I was discussing DS5 with my mom and she asked me what I wanted the teacher to do with him next year in K. I am a realist and I don't expect a lot of teacher time devoted to his very asynchronous needs. I just want him not to have to sit through letter of the week, the fat cat sat on the mat, and how to count 10 beans. The teacher will be dealing with a very wide range of abilities. They talk a big game re differentiation. However, he is reading Narnia, the Moomin series, etc on his own for an hour+ at a time.

So what am I really asking for here?

1. I'm thinking that I would like him to be able to opt out of phonics lessons and read solo. Maybe write a few little very simple book reports? Take those AR quizzes on the computer if the school has access? (I don't know if they do. DD has never done this and she attends the same school.)

2. Math...he doesn't really know money and time. He is solid on facts to 20 (addition/subtraction) and also knows a lot of his times tables and division. He can add two-digit numbers in his head. His sister taught him simple adding and subtracting with carrying at some point, but I have not reinforced this and he's likely forgotten it. He can count by 2s, 3s, 4s, 10s, whatevers, about as high as you'd like him to. He understands very high place value due to obsessive reading of high-level ocean nonfiction. I find that it is very hard to find math workbooks that work for him, but something late 1st/early 2nd is sort of right (but at the same time too slow and repetitive). So should I ask for worksheets like this? Computerized work? What sites? They may not have computers in the K classroom itself. They do have a school lab. Has anyone sent in an Ipad or something? That's nuts, I guess.

3. Writing at K/1 level is fine.

HE IS VERY FRUSTRATED with preschool and complains daily about not learning anything, not being taught anything, it being too easy, etc. I am extremely concerned about him escalating to outright school refusal. If I have to, I will pull him out next year, but this might jeopardize his chances of getting into the GT magnet--starts in 2nd grade--which is pretty much our only lifeline.

So I need a plan. I want to make it easy for the school. I am not very good at getting what I want from authority. It would be better if I came with stuff on offer and concrete ideas. What we have going for us here is 1) his older sister is at the magnet at the same school and is a high achiever there and 2) DS is not at all shy with his abilities and is likely to be very obvious.

ETA: I have considered having him tested just to see if there is a chance he is DYS level and they could help us. His sister scored significantly below that standard, although I am not positive her score is accurate (even if not, though, I do not think she is DYS). He appears somewhat more gifted but it's awfully hard for me to say. Would DYS be of enough help in this situation for it to be worth the considerable expense? The schools will test him at the end of K.

Right--there really is no realistic way to appropriately acclerate in reading that I can even think of. He needs no reading instruction at all. He could use spelling and writing instruction, though, certainly.

The good news/bad news in our case is that DS is very well-behaved, although prone to crying in frustration at times. His preschool teachers were surprised to learn that I have to work really hard to get him to school every day. But I am concerned about his psychological well-being if he faces another two years of this level of frustration.

There is a very decent chance that there will be 2-3 other gifted kids in DS's class (other sibs of kids in the magnet). So there's that.

Moomin, is your DD DYS?

It seems you both describe the second phase of the conversation and are into the business of the teacher who hasn't yet failed to achieve the first set of expectations which to me are:
* My kid loves to learn and is excited to go somewhere that he can learn all day long, please don't disappoint him.
* Like most kids, my kid seems to learn best and is very happy at the level where he is comfortably challenged.
* Though my kid can learn a lot by himself, he thrives even more with some instruction at his optimal learning level.

Skipping down to the end of your post. Yes, I do believe DYS would be beneficial in your case. I would be more inclined to test your DS to see if he qualifies in your situation because I think what you are asking for is a lot for a public school. Because he needs a lot. You would basically need a lot of individualized instruction. It is likely that the teachers and administrators are not going to be quick to offer a free private tutor to your DS. And, they may argue that that is what you are asking for when the kindergarten teacher needs to take time from the class to help your DS on his computer or book report or whatever. They may also argue that he needs to be instructed with the class for non-academic reasons. You just never know. You may need to bring in the big guns.

Maybe I have heard too many horror stories here.

It just depends on the K class. How many kids? How many teachers? Is there a reading specialist? How much focus on reading and math? How long is the day? Is there a lot of free play time? recess? art and other specials?

I think I have already told you what we are expecting from K. We specifically sought out a school that was not explicitly teaching reading in kindergarten (truthfully, because most kids are coming in reading or will learn on their own), offered a lot of differentiation, and appeared really fun. We passed on the more academic private school because I did not want to have to battle the school on what the proper academic level was for DD. I am hoping to put that off for a few more years at current school. The school gets quite academic by middle school, and the students are quite high achieving.

Maybe summer will help him de-school a bit. What will he be doing this summer? If he was a happy guy, then I would not worry.

To be clear, I'm not going to go in right away with this. We'll see how it goes for a while. But I'm not going to make the same mistakes I did with DD. "Oh...we're only 4 weeks in...oh...we're only 6 weeks in...oh...well...they're busy with the holidays...well..."

Class size is below 20. Many kids will be at a very basic level, though--learning letters. It is a weird demographic mix. They do have a reading specialist, but she is paid for with Title 1 funds. There is recess and specials but not a lot of free play time, I suspect. Due to it being a Title 1 school and the demographics, a lot of time will be spent trying to get kids up to state standard.

I am totally NOT expecting a free private tutor!! I just want some ideas for things he can do while other kids are doing stuff he really, really, really knows how to do so that he does not comletely lose his marbles. He is highly self-directed and has a beautiful attention span. He can easily sit by himself and read or work on something alone. I will take that. I want to make it easier for them by having some ideas of what to suggest.

I'm sure their are others that can offer more advice. I will offer the advice of NOT doing what I did- which was rely on the school to recognize ds abilities and challenge him, even when I spoke to the teacher, things didn't get better. However, will black and white numbers, the principal is fully onboard with being helpful. I don't think the principal would have heard me otherwise. (Btw, I had emailed the principal before school had started, but I think she only saw thatds would act out if not stimulated.

I do know every situation is different. If you get a good teacher, it could be fine. It could be ok with new environment and learning social stuff.

For my ds, the teacher continually tried to make him fit into a kindergarten mold and didn't like his personality. It was a bad situation. Ds has definitely suffered emotionally because of it.

This may not help much, but that's our story (thus far). Good luck!

I understand. I am just playing devil's advocate. A teacher or an administer might view this as a lot of work and as a detriment to the class as a whole. But, if your DS needs this to keep happy, than it is so important, and worth fighting for. DYS would help I'd think.

Yes, and follow this up with specifics re: quirks and hints about level re: things that your child IS currently doing, or fairly recent/germane anecdotes that demonstrate the speed at which he learns.

Those things were key for getting DD's first teacher to understand that when we said she wasn't like most kids-- we meant, no, REALLY, she isn't like other students.

It's a good way to forge a partnership.

Second thought-- is it possible to "homeschool" Kindy/first in a combined year?

If that is a possibility, I'd strongly encourage you to think about it before registering him-- the reason is that this locks him into a cohort year, and you're right-- at that point, this becomes a two-year slog until the gifted school possibility opens up. If you can find out what the policy is re: admission of homeschooled children, I'd do that.

Moomin's observations are exactly what we also observed-- and learned from my mother, who also had decades of classroom experience.

I can't/won't homeschool unless I really have no alternative. Work and finances make it highly undesirable (I would have to quit a job I really love).

So far, we have had no issues with our kids going unrecognized in any school environment (though math skills have been a bit less recognized). I let them speak for themselves at the start and they have always "outed" themselves rapidly. (Both DD and DS are very outgoing, hand-raising types; they are also fact-memorizing types so they tend to spout a lot of information.) So that part isn't a concern for me, although it's possible that a very stretched or unobservant teacher could miss some of his abilities. I'm more worried that he will "seem fine," because he's sweet-natured and a pleaser. To be 100% clear, I don't actually care if he learns anything in K. (Well, better penmanship would be nice and completely on-target in terms of what I woudl expect.) I just don't want him to be miserable.

What worked for us in a very similar situation was to contact the principal of the school and say, basically, what you said in your post. That is, this is where are DS is and we know that the teacher will have a broad range of abilities that he/she will need to meet, and these are the solutions we have thought about; we'd really like your advice about what you think will work best for DS next year. Just lay it all out on the table and ask politely for their help and expertise.

First, this allows you to start your new relationship with them (since you already have a relationship with the regarding your DD) with a compliment and and an acknowledgement that they have years of experience with education in general. It gives you an opportunity to introduce them to your DS. And it gives them the opportunity to help you, and helping is something everyone intrinsically likes to do.

And then sit back and see what they have to say. In our case the school tested DS and observed DS and realized that differentiation was going to be a very involved thing and it would be unreasonable to expect a K teacher to make all the accomodations necessary to meet our DS's needs, so they suggested he skip K.

If nothing else, though, going to the school and asking for their help with get a dialogue started about your DS in a relatively non-threatening manner. In any case it will be a longer process than just one meeting and will likely continue over the years (I k now you know this). At least you'll get the process started and see if you need to start thinking of other options.

Have you met with the school yet? Have they assigned teachers for next year yet? Can you get some help from the GT coordinator even though they don't have any official for kindy?

We found it extremely helpful to start out asking for advice from the school GT coordinator (even though there was no official GT until 3rd at our school). She set up a meeting with the principal to discuss strategy, which basically involved picking out the right teacher who was very good at differentiation. The GT coordinator also ended up doing pullouts with my DS, but that was their idea after I offered to pay for online math.

As for differentiation for reading, I didn't worry to much about that in kindy as DS read a lot on his own and the teacher did in fact ask all kinds of questions that would hit kids at different ranges.

Another thought is to ask if they offer core classes at the same time as other grade levels. Even though going up a grade or two in a subject may not even meet your child's level, it's a lot closer and he might find company in some of the students. This didn't work out in our situation because of timing and also because our DS's writing was really bad and the school didn't want to deal with that. If there are handwriting issues, may be a good idea to work on that over the summer in case an acceleration opportunity comes up.

DYS was able to help us by talking with the GT coordinator, who was then able to understand how different a learner our kiddo was.

The teacher-pleaser thing was a problem for our DS. He was always extremely well behaved and never would complain to the teacher. We got the complaints at home and the teacher could hardly believe us when we said our DS was unhappy, since he appeared perfectly happy at school. Also, our kiddo was not a hand raiser - he didn't like to stand out at all. So the teacher even thought he was BEHIND verbally, which is really his strength.

ETA: What finally changed the teacher's mind was seeing the results on the school's own tests -- they let DS do MAP testing with the 2nd graders, and when he tested well enough to pass the 3rd grade state assessments (as a kindergartner), they saw him.

I think it might be a good idea to go in now, asking for their help.


This is the same situation that we were in, as I described in my above post.


Not that it helps, but I just think it's terribly sad that the accommodations your are asking for are for your son to be able to sit and teach himself while all the other kids around him are getting the excitement of learning cool new stuff in Kindergarten (!). Obviously not a comment on you, but on the sad state of gifted education in so many places. I just hope that the school can come up with some great ways to allow your son to feel the joy of learning (which he cleraly already feels naturally) with other students in a school setting. It's still beyond me why educators wouldn't see the natural joy, drive, and ability that our kids have and want to do everything they could to nurture it.

They test all K kids for baseline skills in the first couple of weeks and redo class assignments based on that, so there is little point asking for a particular teacher. I am told they do pay some attention to what kids come in with due to the odd demographics. They are not totally unused to seeing K and 1 kids with high abilities. However, most magnet sibs do NOT go to K and 1 at the school. Believe it or not, I don't think there IS a GT coordinator, I guess because they have FT GT teachers.

It may all be better than I think it will. There is some reason for optimism due to the presence of the magnet in the older grades. There are a lot of gifted kids hanging around this school! However, not nearly as many little ones.

The principal is in an unusual situation due to the fact that the gen ed school serves a disadvantaged population but then she has this smaller magnet within the school. TBH, I don't know how concerned she will be about the needs of a well-behaved HG kindergartener from a stable home. I don't particularly blame her, but it puts us at a disadvantage. The school is also quite large.



Which one were you going to pay for? This is something I am happy to put on the table for them.

We tried out EPGY for awhile. It was actually quite boring for my DS, but he was able to do it on his own. (After the GT coordinator saw it in action, she decided it was too dry for a kindergartner and created a compacted curriculum with the school's 2nd grade math and she basically tutored him. That was awesome.) There is a homeschooler's group from this site so the EPGY is not so expensive. But there are other programs that would probably work too - Aleks, e.g. I think even Khan now has an individualized program that is free.

Another thing we did: donated higher level books to the classroom (our DS didn't like to stand out by bringing his own books in, so I just sneakily gave them to the teacher).

I will try to think of other things we did when I have more time...

ultram, one thing I'd do is to first try to find out what the kindergarten curriculum and classroom experience is really like at this school (if you haven't already). Many of the things you worry about in your OP were never an issue in our kindergarten - reading was broken up into small groups based on ability, math included basic skills that your ds already knows, but it was primarily made up of applied problems so that even though the skills were easy for my kids the actual problems were new. There was a lot of group work, and there were subjects taught that were interesting, and ways for kids who thought deeper to explore deeper. It wasn't ideal and it definitely didn't offer a pace of learning at the pace our EG kiddo was capable of, but it wasn't mind-numbingly boring either.

The one question I have is you mentioned the sibs of many of the kids in the gifted magnet school within your school don't go to K-1 grade at the same school - is that because their neighborhood schools are different or is it because their parents are purposely not sending them there? If it's the latter reason, I'd want to know more about why... that may be a sign that advocating isn't going to get you much of anything. OTOH, you said your school places students in K with teachers after a few weeks of observing where they are at academically... so that sounds promising that the school is aware of the need to differentiate.

Good luck!

polarbear

Hi ultramarina,

As to the school configuration, we are in exactly the same setup for DS7. A gifted magnet in a Title 1 school. At our school, they are quite interested/motivated to support the magnet:
The magnet parents are at every event, every PTA meeting.
They tend to be the ones volunteering in classes.
When the school or a teacher needs extra supplies, guess which group is bringing them in.
Gifted kids are locked in passes in standardized tests.
Gifted kids despite their quirks are often very helpful and easier to manage and make great reading buddies later on.

I have spoken to some other parents in the magnet whose kids have done K and 1. Experiences are mixed--"okay," sometimes "good." What it absolutely isn't going to be is a challenging K classroom like you might find in an UMC area of mostly high-ability kids.



Both. Very few of the magnet kids are actually zoned for this school. I had to get a special variance to get DS in since it isn't our zone either. Our zoned school is no good at all, so this is a better option.

Ugh. Only about three weeks left of preschool, but DS is crying every morning before school, and sometimes now at dropoff (never used to happen). This isn't the way it's supposed to work. He just can't take it anymore. I wish anyone who doesn't believe that kids really care about boredom or that this is some red herring could hear him talk about this. As much I keep trying to convince myself that it's a social issue, or that he doesn't click with the teachers, or blah blah...I don't think so. He always says the same things, and he always has, and he's very clear and articulate. "I don't like school. I like playing on the playground and I like the centers, but I hate circle time and I hate the work we have to do. It takes too long and everything we have to do is so easy and boring. All my work is too easy for me and it's the same thing over and over. I never get to learn anything. Sometimes they let me do my math book, but not until I do the other work and then it's always time to do something else." This is harder than it sounds to watch because big tears are rolling down his face while he talks.

I don't think so, no. It's only half-day. I'm afraid he just has to suffer. It stinks. I have a nice summer of fun camps set up for him (no academics!)

You've certainly got a believer in me. A central feature of our parenting strategy is to treat boredom as The Enemy. We may have looked absurd in the toddler years when we were hauling around a huge bag full of activities, but that was the price we were willing to pay for peace.

I don't think it's limited to children... I certainly never go anywhere that involves a waiting room without a book in my hand. Any adult who doesn't seem to get it should be invited to live your DS's school day, and see how they like it.

us, too. when DD5 goes to sleep over at her grandparents' place for ONE NIGHT... it's like she's going away for a month. puzzles, games, mazes, books, art supplies - and now, a laptop for her online math and science stuff. it's bananas, but it's all necessary. huh - now i kind of wish i could just send all that with her to school every day!

This is the reason we went early entry to kindergarten. Having a kid reading fluently and doing 3rd grade maths in kindergarten would have been a nightmare for all involved. As it was, the boredom started in second term and it was a long wait for the year 1 gifted classes to start.