Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Putting on my teacher hat

Ah! Thanks, Dottie, for the clarification. This is an important distinction I will keep in mind for ds's future testing needs.

Dottie, you now have me VERY curious. I e-mailed my colleague and although I didn't get specific information--I'll have to wait until I go to work and see the test--it looks as if he did not score 9th grade across the board. He scored at the 9th grade on 2 out of 3 subtests. She said that he tested at 6th grade on the third subtest because he is not yet fluent with multiplication and division of larger numbers. That could be the fluency piece. But, I'll look into it.

mom2boys, That kid sounds a fair bit like my son. A happy kid who enjoyed the, as he put it, "hustle and bustle of a regular day at school." I helped out and knew he was ahead of other kids, but also saw how happy he was. He was fortunate to have teachers like you who made adjustments in their curriculum to challenge him. He did start a few hour a week pull-out program in 1st grade which he enjoyed. He is 13 and in 7th grade; he was never grade accelerated, but is subject accelerated to High School for math. I do think that there are some kids in some circumstances for whom this will work. You may have found one! But I agree that if you can reinforce how remarkable he is it may help the parents know what to do should he become restless in his classroom somewhere in the future.

A couple of other questions. CAMom, I LOVE the computer idea! We have 3 great computers in our classroom and don't use them as much as we should. What websites do you all recommend? We have a couple of math websites but they are geared toward primary and too easy for him. Thanks also for the book suggestions!

And, yes, both parents volunteer during math time. Again, they DO realize that he is smart. I'm sure that's why they chose to volunteer during math. And they do work with the "highest" kids in class, so they know but maybe just haven't totally faced it. I think their denial is related to just HOW advanced he is and how much they are going to have to advocate for him. Perhaps because this is their first experience with the public school system.

They made a point of giving me his report card from K prior to the beginning of the year and his K teacher (from private school) made it quite clear that he was an advanced child. We do early assessment so we test all our kids (in reading) prior to the first day of school. I approached his mom before school began to let her know that I was aware he was advanced and would work to meet his needs. But, when a child is as "out there" as he is, it is tough, especially in math. In reading, I stopped at 3rd grade b/c his ability to synthesize information and reflect on text (for example, state the most important event or summarize concisely) was advanced but not at the level a teacher would expect of a fourth grader. He was perfectly happy all fall to read transitional chapter books. He is in a reading group by himself because no one else in my class is at his level. Now that there is one child approaching end of third grade level, he has moved on and is no longer interested in transitional fiction. So he now chooses to read more challenging novels. He is on his own but seems happy. When I told his mom in the fall about his reading score, she laughed and said, "we're not so worried about reading, just wait until you test him in math!" So they do know.

Again, as CAMom said, I think what has really fueled their resistance to testing this year is the fact that he is so happy. At the beginning of the year, I asked them quite frequently if he were happy. Eventually, his mom said, "Well, we have been asking him every day if he's happy at school and he finally told us, very annoyed, 'Why do you keep asking me that? School is FUN!" Enough said. So, they stopped asking. I guess I want to set things up for the rest of elementary, though, because I really think that the older the child gets, the less flexibility there is and the more the teaching becomes all about the content. That's when I think he's going to look around and say, "Oh my gosh, school stinks!" Or at least that's my fear.

Those of you who have kids who are older, did you see your child become more disillusioned with school as he/she got older? I'm terrifed b/c I have a son who I believe is on the lower side of HG but he already hates school. If he hates school at preK I think we're in BIG trouble!

My DS, who sounds just like the kid in your class, has always been very happy. But he will report to me about very specific issues that he has having. In third grade, he started to get really bored with math. I encouraged him to speak with the teacher and she got him working on 4th grade math. That paved the way for him accelerating faster and now he is in HS math as a 7th grader. In 5th grade he got really fed up with a boring required English curriculum that took a couple hours a day. It was a biggish deal to get him out of that one, but with the support of the teacher, we were able to do it. He has always been really good about asking for what he needs and because he is generally so happy and able to ask for things clearly and pleasantly and becuase we have been very lucky in the teachers we have had, the teachers have always taken his requests very seriously.

BTW, one of the best things that our teachers did for DS was to make sure that the teacher he was getting the next year was a good "fit" for him. The result is that we have had teachers that really understood and appreciated our son. This has made a world of difference and would not have been possible without the input of teachers that enjoyed our DS.

Choosing teachers carefully has been the thing that has help up the most as well. Ask the principal if the parents can observe next years teachers, then make the recommendation yourself. If they aren't willing to accelerate at all, at least you may through careful intervention keep the boy in the hands of teachers who are willing to do what they can for him.

I wonder if some "fun" math books would be of use? We have liked Demi's "One Grain of Rice," Anno Mitsumasa's "Anno's Magic Seeds," Kathryn Lasky's "The Librarian who Measured the Earth", Julia Diggins's "String, Straightedge, and Shadow," Theoni Pappas's books (Penrose the Mathematical Cat, etc.), David Schwartz's books (G is for Googol, On Beyond a Million, etc.), Denise Schmandt-Besserat's "The History of Counting," Malba Tahan's "The Man Who Counted," Glory St. John's "How to Count like a Martian," and various other things (oh, and I mustn't forget "The Number Devil" by Hans Magnus Enzensberger!). (Somewhere around here there's a thread where St. Pauli Girl linked to a great list of these kinds of books, and how they could be used in the classroom, if I'm remembering right.) You might also look at Julie Brennan's Living Math site, if this sort of thing is of any interest (www.livingmath.net)

Something Harpo has been enjoying is some of the MEP stuff from the CIMT (I'm horrible with acronyms, but I think it's Mathematics Enhancement Programme from the Centre for Innovative Mathematics Teaching--it's a pilot project run from the University of Plymouth, based on {I think} the Hungarian national curriculum). Some of it is password-protected, but all it takes is an email to them, and they very kindly provide it. Harpo had great fun with the logic stuff from year seven (equivalent to our grade six, I think), as well as the code stuff (on the links page--material developed in concert with the folks at Bletchley Park). I've printed it off, because I don't like the kids staring at screens (personal hangup), but some of the things are interactive and can be done online. Overall, this is mathematics approached quite differently than it often is in North America, and might be worth a look.

I can't usually make links work (bad karma or just ignorance, I'm not sure), but I'll give it a try:
www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm

Something I mentioned in another thread might also be a fun project for an advanced math pupil--Harpo really enjoyed some computational linguistics puzzles I turned up a while back. You might give this site a peek and see what you think: www.naclo.cs.cmu.ed/index.php

Goodness, I hope some of those are clickable!

peace
minnie

Edited to add: in re: the password--I explained that I was a homeschooler in Canada, and asked if I might have the password, which they very kindly provided. I should clarify that I don't know what their criteria for giving the password out actually are. I do believe that there's a Yahoo group (which I've not investigated) for people teaching this curriculum, and that the password is also available there, but I don't know this of my own knowledge.

Get him started on Aleks
www.aleks.com
It will give him a diagnostic test and is self paced, so excellent for a classroom situation.
Some private history - DS attended private school since pre-K. Was always very anxious, worried, who knows what about it.
Private school was testing kids yearly beginning in 2nd grade. DS was always 99%. Fast forwad to 4th grade. Gets " normal" home room teacher who finally tells us that our son is way above other kids and we should try to do more for him.
We have decided to move him to a charter school that promised to teach him to his ability. On his math diagnostic test he "tested out of high school" ( I do not know what test it was).
So the school has put him in Algebra I since he has never taken any advanced math courses nor has he been taught by us at home.
Looking back, it was a mistake. I would reccomend pre-Algebra course for all young math whizards. If taught properly, it gives the review of all the important math needed for Algebra I. DS did Ok, but it was stressful for the first semester. Here was a child who never did any operations on fractions (how the heck did he score out of HS???), and homework was a HUGE time consuming project every evening! He did manage to finish that class as a top student anyway, but the beginnings were hard. He is now in pre-calc as an 8th grader and will run out of math courses at HS in a year. Not a bright idea to look at.
Have a look at
http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calculus.php

Thanks for all your great suggestions! As it turns out, our GT coordinator at our school gave him the Woodcock Johnson for reading, he was at mid-6th for 2 of the three scores and 4.8 for comprehension. The math test was a different achievement test which she prefers. It put him at 9.8 and 9.9 on general math concepts and applied math and 6.8 for operations b/c of the timing factor (he was given 15 seconds to answer each timed problem). Looking at the test was unreal. All scores were 99.9%. On some sections he got every question right. So, we met with parents today and they did not seem terribly surprised by the results although I tried to emphasize how unusual this is. At first, they talked about what a good preschool teacher he had had and how she had taught him fractions. I told them that, yes, a good preschool teacher could foster his love for numbers but that no preschool teacher could "teach" a ND child to add/subtract fractions with unequal denominators in his head!! (which he can do)

Anyway, our principal has offered to provide some tutoring until the end of the year but we will meet with the GT coordinator for the district to help plan for next year and the future. I told the parents that we wanted to be available to them because I'm sure they will have questions as they begin to digest all this information. I did not yet give them info about DYS because I had given them one article off of Hoagies about different types of testing he was given and they told me it had been "a little overwhelming."

I figured I will wait a while for them to adjust to what we have already shared before I throw more information at them!

I will look into the math websites. That is a great idea! Thanks for all the advice!