Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Skipping and gaps

I have a question: what do people think about the idea of skipping a year or two of a subject versus going through each year in order to avoid "gaps in learning?"

This idea has been on my mind somewhat lately, as my DS8's teacher has made it clear that he will not do 5th grade science until he's mastered 4th grade science, end of story.

I bought a copy of the 5th grade book, and from what I can see, the major difference is that the grade 5 curriculum is somewhat more technical. It shares a lot of the same concepts with the 4th grade book. I don't see the big deal, given that the kid actively listens in on the 5th (and 6th!) grade stuff whenever he can.

I have an impression that many or most teachers are very concerned about gaps in learning, and that allowing them to exist will cause harm. I'm not convinced, at least in the case of gifted kids.

Oh, one more related thing: I'm really beginning to understand the importance of IQ testing: it's so they'll believe you when you make claims about a child's abilities, right?

Thoughts?

Val

I'm not either. If a gap is discovered, how much real time does it take to fill in the gap? For our DS, he just learns so quickly that even if we miss something, it doesn't take him long at all to pick up what was missed. I'm guessing the same is true for you.

JB

DS had a gap the other day. He didn't know the term "spelling pattern" i.e. the pattern of consonants and vowels in a word. This caused him to get half of a worksheet wrong. I'm not sure why the teacher didn't just tell him the definition, because that was all it took for him to "get" the concept and fix the worksheet.

Also, it seemed somewhat irrelevant since he already knew how to spell all those words anyway...

Still, his teacher makes much of such gaps. I suppose it's because it's an inconvenience to her to define terms?

Hmmmmm... that makes sense, kcab. Dratted testing!

Worry about gap seems to me to be the same old lack of understanding about why GT kids are ahead. If we parents had been spending every waking hour hothousing to get them to be ahead, then gaps would be a problem. No time for hothousing to catch them up! Yikes!

But for a GT kid who just gets stuff on his/her own, gaps get filled in immediately.

If teachers could understand that simply defining the term = teaching the concept most of the time, then maybe they'd be less worried about gaps. I think they expect gaps to mean that they have actual teaching work and review to do. Usually, that's just not so.

*sigh*

A little off topic, but in a similar vein, our teacher made a big deal about a particular differentiated math lesson with DS. He was doing "number pairs" (their way of teaching X + Y = Z for sums up to 10) and they made a big deal about DS only wanting to do something simple like 1 + 1 = 2 during this lesson. They couldn't get him to do other more complex number pairs. At first it bothered me a little. Then DW pointed out that to him, it's all the same. Plus 1, +3, +5, etc., it doesn't really matter. Maybe his way of rebelling and saying "Don't you get it... it's just addition..."

But I think the reason that they are hung up on it is that he'll have to take standards tests.

For what it's worth, our teacher has told us directly that DS will not be taught more than addition this year. Perhaps for the same reason (gaps). We have our GIEP in a few weeks, so we'll see.

JB

Ah, I should have clarified. Additions/subtraction math facts (part of the "number pairs"). DS has his multiplication facts down cold already. This is part of what we want to work on with his GIEP. We're a bit put off by the fact the we were told we couldn't go beyond add/subtract. The boy loves math. Let's not kill that.

JB

Wow, thanks for all the quick replies.

I sense a desire for full mastery in DS8's teacher, and there appears to be some discomfort at moving forward in its absence. I also don't understand the big deal about letting him do grade 5 science, yet I got a pushy parent look when I brought it up. DS8 brought his grade 5 book to school to show to the teacher and she told him "not until you finish grade 4."

I just don't get this. I understand, sort of, about having to cover most things in mathematics, because it builds on itself. That said, we skipped a lot of mathematics and went straight to algebra and this was not a big deal. Sure, he still needed to learn how to add unlike fractions and multiply decimals, but he learned it! So, I definitely believe in a non-linear approach to this subject for mathy kids.

As for science, the elementary level books I've looked at don't build cohesively the way that college level courses build on previous knowledge. They just use more complicated ideas about the same basic things, which he's well capable of understanding.

I think I have to ask for a conference; dunno what I'll say yet. Advice welcome.

Argh. Here we are again!

Val

I completely agree with this -- if the gap were that big an issue, it would have been clear that a skip were unnecessary. If the child gets the basics, any gaps should be pretty easily filled. Except cursive (I do have that lingering effect from my second-grade skip -- my handwriting is horrid).


This was our experience, too. It was extraordinarily frustrating. I thought testing was going to help with the school, but it didn't so much ... it more reassured me that I wasn't wrong!

Of course, this isn't the case everywhere and with all teachers, but it was for us.

I think you stated it quite well with the math analogy. Why can't science be the same? Particularly if the difference is the level of detail.

I wish I could give advice on how to approach it... We're still learning the game too

JB

Thanks. I have to give this a lot of thought.

Val

JBDad, if the teacher insists on only add/sub in 1st grade, how about asking if you can send in Singapore Math challenging word problems (CWP) workbooks. There are some nice multi-step word problems that only involve addition/subtraction but on up into the thousands etc. There is also multi/div in there so if DS should happen to the wrong page, ooops. LOL. You could probably go on up to SM CWP 4A/4B which is addition/sub but adults often require algebra to set up - SM teaches bar diagrams so it wouldn't look like algebra to the teacher.

I think that statement is sooooo funny; but I guess I should be sad about the truth in it.

LOL OHGrandma, I didn't mean to be disparaging to teachers just that with a cursory glance, the problems would look like the usual add/sub problems but they are quite complex. The bar diagrams makes it look deceptively simple. Before I learned bar diagrams, I had to use algebra to solve them. The teacher might not look that closely at the books.

Is it that she doesn't understand the concept--a real gap!--or that she doesn't *like* to use tally marks? It seems to me that she's just choosing another way to solve the problem, and that isn't so much a gap as a matter of preference. Provided she gets the concept and can still solve the problem, I don't see it as a big issue.

I think you're right that this is one of the reasons teachers worry about gaps, but I also think it's rather unnecessary. Is your DD going to be unable to progress in math because she'd rather write numbers than tally marks? I don't think so!

I don't have much experience with the gap question - my son's been subject accelerated for 3 days now and did have vocabulary gaps that freaked him out, but once terms were defined things seemed fine. So far!

But on the testing question, I actually came here intending to post a pro-testing thread b/c of our experience with the school. It's awful, dreadful, that some people are so innumerate as to not understand what the results mean! But if they do, it's soooo nice. We've been playing this 'try to get the school on the same page as us' game for more than a year. It's been so frustrating, and clearly they didn't feel the need for any follow-through, ever. They were defensive and hostile, and we were doing our best to be careful and cautious and never ever ever say the 'g' word.

Then my son had a complete sobbing meltdown in class and they couldn't stop him. This freaked them out, as our repeated "our son is increasingly unhappy and tearful about school" letters did not. We had a meeting get scheduled REALLY quickly then - what a change. We walked in there and the principal started off with what sounded like the "your son is under a lot of pressure from you" talk. And our psychologist, that we tortured ourselves over deciding to hire, whipped out the test results, slapped them on the table in front of all the school people. It was all quiet for a bit, then, some "wow"s were heard. DH and I were just SO loving that. They then recovered pretty quickly and said "well, of course we all expected this." (hah). But the beauty of it was that it completely stopped the hothousing "he's not as smart as he thinks he is" comments, and has got them, however temporarily (though I hope it'll be permanent!) willing to think creatively and flexibly about getting our son to a place where he's learning in school. They changed their stupid grade-level only library checkout policy, his teacher got him a bunch of hard books to keep in the classroom to read, some of which were on math and science, which was brilliant of her. And despite their seeming to think it would be overwhelmingly hard to have him go to a different classroom for some subjects, he's been accelerated in math. So he has a math challenge, books that are both interesting to read and teach him something, and, maybe most important, the feeling that they finally understand that he's smart and that things will get better, in ONE WEEK after more than a year of talking about this problem. They didn't listen to us one bit, but the test scores? That made all the difference. It makes me wish I'd tested him as he started school. I think that's probably not necessary as long as there's no problem and your child is happy...but if there's a problem, oh, how it helped us. (and it helped us personally, too, with the knowing what we're dealing with thing, and the not feeling crazy thing).

it is lovely, kcab...and I know this is going to plateau and we'll need more change. But for now, ds has actually learned some things in school, has come home excited, and feels, I think, vindicated and relieved. He wrote a love poem! he used to write poems but hadn't in more than a year. And this morning he was up and dressed and ready for school before we were even out of bed! And maybe not surprisingly, but I hadn't thought of it - he's been surprisingly kind to his brother. Like encouraging him, praising him. Maybe he just has felt too bad recently to be able to try to make others feel better. I'll have to remember this when it gets rough again...I'm assuming his growing up is going to be a long start-and-stop, better and worse process.

Oh, I meant to say, too, that it doesn't sound to me like anything remotely like not being gifted 'enough', but rather like the sort of stubborn refusal to do the thing that made them feel bad originally thing my son has. I think of it as perfectionism-related. The oh, I didn't know that, now I will go nowhere near it, and besides, who needs to know that stupid thing anyway reaction, which has nothing to do with ability to do whatever it is. We try, a lot, to teach ds that mistakes and not knowing are good, not a sign of complete failure! I guess in that way, the gaps are an opportunity for learning to handle not knowing, which is really important. I do get weary of trying to anticipate what he'll decide about the world from any given experience and head off the counter-productive ones, though...

I agree, montana, and I also don't think it has a thing to do with being "not GT enough." Perfectionism is a much better fit!

I'm glad to persuade you on that one, MON. Normally I'm more interested in the ideas than the persuasion, but on this one, I think it mattered that you saw what I was saying, since I think you're right that you were accepting the school's (wrong) take on it. I like montana's statement on it a lot:


That's good stuff!

It may not always be easy for the child to deal with not knowing something, but I think that makes it all the more important that they get that chance. You know? The harder it is, the more they need it.

Wow - wonderful news montana. I hope the school tries to keep up from now on!

Masterofnone - side note re: tallies. We just read "How to Count Like a Martian" (a book someone at this fabulous site recommended). It explains all types of counting systems, and it explained them simply enough that even I could finally get binary! (i'm a little number-concept challenged.) Just a thought - it's out of print, but i found it through inter-library loan.

WOW Montana! That psych is worth his/her weight in gold!!! Do you mind saying whether you had IQ test alone or was it also achievement testing? I've heard that schools are more open to achievement testing than IQ but i've not been successful in finding someone to give the WJIII.

Grades 4 and 5 do a lot of the same practical work at DS8's school (another reason why I don't see letting him move to grade 5 as a big deal).

They follow the California state curriculum. I though it was okay after a quick glance at the books last year, and oh, how wrong I was. The copyright date on the books is 2000, which means they were probably written in 1998/1999 and are therefore ten years old. Some of the information is very out of date.

I found a glaring date-independent error in the book and on an exam. I tried to point it out to the teacher because it had confused DS8. She replied "this is what the book says." End of conversation. I was a little surprised at that.

This got me thinking that every public school kid in the state reads these books. I wonder how many teachers are providing incorrect/outdated information to their students? It's no wonder we have so many people who are scientifically illiterate if the illiteracy is fostered in elementary school!

Well, I guess the honeymoon's over at the new school. It's better in some ways, but not at all what we'd hoped. Oh well.

Val

Great news, Montana! I'm so happy that you all have finally gotten some help from your school.

Sorry things are not quite so rosy for you, Val. That "this is what the book says" just makes me cringe!

I taught in a university department that had lots of interdisciplinary offerings, so we had students with many different majors in some of our classes. Over the years, several colleagues and I noticed, to our collective dismay, that the largest single source of attitudes like "but the book says..." or "just tell me what I need to know for the test, I'm not interested in anything else" came from the education students. (There were lots of good ed. students, too, of course, and of course this was only one school in one province at one particular point in time, but still...) The phenomenon was marked enough that we really did wonder what kinds of things were going to be going on in classrooms around the province as the years went by. My personal favourite horror story was the young woman who proudly told me that she had managed her programme over the five years of her degree such that she was going to be able to graduate without ever having written a research paper! She is now teaching middle-school English. Sigh.

Hey, pauli, glad you liked the martians! We thought that book was really fun!

I was very surprised by her answer. At first, she really seemed to understand my son, but I've been wondering lately.

I found out today that when they said they'd move DS6 up to 2nd grade spelling and reading, they meant "enrichment" rather than a formal move. I don't know what this means yet. The teacher told me she thinks it's important that he do the 1st grade spelling and that "it gets harder after the first few lessons."

?? They've been in school for four months!? When will they finish the first few lessons?

Apart from two "special words" tests (numbers; which, when, etc), he never gets more than one wrong on his pre-tests. So I'm not sure why he needs to continue to write down a bunch of words he never needed to learn how to spell to begin with.

Val

What a great news Montana! I am glad the school got it and finally did something about it! You must all feel so much better now.

Hi, Dazed&Confuzed...it was IQ and achievement (and she's doing social things as well, classroom observation, maturity, etc). WISC and WIAT. She presented results from both, so I don't know which if either mattered more to the school. There was another deeply satisfying moment, when the principal did this "well, the WIAT reading tests aren't relevant to schools because the selections are so short they don't co-relate (how IS that spelled?) with skills used in school" thing, and the psych. said, basically, "yes, I agree, and that's why I administered THIS and got this range of results" and slapped down another piece of paper, which utterly silenced the school protest. Ohhh, did we enjoy that! I still, when it comes to mind, really savor the moment. Probably makes me a bad person, but oh, I really enjoyed that. (I think the latter test is the Woodcock-Johnson, but I'm really tired and might be wrong).

So yes. Worth her weight in gold! She kept assuring us she knew how to deal schools and for us just to keep quiet until the results were in, which drove me INSANE waiting and waiting while things got worse and worse. But I have to admit, her having all those things at our meeting circumvented a lot of upsetting lines of argument from the school. And probably was tactically good, b/c now there's less on the record commentary from the school for them to back away from, which I imagine helps them save face and be interested in helping.

Wow, Montana, I'm DOK over your psych. Wish I could find one that good.

I was worried for you on the waiting, so I'm very glad you ignored me and it all worked out!

Sometimes it's very, very good to be wrong!

Ah yes, that was definitely worth the wait!