Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment How to advocate for son?

My son is starting 7th grade and had the following test scores as a sixth grader: 580 on PSAT 8/9 EBRW, 1700 Lexile/455 Verbal Reasoning (99)/450 Vocabulary (99) in ERB/CTP4 testing with similarly high reading comprehension/writing. Some of these raw scores are >50 pts above his twin sister's scores which are also at the 99th percentile (although using national norms). He has scored slightly below DYS criteria on the PSAT 8/9 and EXPLORE the last two years, mostly because he has not been exposed to higher level math until last year (510 math PSAT 8/9 as a 6th grader).

While his sister is happy in school, he just wants to read anything he can get his hands on and we really struggle to keep him engaged in our small independent school (except for math, where he is exposed to new material).

He hates writing (dysgraphia without a formal diagnosis) and busywork/homework and has little attention to detail and significant ADHD. He uses voice dictation for homework. Our school is pretty fantastic, but has been mum on offering differentiation in reading/LA. We have had no formal response to any of these test results from the school, other than thankfully they did place him in algebra/advanced math for 7th grade despite a B+ second semester (one of 6 students including his sister).

Every year we get scores like this and it is difficult to advocate for more advanced curricula because he does have difficulty with writing and organization.

Would you advocate for more advanced curricula in LA/SS/Science in our situation or let it ride and focus on study habits and let him continue to read/enrich himself at home?

Because you attend a small independent school, not a US public school, or one which receives government funds for any of its programming, the school may not be obligated to address learning disabilities/differences, special ed.

Remediation/accommodation which assist a child in developing skills to compensate for weaknesses are often provided in earlier grades. Developing study habits and organizational skills are crucial and may be taught/learned at home (not just in the classroom). The website Understood.org has lots of information on ADD/ADHD and executive function (EF).

Does the school currently have an advanced LA/SS/Science class or student cluster group which your son might join (to be placed with intellectual peers... or near-peers), or would you be asking your school to create something new for your child?

A factor to consider, if your son is anything like mine: ADHD and writing LDs create massive barriers to getting work done. I speak from deep experience when I say that the more challenging and motivating the work, the easier it is for someone like my DS to engage and persevere through the daily battle of dealing with those barriers.

We've had many a fight with school administrators about this ("if he's struggling he shouldn't be in the gifted program"), but his teachers have all consistently agreed that he does better when the work is harder, and falls apart when it is not challenging or engaging enough. Nothing sends his attention in hyperspace faster than make-work on an un-engaging topic doing a task that makes big demands on his writing LDs. It's hard, and it hurts. He needs something that will help him keep going anyways.

My son went to a small private school for 6th and 8th grades (consecutively due to a skip) that was very supportive of acceleration, both whole grade and subject, and independent study. They claimed to be supportive of differentiation as well, but it never really worked out, partially because the teachers were already overworked and partially because my son didn't want to stand out any more than he already did.

My son also has dysgraphia-like symptoms but no ADHD. We found that because there were no advanced options (like honors classes), everything but math, even with 2 whole grade skips, was just more work without being more advanced. Even the math, where my son was accelerated 3 years, was not enough because it was geared toward average learners.

We ended up homeschooling for two years after 8th, and are now doing part time enrollment at the local public high school.

Perhaps you could see if they would let your son do an independent study for English?