Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Update on DS

Hope everyone is having a nice Thanksgiving.

We had our first official parent-teacher conference yesterday. Mixed results I'd say. (DS5.5, getting closer to 6, was admitted early entrance to first grade, effectively skipping K. He's reading probably at 3rd grade level and does math at 3rd grade level and up)

Overall he's doing well. I don't take a whole lot of stock in grades at this point and I'm more interested in what the teachers have to say. The mixed feedback that we received came along of the lines of "obviously he is doing well in math and yes he's already mastered 1st grade reading" *but* "he's not showing us what he's capable of." I wasn't terribly surprised at this. Apparently he is very quiet at school a lot and he's not being assertive by raising his hands or otherwise participating in discussions. He did this for more than half of the year when he was in nursery school, but then he really opened up and became quiet the little talker. We've heard comments from nursery school like "he doesn't say much, but when he does he's really thought about it and it's profound." So apparently we're seeing this in first grade too right now.

We talked with his teacher and we said we'd work on getting DS to express himself more. We explained that sometimes we too have difficulty getting him to summarize a story that he's just read. If you "trick" him into telling you about it--say by intentionally misstating facts of the story--it becomes pretty clear that he has read it and understands it. Sometimes the boy is just plain stubborn.

I think I'm just a bit worried about the "we're not seeing him demonstrate" comment. I think the positive side of it is that the teacher *did* come out and add "that we know he's capable of doing." Still, we're not officially identified as gifted yet (a big deal in PA).

So it was pretty mixed. And we got further reinforcement that right now the supplemental work that he's getting is just more on grade level material. I expected this too (but we are disappointed).

Anyways, that's the update. I'm just hoping the "not demonstrating what he knows" is not their diplomatic way of them saying to us "he's not gifted."

JB

Wow -- I find it amazing that they'd skip him, not not identify him as gifted! Very odd.

I don't think "not demonstrating what he knows" is a nice way of saying he's not gifted. Is it possible they know he *is*, but don't want to provide services beyond the grade skip? He hasn't been tested yet, has he? Do you think he'd cooperate?

Have you sought more differentiation -- and would he do it? Is he enjoying school?

From what I remember, you're afterschooling informally. How's he doing there -- does he still have that "spark"?

I feel for your ds! It's an awkward spot, adjusting to a grade skip that's probably inadequate anyway. Yikes!

In the middle of making my famous mash potatoes so I'll jump online and answer some of the other (very good) questions later today.

Boy oh my, yes! Definitely yes! He's been diving right back into math and he's been proudly showing his grandmother and uncle who are here visiting all of things he finds exciting. Lots of requests to do more math too. Luckily for us he's shown glimmers of his ability by putting things like square roots in his doodles. So they've seen *some* things.

JB

Mmmm. Turkey. Yum!


They didn't skip him because they identified him. We had him tested and his mental age was above 7, the prerequisite for early entry into first. The school admin that handles gifted kids didn't initially recommend skipping (mentioning the social issues), but ultimately agreed to support our request after our tests were done.

We've had him tested and we know that based on his IQ he's in the right range. We took the SB5 test, which wasn't a great test for him, but it illustrated the point. The school has a copy.

He has some level of differentiation right now, but it's probably not going to be enough. I think his teacher is trying to do the best that she can within her parameters. We'll make a case for it more once he's officially id'ed as gifted in PA. That's not a silver bullet, but it's a start. He does like school, but largely the social aspects of it (recess, etc). He is learning some new things, but that's probably because what DW and I do is not structured.

Yes, and he has been really getting into it. Some of it may be a little bit of showing off for family, but as an example he was just doing binary math problems, then base 3 math, and then he wanted to do hexidecimal, and then back to base 10, and finally some geometry. The boy will do a non 10 base borrowing or carry over math problem yet at school he's still working on number pairs for 10. He's back to doing things that make us say "oh gosh!". And then "now what do we do?" because we could continue to feed his thirst to learn but then there is a huge disconnect between what he does in school (and what he demonstrates in school) and what he does at home. I know that his teacher has seen some glimpses into his ability... And maybe that's enough to get us that all important gifted identification.

But to Dottie's point (which my wife also makes), part of this is his personality.


Yeah. Grandma is here, and she's a third grade teacher... apparently DS has a lot of 3rd grade mastered at this point.

JB

Thanks Dottie. Always appreciate the BTBD, especially from someone who's been through the PA process.


I know. Feels like forever. The school pysch did email our teacher, so we know things are rolling. I was happy to hear the teacher recognized that he had put square root problems on his math pages the other day when he was doodling. And that he scored a perfect on his reading eval. Hopefully there isn't anything to worry about and we get our id.

JB

We're 'bout ready to have second helpings in another hour or so.

Sooooo fuuuulllll....

JB

Our turkey still has 2 hrs. to go

I wish our school honored outside testing. DS was skipped but is not id'ed as GT. That won't happen until 4th grade.

*sigh*

I wish people would understand that it's okay to be an introvert. Not everyone babbles non-stop, and that's okay. Thinking before speaking is actually a desirable trait. Albeit a rare one.

And, Dottie, I'm with your son. I remember doing the same "wait and see" technique in class when I was a kid. Otherwise teachers would say things like "Does anyone OTHER than Kriston know the answer?" You only have to hear that a couple of times before you realize you're not making any friends by having your hand in the air all the time...

I don't know if your DS has figured that out yet, JBDad, but if he has, he's really ahead of the game!

I agree, it's a personality trait and there is nothing wrong with that. I was this way and so are my kids. Not to mention that after a while most of the questions don't seem to be worth answering. One cannot sometimes even believe that a teacher would ask such easy questions.

We heard the same thing about our son in K. The teacher knew he was academically advanced, before he set foot in her class and was trying her best to accomodate his needs. We knew she knew and we weren't pushing for a grade skip, so when all the teacher could comment about was that our son was quiet or soft spoken or not speaking up in class. I got upset and defensive. My dh on the other hand didn't. He thanked her for her observation and asked her what we should do to help him and more importantly what was she doing to encourage him. It put the ball back in her court, so to speak. We all knew academically he wasn't learning anything. That he was basically there to gain confidance and independance and find his feet socially among peers and his teacher. From that moment on she started looking for ways to help him.

I don't know if what I wrote helps at all. I just remember how fustrated I was and to be honest I felt it was kind of a cop out, that she was grasping for something for him to work on. Dh took a more positive approach and thought "Finally something that she can do to teach him so K isn't a waste of time." Good Luck.