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Hello, I�ve been reading this forum for a little while and I have decided to join in.

I have 2 childern, DS who is 4 and DD who is nearly 2. I am going to put aside my HUGE GT denial just for now. I�ll put a few of DS� milestones and then get to my point/question;

- Could 1:1 count to 3 at 10months.
- Knew alphabet at 18months
- Started to read at about 2yr7months, now his reading age is about7yr6m
- DP jokingly showed him addition in the bath at 2 � and then he just ran with it (DP said I didn�t expect him to understand!!)
- He can do addition, subtraction, multiplication and some division. Understands what negative numbers are. Can skip count in 2�s, 10�s and can do 5�s somewhat.

The thing is that he is at school. We are in the UK and he is in Reception, which is like your K but the kids are a year younger. His school has his reading age as 6 and the books he gets are 2 words per page. He has access to appropriate books at home but he is now telling me that he can�t read. I�ve tried talking to his teacher, but she palmed me off with �he doesn�t read with expression� etc, and then claimed there was a staff meeting and walked me to the class door!!

They have told me that he is at least a year ahead in maths e.g. he went into this year having completed this year�s maths curriculum, and that they would �differentiate for him�. But he tells me that they only do easy maths or occasionally medium maths and he wants to do HARD maths. His passion is maths, I have no idea what to do with him, I feel that he should go at a pace he wants but if he is going to get (further) ahead and then he will be even more bored.

I am beginning to realise that I am possibly going to have to advocate for him every year � which scares me. He got very depressed whilst at his pre-school, because he had to repeat things over and over. Part of me wants to pull him out and homeschool him but another part tells me to wait and see what they are actually doing with him. So far I have noticed that he is memorizing the order the phonics are taught in and some of the math worksheets so he can replicate them at home!

However I know that he is just 4 and has a long time to learn lots of stuff, but I�m worried that he is going to learn very quickly that either; school is easy and there is no point in trying or when he finds something hard he will not know how to work through it because he has never had to. The way the teacher has spoken to me gives me the impression that I�m not going to get any joy there. We have parent-teacher meetings in 2 weeks.
Any ideas or wisdom you can share?

Hi and welcome.

The best advice I can give you is that which was given to me when my son began school. We were told by our school administrator that we may want to consider home-school for at least the first several years. In hind-sight, I know that would have been a better option. Although not every teacher viewed ds negatively, the pace of instruction and the focus on non-academic �color in the lines� compliance plus lack of peers made his early education rather unpleasant overall.

I was not overly confident with my mentoring abilities as most of his questions revolved around the study of astrophysics since he was 4. I have come to realize that I am at least as qualified to teach him math and science as many earlier grade teachers. We also would have had plenty of time to find the answers he wanted.

I also think that often new opportunities build upon previous ones and you simply have to make a decision and start it.

I have found that having my kids tested has really helped my advocacy efforts. Having concrete data means that it's not just me saying, "My kid needs something more". A professional psychologist is backing me up

Is there any way you can have him tested?

Have you read Miraca Gross and Dr Ruf's books? They are must-reads.


http://www.amazon.com/Exceptionally-Gifted-Children-Miraca-Gross/dp/0415314917

http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Our-Mi...mp;s=books&qid=1223485872&sr=1-1

Those are two good places to start.

Thankyou for your replies.

Cathy A - There are very few places/people to test GT kids near me. Also i'm not sure that he is really the right age to do so. I don't know if the school would accept the scores either, or if they did that they would do anything about as they believe they are doing all they can. I have offered to find them information but they tell that they have itand basically blow me off.

delbows - thankyou for passing on that advice . We have been debating whether to remove him and HS till he is 7. He is not enthusiastic about school, other than about his 2 friends.

Austin - I haven't read those books, i think will go and buy Dr Ruf's book now as i have considered it for a while. I'm never considered the Gross one because i don't think that DS is exceptionally gifted.

thankyou again for your replies

Delurking since I'm also in the UK with a 4yo DS who has just started school. So Hi :-)

I am a mathematician by training, so finding DS mathematical things to do at home has not been a problem: maybe it might be helpful to talk about some of the things we do. (Of course, maybe you do them all already, or maybe they wouldn't suit your DS.) Ours loves Geomag - lots of talk about shapes, how they're made up, their properties, e.g., regularity or not, comparative rigidity. Euler's law! (Some friends lent us the Sir Cumference books - they are perhaps not easily available in the UK (the friends got them in the US I think) but DS has enjoyed them, and that's where he got Euler's law, which grabbed him.) Kaleidajewel mosaic fridge magnets - again, shapes, properties of shapes like kind of angles, parallel sides, etc. Making solid shapes from nets. Tessellation. "The sum game" where you alternate asking one another sums I expect you already do, but have you tried "sums with a secret number", like "The secret number is called p, and the clue is that p - 2 = 2"? Squaring, and on to imaginary numbers. (DS introduced himself to a schoolmate the other day with "Did you know the square root of minus one is called i?" - well, I suppose it was efficient in the sense that it might have elicited a positive response, and then he'd have known he'd found a likeminded person!)

Science? DS has various science books that he loves, especially ones with experiments in, e.g. this one:
http://www.amazon.com/My-Big-Science-Book-Step/dp/031249176X
Magnets, etc.

School-wise, here's hoping things will improve once they get to know your DS better. No real advice, except to be both polite and proactive... We're lucky in several ways: DS's teacher seems great, and his school has very small classes (independent). Also perhaps fortunately, reading is where he's obviously ahead of his age (far more so than he is in maths: while my DS is getting interested in multiplication and division, for example, I couldn't really say he can do them yet): his teacher did notice this on Day 1, and while he's been bringing home books which are not at all challenging for him in the mechanics of reading, they do have stories that he finds interesting, which is enough for now. He doesn't seem to have done any sums at all at school yet (so yours may be doing better there) and he does wonder wistfully when he will, but generally he seems to enjoy school a lot. His fine motor skills are not advanced, maybe even a little behind the average, so writing is a big challenge for him at the moment: I tend to feel that provided he's happy and he has one major challenge at school, things are OK. Sounds as though your DS doesn't have a serious challenge at school at all at the moment? Perhaps once they get the maths differentiation going that can be it? Here's hoping, and I'll watch for your updates with interest. If not, are there other school options available to you, or is home education a serious possibility?

Hi!
I am swinging with Geomag for christmas though he'd would probably prefer Star Wars things. I liked all of your ideas! We do the 'sum game' and the 'secret number' game already. I feel torn about teaching him things that i know he will cover in school because of the increased possibilty of more bordem. I liked the idea of tessellation... i think he'd like that mixed in with patterns.

Interestingly DS is not that big on science. He asks me occasionally things like 'why do leaves fall off the trees?' (And the answer 'becuase it's Autumn' wasn't good enough.)and 'why is the car foggy?' (condensation) and 'what is fog?'.

DS has been in the school since April. His teacher last year was good they even let him in with the reception kids for maths but decided he couldn't go with Yr1 this year. DS understands multiplication and division but he can't do the with any numbers (i delayed telling him about them for as long as poss.), he is much better at + and -, though he has been doing them longer. They are supposedly already doing the differention with him (so they told me) but DS says that they only do easy maths. He isn't brilliant at writing and often reverses letters; this frustrates him alot and his perfectionism shines through in this area. It is an area of challenge for him but not one he cares about!
He is at a state school, there is a brilliant looking private school nearish to us, but there is no way we can afford the fees (plus we have a DD). HS is something i wanted to do before we realised he was bright but i got convinced that it was a bad idea - now i'm not so sure.
Thankyou for your ideas

IKWYM - e.g. actually, I didn't teach DS to read: indeed, when he was a baby I read around the issue and decided it was best if he learned when he started school, partly because of the boredom thing. It was one of many lessons in how little control one has as a parent :-) I (honest!) hardly ever start conversations on school-type things with him, but I don't feel I want to refuse to answer questions, and most of what he learns is from books he chooses anyway, these days. That said, I confess I read John Holt's book How Children Learn a while back, and did to some extent recognise his "teacher devil" which inclined him to teach even when he thought it was not a good idea!

It's fascinating - and reassuring - how children are not always interested in the things we think they'll like, isn't it? DS's absolute favourite subject in the last year is biology, something neither my husband or I have ever studied seriously.

Ah, I misread then, sorry. That's a shame, that he got some acceleration and then got it snatched back, at least in practice :-(

You never know, it might be worth talking to them anyway. Practically all independent schools have some kind of bursery scheme, and I've heard it said that they're sometimes underused because so many people don't even approach them.

If you want to explore the idea with a bigger group of people than are here, I recommend the home-ed list, see
http://www.twobar.com/mailman/listinfo/home-ed
- it's not UK based, but it seems to be a friendly and thoughtful group of people (I mostly lurk there - home education would not be our first choice, but neither would I rule out ever doing it)

Btw, if he wants StarWars stuff, I'd go with that, personally :-)

Try to put yourself in the right places, at right times to personally come in contact with parents of other gt kids. This board is a godsend but I don't know how I'd process all the challenges (oops opportunities) without other adults who I don't have to hold back with.... someone you can tell about the cool stuff your kid does without worrying about it feeling braggish. someone who might have a child a year or more ahead to give you pointers to the local options, system, rules... For us it is a battle between denial and thinking it will all work out and frustration about our educational options. having folks here, but even more so - having some supporters in the flesh makes the road you are starting out on easier. imho.

there are those who will argue focus only on horizontal learning - like an instrument that can teach them a work ethic and not detract from schooling. excellent. but in the end vertical learning doesn't create much of the boredom - traditional teaching styles do - again imho. so even if you don't teach division - it'll still probably be boring because it will be taught and taught and taught when your son grabbed it the first try. or science when the struggle is the class won't spend enough time - won't go deep into the subject. there is no crystal ball. following our child's lead seems our only clear course now and we try not to worry about its impact - because the day i said i wouldn't explain something in math to her for the same fear i still deeply regret and the days i just answers the questions and leave information at access - i've never regreted.

for what its worth...

We have become friends with a family who have a GT child and it has been a huge help. The kids get along really well. We have tried to find other but so far we are unsuccessful.The is also no branch of the NAGC in our area.

That is what i remember about school, listening (and then tuning out) to the teacher going on and on. I'm 90% sure DS is already doing this - he has shown though that he is memorizing worksheets or rules for the class.. The more i think about it the more that school seems like a really bad idea because even if they give him more challenging work once he completes it then they will have to go further. I'm trying to find a fun way for him to learn Spanish as they don't do languages in the UK until they are 11 - and then it's usually French (the instrument he wants to learn is the Trumpet! - and he needs his 2 adult front teeth).

Thank you for your advice. I do try to answer all his questions approapriatly. thats how we got into negative numbers - he continuously asked what is 1-2? i kept saying 0, then after about 4 hours i said -1; quick explaination and then he was off...