Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Accelerating a math grade

Eh, this is my first post here, so I'd like to say hi before getting on with my question. ^^

I took the SAT for the first time a few weeks ago as part of the John Hopkins Talent Search, since I'm only in seventh grade, and I just recieved my scores.

CR: 710
Math: 670
Writing: 630

Total: 2010

I didn't prep for the SAT, except for practice sessions to get the feel of it, as I don't believe in practicing for this kind of test.

The main thing is, I want to skip a math grade, but the math chair won't let me, as I didn't do so great on the seventh grade final examination. :\ I still feel as if I'm wasting my time, as I finish my work literally ten minutes faster than my peers in the honors class, my first quarter math average was a 99, recieved 100's on both my first quarter and midterm examinations, and got a recommendation from my math teacher to skip a grade. Is there any way that my SAT scores will help my case to skip?

Honestly, my math scores aren't that exceptional, as I have two friends who also took the SAT and had 770 and 730 as a math score, and they both skipped a math grade. Would my verbal help somehow?

This probably isn't a forum for kids, but my parents can't be bothered to use forums. Thank you in advance. ^^

also take a look at john hopkin's SET program. welcome to the forum. We occasionally have kids posting here - i hope more often now that you are here! also try cogito.com I am hopeful that your Math Advocacy will go better now that you have scores in hand. I reccomend that you ask what it would take to get you skipped in Math. Sometimes you can do a summer class or an online class to prove that it's going to work.++++I+hope+you+have+great+plans+for+your+summer.++If+not,+those+SAT+scores+just+opened+some+doors.

I looked over the requirements, and I did take the Stanford-Binet when I was five. My scores were kind of mediocre, though, since I just came back from a two-year stay in China with my grandmother and knew minimal English.

I'm not sure what they mean by "Verbal, Non-Verbal, or Full Scale", though. Do they look at the sections of the IQ test separately?


Edit: Grinity,

I did check out their SET program, it looks great. I also looked at Cogito, but don't know how to register for the forums.

Yeah, it's from SB-IV.

Currently, I'm twelve years old and one month.

Edit: After reading the application, the only things that concern me are that you need a full written report for the IQ test, which I'm not sure we have, and the portfolio. I'm very lazy and test well, mostly, and have only won a few meaningless contests. Two drawing ones, a "What the Flag Means to Me" contest in first grade, and once had a fourth grade piece published in a magazine. Nothing that would impress anyone very much. :S

Also, Lina, don't think you have to use assignments from school for the portfolio. What kind of mathy or writing stuff do you like to do on your free time? Sometimes a kid feels stifled with assignments that come home from school.

Perhaps it would be easier to "show your stuff" if you included projects in a portfolio that you came up with on your own.

What kind of math stuff gets your blood pumping?

And yes, best wishes to you. Keep being proactive, you never know where it will lead you.

One more thought. Mostly, It's been my experience that administrators are very hesitant to grade skip or subject skip out of concern for the student. They want to be very confident the child will still do well if accelerated.

Perhaps you could borrow your friends' textbook and do some work out of it and then present it to your math chair. I can't guarantee it would convince him to accelerate you, but it might be worth a try. If nothing else, he will see that you are serious about your wish to have more appropriate math challenges at school.

Dottie: Thank you. My mom is pretty stressed out right now, so I'll have to ask her later.

incogneato: Oh, I have a few of those. I take on a lot of projects during my free time, although I hardly finish any. :P

I actually tried doing that during the summer last year. I took my brother's seventh grade honors textbook and began doing every single problem in it (there were over fifty problems per section). Then I realized that they didn't use the same textbooks year to year.

Thanks for the advice.

Apply! The worst DYS can say is no (or, more likely "We need more info"). If that happens, you're no worse off than you are right now, right?

It's a really good organization. A number of our kids here are members. It's free, it's a great group for help with things like trying to get grade skips, it hooks you up with kids like you from all around the country...it's just good all the way around!

And congratulations on the scores! You should be very pleased!

Hi Lina,
My last post was from my phone, so - sorry about the weird symbols - I have no idea what's up with that!

I'd like to add that your Math Scores ARE exceptional, if the word exceptional means anything at all. Sure, you have found two friends who have even more exceptional scores! They are also exceptional. It also means that your school probably has a higher than average 'average' because most schools wouldn't have any kids who score like you and your friends.

Here's the thing, it's normal for Gifties to have friends who are also Gifted. And since no one can talk about LOG (levels of Giftedness) or even smartness without almost dying of embarrassment, it's hard to 'get a reference' for what your mind is like. I grew up thinking that I was 'smart' but that my younger brother was MUCH MUCH smarter. (I think that he still thinks this!)

In a way, it is impossible to compare one person to any other in terms of Giftedness. I have a kind of periscope brain that sees around corners - LOL! That isn't measured on any IQ test, but I sure do enjoy it. OTOH, I thought that I was much stupider than my friends so I didn't allowances that I would need to live in an area where I would have lots of access to other Highly Gifted People not to feel lonely. I just lucked out that my son qualified for Davidson Young Scholar's program, because now I see that a lot of the ways that I always hated myself for not being 'regular' are in fact 'regular' around Gifties. If my son hadn't dragged me into the Gifted World, kicking and screaming and saying: "Oh come on, so he's bright, big deal!" then I would still think I was 'bad' at being regular.

Anyway, I've learned a lot from reading and posting here, about my self, my husband, and my son.

BTW: My Husband's definition of Gifted is: "That's what you call the really smart people who are smarter than me."

Smiles,
Grinity

Lina,
That means that you can be high in, for example, Abstract/Visual Reasoning, but lower on other parts of the test and still quailfy.

I do reccomend that you print out an application and fill it out to the best of your ability (we'll help any way we can) and then ask your Mom to sign it and send it in.

Smiles,
Grinity

While most of Cogito.org is open to anyone, there are certian parts that are only open to members. I'm not sure exactly how to become a member, but here is the contact info:
Do you need to check with your parent's before you make a long distance phone call? If it's ok with your parents for you to call, I'll bet that any of the names listed here would be happy to talk to you, (after the holidays) and might even be able to give you advice about a Math Skip. If you took your SAT's through John Hopkins Talent Search then you may be getting info about SET and Cogito.org membership in the mail very soon.

http://www.cogito.org/aboutcogito/default.aspx?ContactUs

Smiles,
Grinity

Wow! Lina!
This brought back memories for me; I used to say that I 'test smarter than I am.'

It turns out not to be true. I just am was very lazy, and had no idea what would impress anyone. Again, I think that biggest problem for Gifties is lack of reference. I pretty much judged myself against the characters I read about in books! This is not a realistic way to get reference.

I also have to face that I'm very hard working when I care about something. It's taken many years of 'getting more mature' to just plain force myself to do stuff that doesn't interest me. I did well at school by becoming a champion at 'spinning' an assignment so that I could find a way to care about it, and that was wonderful, but it always left me feeling 'not quite as smart' as the kids who could just 'sit down and grind it out.'

I think that the key challenge for my son at this stage of life (12, 8th grade)is to find a dream that will motivate him to work hard even when it is hard.

When I was little, I just 'cranked open my ears' during school and let all the things my teachers wanted me to learn just 'float in.' It was fun and easy.
In highschool, I was so happy to make friends with the kids who 'got my jokes' and took the hardest classes, but I thought I was dumb because:
a) I couldn't make myself work as hard as they did. A low 'a' was as good as an A++ to me.
b) I couldn't just 'crank open my ears' and do all my learning in class anymore - so I figured that if I had to study, that meant I was dumb.
c) Several of the kids did outscore me on various tests.

You can see by how I was thinking that if I had said stuff like that aloud on a forum like this, I would have found out that it's quite possible to be very, very, very smart and still not perfect in every way. I also yearned to break out of my 'circle of Nerds' and be friends with every one.

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I really thought that if I could hone my social skills until I could be liked by anyone and everyone, then I would really have achieved something wonderful. So I did, and it is wonderful - BUT - I have to face that even though I can make myself likable to 'anyone' - I can't make myself deeply enjoy the company of 'anyone.' I'm not saying that all my friends are acaedemically gifted, although most of them are, but that all my friends are really really special in various ways.

As you can see, I have a fair amount of that 'Intensity' that folks say Gifties have. Now I'm all tired out.

Good Night,
Grinity

Good Point Dottie!
Although if you are allowed to use the phone, I'll bet a phone call to CTY would speed things up a bit, and perhaps yeild some advice about the grade skip. At the very least you could get some 'reference' about how 'exceptional' you really are.

I'm spending time at this link printing out summer classes choices for their summer camp.
http://www.cty.jhu.edu/summer/catalogs/os/oscatalog.html

Do you know anyone who has done these camps before? My son met a whole bunch of really fun kids at MIT's Splash the weekend before Thanksgiving who had attended and loved their experience.

Of course next year you can consider attending: http://www.davidsongifted.org/think/Article/THINK_Summer_Institute___Qualifications_368.aspx
which is much more selective. This year you are too young. My son is hoping that by next year he will have high enough scores to consider going.

Some kids love these camps so much that they 'live summer to summer' which I think is happy and sad at the same time. If it 'keeps hope alive' during a dull school year, then it's a good thing, but why not have this all the time?

Smiles,
Grinity

Grinity, thanks for sharing this. I've been struggling with how much concern I should have for the fact that DS6 is underchallenged, yet seems to be happy and content with 'crank'-ing his ears and does very well. You reminded me how important it is to learn how to struggle a bit to learn...

Good work Dottie!

Lina, choose one of those unfinished projects. I'd recommend the one you find most interesting that you think really demonstrates what you are capable of when you really push yourself.....

Finish it! If someone had MADE me do this at your age, things would have been a lot easier for me the next few years after.....chuckle......



I see. But you don't have to demonstrate that you already did what the grade students are doing from their current textbook. Merely demonstrate you are clearly capable of operating at that difficulty level, which you did by doing the "old" textbook. Did you already bring in that work and that was the reason you were given as not able to accelerate? Or are you worried that is the response you WOULD get?


BTW: Hope you have enjoyed/are enjoying the holidays.


Good points Dottie and Grinity. You know, I really bristle when it seems that a child is denied acceleration because there are two students that supposedly scored higher. One does not know the full story or how far ahead those kids are anyway.....

It's a fallacious argument............

Lina,
I think that 'Neato's advice is good, but don't beat yourself up if you don't complete any of those tasks. You may be years ahead of yourself intellectually, but that doesn't mean that you are years ahead in your 'frontal-lobe' development. It takes time (and practice) for those neurons to develop. So every bit of progress you make is practice, and excersize for that part of your brain, 'completion'is great, but isn't the only measure of success.

The other thing to know is that for a project to be 'big' enough to look appealing to a Giftie, it is almost, 'by definiton' going to be too big to complete without supportive Adults helping. Again, this is a matter of reference. Your Math idea was wonderful, but I'll bet that you don't know of anyone who has ever done anything remotely similar. So when you ran into trouble, you didn't have anyone to give you advice, or at least inspiration. If you had knowledgable trusted adults around, they might have suggested using an online class, such as EPGY, Art of Problem Solving, Aleks.com or youtubes such as Khan Academy.

If you are like me, a big part of doing anything is doing it with other people who share my interests. Individual projects are great for folks who love their 'alone time,' but other people have a lot more energy for things if they take a good friend along with them. As you try things and gain experience, you'll get to know yourself better and be better able to guess what kinds of projects you will follow through with and what kinds of help you will need.

Bottom Line: At 12, you have to expect to try a lot of different projects and approaches to learn how to do projects. Don't take 'losing interest before the project is complete' as a permanent personal character flaw. Seems to me that a lot of the creative work done nowadays is done in teams.

Best wishes,
Grinity

incogneato: I doubt doing the textbook problems would have any effect on the math chair, because it seems as if his decision is based solely on the seventh grade honors final exam, which I didn't do so well on. I can't get him to take a second look because of that and the fact that he claims that it's too late in the school year for a skip. My math teacher, on the other hand, seems pretty concerned with my situation, and has asked me several times about whether I'm skipping or not and the like, so I think that she may have more of an impact on the chair then my parents. I'm going to email her with my SAT scores and see if she thinks they'll help or not and go from there.

Grinity: Thanks for the advice! I can totally relate because yes, I do take on a lot of projects and my interests shift very quickly, so I never finish any of them. The two friends that I do have who I can chat about nerd-topics and SATs with don't really have the same interests. As far as I know, one of them is obsessed with GH and the other on the environment and how we're all going to die from overpopulation. I don't want to be seen with him too often. :x

Sorry for the late replies, I'm typing this out painfully letter by letter on a touch keyboard in my hotel at Las Vegas.

Lina,
The math chair needs to learn more about giftedness (but I wouldn't tell him that). If he wants to know if you are gifted in math (and therefore should be accelerated in math), there is a test called TOMAGS that my DD's (age 8) school gave her to see if she should be accelerated in math. I assume it's not only for elementary age. It is not an achievement test like a final exam is - it is a test of math giftedness. Then they gave her the current year's end-of-unit tests to see if she had any major learning gaps. DD8 scored in 99th percentile (95th in gifted population) and didn't have many learning gaps for her current year's content. So they decided to skip her to 4th grade math. I should mention that if they had found SOME learning gaps, it wouldn't have changed their decision - it would have meant that they would have done some 3rd grade math in addition to her 4th grade math this year.

I don't know a lot about SAT testing, but you're in good hands with everyone here, so I'm confident your scores should help your case.

Also, it's never too late to accelerate by subject, so don't give up on making the change this school year. I'm quite impressed that you are advocating for yourself - I don't think my DD8 will ever advocate for herself.

I hope you get the challenge you're wanting!
-WannaBe

Ouch! I've been there, done that. I don't know how anyone can call it a vacation if it means the only internet acess is on a tiny keyboard...does give me sympathy for tiny gifties who haven't learned to type yet.

Grinity

When I was in high school, GH stood for a soap opera called, 'General Hospital.' What does it stand for these days?

Cool thing about living in 2009 is that there are online communities and blogs on so many interesting topics. Don't be isolated even if you have to cyber-connect. Write down what your top 30 interests are and brainstorm ways to get connected to others who share them, especially locally if possible, and take baby-steps everyday towards that. You can start a new topic about anything you aren't sure how to find on your own.

If anything, a group of gifted kids is going to vary MORE than a group of ND kids. This can be a plus and a minus.

Have fun in Las Vegas. Too bad you can't do a side trip to Reno, where the Davidson Academy is...sigh

Smiles,
Grinity

Hope your math teacher can help you out. It might be helpful if your parents got involved as well.

Good luck!

Guitar Hero. If you value your eyes, you won't look at the graphics.

Well, it's time to stop putting off that email to my math teacher. I think I'm going to type it up now. :]

[teacher name here],

I hope you're enjoying the holidays, and sorry to bother you with school-related things, but I felt that it was a now-or-never kind of thing.

As you probably already know, I attempted a gradeskip early summer in math. To make things brief, I didn't do too well on the test and was denied a gradeskip. I approached the math chair again through my guidance counselor early second quarter asking if he could reconsider because of my 99 average in math, 100 on the first quarter exam, and just the fact that I finished my work way ahead of my peers and was, frankly, bored. He refused again. Apparently the decision is based solely on the seventh grade final examination I took during the summer. He also said that it was too late in the year for a skip.

Is skipping a math grade really about your knowledge or your ability? As far as I know, you don't skip a grade because you know everything that your teacher is going to teach you, you skip a grade because you learn faster than your classmates and aren't sufficiently challenged by the curriculum, which is the dilemma here.

I'm planning to try one more time. I have a full score on the midterm under my belt, and I'm pretty sure that I have a 99 average so far this quarter, but this isn't the real reason why I think he should reconsider. I took the SAT Reasoning Test earlier this December, and recieved my scores a week ago. Screenshot link.

CR: 710
Math: 670
Writing: 630

Of course, only math matters here. The reason I've emailed you is because I want to know whether you think the SAT matters to the math chair. Since it's generally taken by college-bound seniors, a seventh grader taking the SAT is somewhat unusual and you probably don't have a lot of data from kids my age to compare these scores to. So that's why I'm not going directly to the math chair.

Thanks for taking the time to read this email, and thanks in advance for your reply. ^^

Carolina

Meh. Sounds like I'm bragging about my scores. Better not include all that data about the average college-bound senior's scores, or it'll be even worse. :x

Lina, I like your letter. I would not take out anything, except:
"Hey, you may not have even heard of the SAT before this"

Because, your letter is beatifully written and from the heart. I think it is very impactual because of this. But that last statement sounds antagonistic even if it isn't meant to. The placement at the end of the letter leaves the last impression to be a bit antagonistic, which deflates the impact of the whole letter.

I sincerely recommend leaving the rest as is. Also, I recommend showing it and discussing it with your parents beforehand. As a parent, I wouldn't want to be blindsighted by a call from school without prior knowlege.

Also, if the letter is effective in getting the administration to revisit the issue, your parents can be prepared to handle that phone call.

I hope your parents are supportive of your efforts. It seems clear that this is very important to you.

Good luck.

Right. Maybe this is why my English teacher never liked me. o-o'"

I talked to my parents about it briefly before, but I'll show them this letter just in case. Thanks for your advice and support, 'neato. I'm itching to send this.

It's not about whether or not your teacher liked you, it's about being persuasive and compelling someone to come over to your line of thinking.

Trust me, Lina, I had plenty of teachers who couldn't STAND me!

I must be creating some sort of legacy because now some of my childrens' teachers can't stand me!



More power to you!!!!!!!!

Oh one more thing. The including the scores is not bragging. You are asking the school to make an exception, place you in a higher math grade based on ability, not age. Normally grade progression is determined by age progression.

Your SAT scores are important and persuasive evidence to support your assertion that it is reasonable for them to do this for you.

Not bragging.

Dottie,

I lied about my age. Shhhh. Otherwise, you get them after January 5th, since that's when they start mailing out your scores.

I looked it up on Collegeboard. Apparently, "average scores are based upon the most recent SAT scores of all students of a particular graduating class."

I'm actually not sure, as my mom did all of the registering, but I think online. I thought that if you had qualifying scores you would automatically be accepted, though?

"Pull my records, that I just read the other night"? o_o

I'm basing this off the fact that my mom showed me an email she got telling me my test dates and other information, so I could be wrong. I'm pretty sure my mom didn't lie about my age, though.

Are you talking about the SAT or the SCAT? A nine year old taking the SAT seems a bit young to me, at least, no offense meant.

To me, if you could come close to or even outperform students five or more years older than you, I wouldn't really mind if they were seniors or juniors. xD

My birthday is November 29, so I'm a bit young.

Edit: I started laughing when I read your post about accidentally putting down your child for 109 years old.

Nope, she meant the SAT. He's a really smart little dude, Lina.

At nine years old...That's amazing! ;3

Well, I don't want to get too off-topic, and all there is to do now is wait for my math teacher's reply. Thanks for the advice and support, guys. <3 ;]

Go get 'em, tiger!

And BTW, I think it's fantastic that you wrote your own letter--that should impress them right there!

Yes, please!

Lina, I don't know if anyone has mentioned this in this thread, but I'm INCREDIBLY impressed at your handling this situation (and those SAT scores)! You go girl!!!! And kudos to you for writing that letter! I to would recommend letting your parents read it first before sending so they are not blindsided.

And to date myself, I read GH has General Hospital as well but knew that couldn't be it!

Yup, me, too! At least we're all clearly from the same generation!

This is really starting to make me feel flattered.

I will keep you guys posted, though.