (at home, since no preschool wanted to touch my child, with a ten foot pole)

eclectic homeschooling with WTM/Charlotte Mason-ey overtones,

radical acceleration (3-4y spread over six years) and virtual school.

I should also add that the longest we've ever had ANY solution fit WELL has been about 18 months. She outgrows the solution pretty fast.

Our strategy shifted at about 11yo, after six years of the above-- we need to make the "processing step" of primary and secondary education be as non-damaging as possible during the process of qualifying for higher educational opportunities via the appropriate "certification" steps (high school diploma, standardized testing, etc).

That seems to have been the most successful thing of all. It has meant admitting OPENLY that she isn't there to learn much-- just to meet line items on some form somewhere. That's fine, because it means that she understands that she isn't SUPPOSED to be (in our minds) getting a lot out of it-- just getting it done acceptably well, and not stressing out or spending much mental energy on it. If there are problems with that agenda (and there have been, such as the math or foreign language classes where the tasks were frankly impossible-- for anyone-- in light of zero teacher support or contact and not much curriculum either), then we put out fires along the way.

We've only had a couple of real stinker teachers. We avoid them-- even when it means skipping a class that she'd otherwise like to take. We've also dealt with a real stinker administrator, too-- and that was worse by far.