Hi Everyone,

I am back here again with some worries and queries.
I have a 5 year old who has not been tested but I strongly feel that he is gifted. Why? Many reasons.
Now, some of his grades are not showing that. I have no idea why. In his school, they are doing basic reading and he is reading at the 2nd-3rd grade level at home, shows excellent comprehension when I ask him questions, makes predictions, recites poems and retells the stories. In Math also, he is doing the work above his grade without much difficulty. I have not asked for any enrichment or acceleration so far as he has been enjoying the social aspect of K.

Now, what questions should I be asking the teacher to get an accurate picture of his performance in school as it does not match with what he is capable of doing at home? One that comes to mind is, how the common core assessments are done? Any other?

Thanks so much

I'd be interested in the responses. My DS6 is in K and has 100% Mastery on their assessments, but there have been other issues. He won't do worksheets, won't recite what he read, won't show he understands or is able to predict events, etc. At home, he does all of these types of things all the time.

What I've run into is they have to go by the assessment. So even when the teacher says, " I can speak to him more rationally because he's smart enough to understand what I'm saying," she also says, he's not comprehending what he's reading. Even thought he finishes his work way before everyone else and gets in trouble for answering all the questions all the time, he's not showing his ability on this one assessment. Heck, I even questioned why she had him marked as "remedial" in counting to 100 because he goes way above that and can multiply numbers. She said he wasn't able to do it.

I don't know how we get our kids to show what they know to the teachers. For mine, I think he does in the beginning, but then he says, "forget it. I'm not doing that anymore. It's boring."

Basically, I have no advice, but I feel your pain.

If I were in your shoes, I'd probably just schedule a conference with the teacher and generally discuss what he's doing concentrating on the areas that are flagged in the report card. I like to think about what skills I want to see developed and ask questions about how they are working on them / what should be done at home as a general framework. That usually gives an opportunity to talk about your impression of current mastery. I'm not sure what you define as problematic though. Here we only get developing/meeting/exceeding expectations type categories in elementary for various skills including behavioral ones.

That all said, from your description your son has already more than mastered the skills for the year, is happy and you're not seeking additional enrichment. So since the grades in K are meaningless, I wouldn't worry much about it and treat this like a clarifying exercise.

Good Luck

We went through something similar with our DS (now 8) and I know of another gifted kid who's the same age who's mom had similar issues back in JK/SK.

The root causes turned out to be different but here's some potential explanations and maybe these will inspire some questions for you depending on which ones ring a bell -

- some teachers don't give out top marks early in the year, they want to show development and leave room for improvement and growth. On the flip side teachers can often downplay things that they think the kid will outgrow but that actually are issues which makes it challenging.
- engagement in the class - some kids lose interest when the level is way below them. If the class is doing "this is a P, it makes a pew sound" you could see how a kid reading chapter books might not be the first to contribute to class discussions.
- personality - DS in particular was really shy and didn't speak for most of JK/SK so how were they to know what was going on in his head.
- teacher fit - one of DS's JK/SK teachers actually told me that she just butted heads with DS and they didn't get along. My jaw dropped to the floor that a teacher was telling this to my face about a 5 year old but it did make me wonder how objective her grading was. The feelings went both ways, DS wasn't exactly showing her his best side either.
- they might not test above level - My DD often came home with report cards that had ridiculous things like "can count to 20" when I knew she was capably of much more. They just only asked to go to 20 because that was the check box they had to cover.
- Learning Disability (LD) - we discovered that our DS is LD which explained a lot of our particular school issues. The other child has no LD issues so don't panic just yet. Just mentioning it because it might be something to be aware of (I know it wasn't something we were looking for or expecting). In our case it became more of an issue when writing was starting to be used in evaluating but there are many different flavors of LDs that have very different impacts.

I was able to volunteer in his class and it was a very eyeopening experience. If there is a way to volunteer or observe for an hour I'd highly recommend trying.

Hope something in that inspires something. Good luck!

I would also include - have you asked your son about what his thoughts are on school and explanations on what the report card says? Even if he likes the social side, you may find your child has a different spin on the materials and academic side of school...

Ben, the thing is, my impression of his mastery of a skill is not relevant as I have no idea how the assessments are done and what his teachers expectations are.
I worry, because if there are any gaps in his skills then I need to know sooner than later so that he can be steered in the right direction. I have a conference in line so hopefully I will know more about how he is being assessed.

Chay, I can see engagement in the class as an issue. But not that he might not be participating. My worry is that, he might be participating way more than expected. He is a highly verbal and emotional child and has opinions about every single thing which he feels, need to be expressed. He is extremely aware of his surroundings at all times.
Ex: if a child in his class is having a rough day, he will be more worried about that child's issues than what teacher is teaching.
I doubt that he has a LD, but I will get his teacher's opinion in any case.

notnafnaf, I will talk to him about the academics. He has mentioned a few times that he feels he is dumb, because he can't do multiplication and division yet. I don't know if kids in his class are already doing multiplication and division or he is comparing himself to older kids.

newtogifted, I know this is frustrating when the grades do not reflect what they are able to do. I will understand teachers perspective too, only if she will communicate it to me. I feel that the expectations should be communicated early on in the year but I hardly got a sense of what they were in the last conference. So I feel, you don't know until you ask but then I need to know what to ask.

So true. I would definitely start having conversations. My son's teacher does do a good job of communicating with me, but I started the dialogue before we even started K because of anxiety issues he has that result in major explosions upon change. She was so great to let him explore her classroom and the school before he started, and as a result, we had no major outbursts. My son is also highly verbal and emotional. He talks incessantly! I believe this has been a real struggle for his teacher because he gets very anxious if he can't get out what he started to say.

I continue to have conversations with his teacher, principal and counselor. In addition, he has a 504 plan for Celiac. The trick is figuring out what their processes are and communicating what you know to be true of your child without coming off as "my child is perfect" It's hard. I think this is a great source!

This is, unfortunately, a common problem. For some, it crops up on gifted identification assessments (IQ and/or achievement). Others experience this with standardized tests.

It turned out to be this one assessment issue for us as well. I spoke to the teacher and he was not concerned about his academics. So I have decided to let it go. He is only in K after all:)

The questions typically used to prepare for a parent-teacher conference may be a worthwhile starting point.