Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments HG school, language immersion, testing

Short Version

My son tested highly gifted in quantative & nonverbal but not verbal, missing the cutoff for the area HG school. Do I pull him out of the language immersion school to expose him to more English then retest in a year? Or work with the program he's in to accommodate him?

Long Version

We are lucky enough in my area to have a public 'school within a school' for highly gifted children grades 1-8. I had my Kindergarten son tested privately to see if he might qualify. We also ended up having him tested for language. The cutoff for the HG school is WISC IV 139, SB 142, or CogAT 97th centile in all 3 areas. He took the SB IV and scored well into the range in 3 of the 4 subtests, but his verbal subtest was only 93rd centile, dragging down his full-scale. He is turning 6 and has been in a French immersion program since he was 2, though we don't speak French in the house. He has had minimal formal English at school and none at home. He isn't reading well in either language and the testers felt his language scores were below his potential. Per recommendation we are embarking on a program to strengthen his phonological awareness for English over the summer. Which brings us to the question of where to put him next fall for 1st grade:

The proposal of his current school is that we work with him over the summer on his English, and next year the 1st graders get more English exposure, 9 hours a week. He stays in 1st grade for the 1st trimester to master 1st grade concepts in French, then gets bumped up to 2nd grade. Meanwhile he works in math at whatever level he needs to. In a year he may be relatively caught up in his primary language plus he will have learned to read and write in two languages. This is a private international school with many smart kids, they follow the French curriculum, and they are great at working with parents to accommodate their wishes. His class size will likely range from 10 - 14 children who live as far as 45 minutes from us.

To give him the best chance to solidify his English and test at his level, the speech/language pathologist recommends that he be in an English-speaking classroom for a year and continue to take French on the side. He would be at a good public school in a gifted program with a cluster model, but this is the school in the district with the best reputation so the cluster happens to be big enough to warrant its own classroom of 28+ students. The gifted program is heavy on enrichment but light on acceleration. The very smartest kids are siphoned off into the highly gifted school, though I was told there are 2 kids attending this school who qualified but turned down the opportunity to attend. I believe that 80% of the students live in the district.

The issue of friends is very important as my son is intensely extroverted and would as soon play alone as cut off a limb, but beyond that I just want him appropriately placed so that he doesn't think everything should be easy. Any thoughts?

What does your "mommy gut" say? What does your son think? I'd start there.

Thanks Shari. I've been trying to get out of my head and listen to my "mommy gut" since I saw your post. I'm now leaning toward leaving him where he's at. I feel I may have overreacted to the lower language scores - it's not like I didn't know going in that it takes a little longer to assimilate two languages. The class size is half or less that of the public school, and they really are willing to work on finding the best fit in terms of curriculum and placement. And I don't even know if the HG program would be a great fit, so to change now betting on the come doesn't seem like the thing to do. Plus I just REALLY LIKE his school, between the teachers, the parental involvement, the curriculum, etc. and that counts for a lot.

The reaction of DS at first was excitement about going to a new "English" school, but he has since said he doesn't want to leave where he's at. He also says he doesn't want to spend time in the 1st grade class because "all they do is work," but that's another issue altogether.

Shari I must say that I was disappointed to see such a short response to my post, no compelling arguments, no supporting data or anything, but your advice was perfect and helped so much. Thank you!

I'm brand new here and I'm so glad I found this board!

-M

MAE... we are considering immersion programs for our DD but in Spanish and I think you hit it on the nose in your last post... what you are experiencing with your son is the norm of the program especially this early. If the program he is in is like the one we are considering then English is introduced later as a second language and in a ramp up way which is what it sounds like your school is doing. His environment is different then the typical schools around here and therefore his skill set will be different. And as for the HG school... it might be a wonderful program but it also might not be a good fit for your son. If you think the school he is in is a good fit then I would leave him in it, because to pull him out now might jeopardize his fluency in French even with some after school programs.

Your situation sounds a little like mine. My kids attend a dual language curriculum program in Hebrew, but it is not immersion, so there's a real difference.
Our academics aren't the best in the county, but the school is tiny and willing to try new things and they have their friends and their support system there. So, we continue to work with it, even though there might be better straight academic options elsewhere.
Immersion schools are unusual, I believe, and I think that this is why you didn't get a ton of responses to your post.

Our children are bilingual. Neither I nor my husband are native English speakers. Dh speaks English to the kids and I speak the other language. There are lots of words my children know in one language but not in the other. DS6's VIQ was in 99% but it was still significantly lower than his PIQ. We were told by the psychologist to wait till he is 7 or 8 and retest him if we wanted to get a better idea about his real VIQ. His oral achievement scores weren't even in the gifted category.

Being bilingual was a disadvantage when he was tested but in the long term knowing two or more languages will work to his advantage. It's the trade off for being able to speak another language early on. The difference will eventually disappear.

If you think the current school works well for him, he likes it there and they are willing to accommodate him then it may be a great choice for him.

You can retest in a couple of years and it's quite likely his scores will go up. Even as it is scoring in 93% is a very nice result.

As KM explained, the verbal scores of children in dual language programs tend to be suppressed in the early years. In most cases, learning two languages will eventually improve their verbal abilities. Both my daughters showed lower verbal scores than expected when tested after one year of Spanish immersion. Tests do not take into account a dual language situation, which is why most gifted programs use nonverbal tests for second language learners. In my oldest dd's class, most of the English speaking students reached or surpassed grade level in English by 2nd grade (immersion program began in K).

The supression of verbal scores can be frustrating if you need the scores for a specific purpose such as getting into a specific gifted program.

Summer

I've yet to meet an American, Swiss or French citizen schooled on the French model whose rhetorical skills in either English or French are not superb!!

Before making significant changes to your son's education, I would ask the following questions:

1. What, precisely, does the HG school offer? You said that the regular gifted program is big on differentiation but not so big on acceleration. What about the HG program?

• Do kids get to move at their own paces?
• Do they use a mastery-based curriculum? This means, "You have to master everything in 4th grade science before you can do 5th grade science." Mastery sounds seductive until you take a closer look at the coursework and discover that it doesn't always build in a logical fashion. Once a child gets through ~4th grade math (all the basics), it's amazing what you can backfill as s/he goes along, even in a subject like mathematics. From what I've seen of primary-school science, successive grade level courses teach the same ideas to a large extent, but increase the use of technical terms.
• Also, beware of people who emphasize the need to avoid "gaps in learning." Gaps can be challenges for gifted kids.
• Can they study high-school level courses well before 8th grade? HG kids are typically ready for this type of work 3 or more years in advance in at least one subject.
• What happens when they go to the local high schools? Will they be back in a regular program? If so, does the school have a system for allowing them to take courses at a nearby community college?
• I would look really, really closely at the curriculum in the HG school before enrolling in it. Send your son for at least two days and ideally a whole week before enrolling him there. I've learned that schools make promises (or seem to) that they often don't keep once you enroll.
• In my state (CA), there is a minor emphasis on most subjects outside the ones that are on the standardized tests. One result is that our primary-school science books are woefully out-of-date. What subjects are taught outside of math and reading/language arts at the HG school, and how much time do they get? If it's one day a week at best, be careful.
• Do the kids get to read novels/chapter books as part of the curriculum (at my son's French school, they started this in the CP/1st grade). Check into this. The short passages/multiple choice questions that dominate in many schools can be mind-numbingly dull. They also don't teach kids how to maintain their attention span for more than a few paragraphs.
  
• Last but not least, how much emphasis is on the use of multiple choice (MC)? Too many MC tests and worksheets encourage what I call "factoid-based learning" over synthesis of knowledge and deeper understanding of a subject. Frenchies do not favor MC tests.

2. French school

• How happy is your son at his current school? This consideration is important. Moving is a big disruption and you probably won't be able to go back to the French school once you leave (unless he has a tutor and/or follows a CNED course).
• Does this school follow the French national curriculum? If so, it's a pretty good curriculum.
• What are your options for keeping up the French after your son leaves the French school? This question is very important in light of the fact that French isn't spoken at home. My son went to a French school for 4 years. He now attends an after-school program 2 days/week that offers one of the same courses he would have followed in his old school. It uses certified teachers and materials from CNED (google "CNED France" to find CNED; the second item will should come up in English). Is something like that available where you live? What about a tutor?
• French schools are more open to grade skips than US schools. Have you talked to your son's teachers about his progress? My son was offered skip from 2 to 4, and a boy in his class had skipped grade 1.
• To what grade does the French school go, and what are your options for post-French school? Is there a French lycee in your area? The lycee should be quite challenging.

Phew! You wanted a longer answer and you got one! Hope that helps.

Val

I really appreciate all your great responses, short and long! It is especially helpful to hear your feedback on both immersion & gifted programs. Thank you!

Val you gave me some great points to discuss when I have the opportunity this Thursday to meet with some parents who have experience with the HG program. Also thanks for the info on CNED, I haven't looked into that before. I am working with him over the summer regardless of what else we do on English phonemic awareness, which the school believes will help him in both languages. They feel that if he starts 1st grade in the fall with his class that by the end of the first trimester his French will be good enough to bump him up to 2nd grade. I feel that if he is reading well by then that it sounds like a good course of action.

At this point that's the plan we're leaning toward. a) we like the school and the exposure he's getting there, which we believe will serve him well in the long run, b) his VIQ will catch up at some point, though perhaps more slowly while still in a French program, and c) 28 kids in a 1st grade class just seems like a bad idea, especially compared to 10-14.

I would still be interested to hear from anyone else with similar experiences.

Thanks again!