Hi -
Our pediatrician alerted us to the fact that our daughter - who is only 16 months - is likely profoundly gifted. To give the cliff notes, she has a massive vocab of thousands of words, knows colors, shapes, letters, counts to 20, can also count backwards from 10 or 12, can read a few sight words and also attempts to sound out some words. It's overwhelming, shocking, crazy, and ... did I mention overwhelming? She has a 3 year old brother who is also likely gifted (been reading since 2, great math and puzzle skills) and he loves to teach her things. We don't specifically teach her things, she just picks up a lot.

Our pediatrician told us that we would be wise to start looking for special education services in our area for her, and to prepare ourselves for the idea that she is going to need resources.

There is a private gifted school, about 50 minutes from our home. It's pretty expensive, and not a short drive. However, we would be willing to relocate if needed and make financial sacrifices where needed as well.

My question -- how would we know if an exclusive gifted school is needed? Are PG children generally best served by an exclusive gifted school? Our other option would be to send her to the local public schools. Their gifted programs, however, do not even begin until 3rd grade (they are cluster classrooms). The local public schools, like most in our state, are over crowded and underfunded. We live in Illinois, so there is no mandate for gifted programs and also no funding.

I guess I am hoping to hear from parents of other highly gifted or profoundly gifted children to hear what worked for them. How did you decide what schooling options to take? I'm not sure how to assess the value of this private gifted school, much less weigh that against moving our family to a new house.

Any thoughts? Also I'd love to hear from anyone whose kid sound similar to mine - especially those that are older now. I wonder if she may "level out" a bit and not seem quite so extreme as she gets older. Right now she is a bit of a spectacle where ever we go (she isn't shy, so you can imagine.)

Thanks in advance!

Sweatpeas, you have found the right place. I am not in the US, so someone else will have to answer your education questions for you, but I wanted to say welcome!

And no, a child as advanced as your DD is at 16 months is highly unlikely to level out by grade 3. If she is PG (which she sounds) then she is as different from an MG kid as an MG kid is from normally developing, a typical gifted program will not be targeted at at her needs. And the early years of school before, your local public gifted programs start, when all the other kids are figuring out the alphabet, reading and counting will likely throw her difference into particularly stark contrast. I would say your paed was right to warn you to start thinking now!

First, welcome! My thoughts as the parent of a moderately gifted (MG) child are that you will absolutely need the services of a private gifted school. Our public school was able to accommodate our MG child in K last year through subject acceleration, and hopefully will this year too, but we've had some frustrations. I cannot imagine how our public school or our district's HGT (highly gifted and talented) magnet program would accommodate a PG child like yours.

The HGT programs in our area are not designed for PG kids. They're designed for kids who are working about two, maybe three, grade levels ahead. Your DD16-months is working at kindergarten level, at least four years ahead of her age. Based on everything I've read, no, your DD isn't likely to level out; I agree with mumofthree's assessment above.

The Davidson Young Scholars program would be of use to you in the future. I know very little about it, and hope others on this site will give you some information on the program.

You may know this already, but in case not - when preparing financially for private school, only a small percent of the money in a 529 plan counts against you for financial aid. A higher percent of the money in an UTMA counts against you. And of course retirement plans are not counted, unlike taxable accounts. Where you put your money can make a big difference in your ability to get financial aid in the future.

I have a son who is 6 and PG. If we had a school for PG kids in our area, there is no doubt he would go there. Not only for the educational aspect, but mainly for the social aspect. We suppplement his education at home to meet his educational needs. It would be beyond wonderful for DS to have true peers. I would like nothing more than to find another 6 year old who shares his interests.

You might find this an interesting read.

PG children, like all children, are individuals. Their educational needs are individual as well. I can safely say that you can reasonably expect to have to do more work regarding making sure that the educational environment is a good fit and that there are good resources available to your child than the average parent of the average child will have to, but what that good fit will look like at any given point in time is anyone's guess right now, and it can change from month to month. Be prepared to do a lot of "investigating your options", and learn to pay close attention to what your child's behavior is telling you.

You have a great resource here in the Davidson forums; don't be afraid to use it. Feel free to bounce your thoughts and concerns off the folks here. There are a lot of good perspectives, and incredible amounts of accumulated experience with off-the charts kids.

Welcome! My first comment would be: first think about education for your son, for whom it's a more urgent problem... You describe him as "likely gifted" but it may be that your yardstick is off; it wouldn't surprise me if he also turns out to be PG. Certainly self-taught reading at 2 is pretty rare (in general, although not on this board!)

I'm not in the US, so can't help with specifics, but I will say: if you do school, what you'll need is a supremely flexible school that really manages to treat each child as an individual. That doesn't necessarily mean a gifted school - in fact, some of the gifted schools we hear about here are very inflexible, and we've heard many stories of the problems that leads to when an HG+ child goes to one. If home education is a feasible option for you, you'll probably want to consider that seriously too (lots of people here can help).

I suggest having a browse around here; one useful technique is to keep your eyes open for people who write things that chime with you, and then go and read the threads they've started (click on the username to the left, choose View posts from the menu) - at any rate, I've found that a useful way to read about the experiences people with similar children have had.

I agree, and by educating yourself through the process of getting your son's needs met, you will be getting the world ready for your DD. The best way to get an idea of your son's level is to spend a few hours objectively observing the local kindergarden classrooms. Would the activities, lessons and books on the shelf be engaging for either your son or your daughter now? Given their personalities, what would be the likely effect of 3 or 6 hours a day of that for 9 months?

Read - Genius Denied by Jan Davidson
Read - 5 levels of Giftedness by Deb Ruf
Read - Transforming the Difficult Child by Lisa Bravo

So here's the deal. You may live in one of the few Chicago Suburbs where lots and lots of High IQ families exist, and if so, the public schools might be just fine with lots and lots of flexibility on everyone's part. Private gifted schools are aimed at the top 5% of kids, or maybe 3% of kids. They may work fine for some PGlets (top 0.1%) or (top 0.01%) and be awful for others - but because they are generally so successful with their target version of 'gifted' they are rarely able to perceive that PG kids really are different and need something else. This is just a human nature thing - the more successful we are, the less open we are to the idea that we are totally missing the boat once in a while. I'm sure you know some local parents who think that because their children are well behaved that they have the key to parenting. It's like that - magnified by 1000.

This is also why sometimes modest school systems work better than 'we are so proud of us' public school systems, although if you can find one of those 'best of the best' there can be enough other similar kids that things go really well.

No Magic Bullet. No Magic Mirror. School of Hard Knocks is the only way for you to learn about life with schools of any kind.

I would start learning everything I could about homeschooling if I were in your shoes. There may already be an underground network of people who are homeschooling and don't even know that they are homeschooling because their kids are have special -advanced- educational needs.

(Kid who are gifted tend to have parents who grew up gifted - and those people are ripe for believing that bricks and mortar schools are horrible places where no one learns -(which couldn't be further from the truth)- of course we think that - it's the only way to maintain the illusion that we are 'just normal folks like everyone else-nothing unusual.' I was like that, but took it one step further - I totally bought the idea that the schools were the place where one learned to fit in and this is the most important thing in life. Yup. I got a crash course in the school of hard knocks!)

There may be co-ops where you drop your kids off in the AM and get to keep your day job. I would be moving towards a life situation where if one adult needs to become a homeschooling parent instead of a wage earner, your family's financial life isn't in jeopardy. So yes - stop thinking about selling the house and taking on more financial obligations unless you know '100% for sure' that this is the place for your child. If only your school problems could be solved that easily!

I've collected some names of local psychologists that folks here have liked, but I can't remember who contributed this one -
http://www.drmarkmckee.com/Home_Page.html
Website says that he does public speaking, so I would keep my eyes peeled for one of his speaking engagements and attend so you can start to figure out who you will use for IQ testing when the time comes. With kids like your son and daughter, they really need to be tested by someone who has a lot of experience with highly gifted kids. As kids like yours get older and meet more and more adults who react to them as if they are a side show, they tend to get resistant of cooperating with 'that sort' of adult. This can generalize to testers who act 'overly impressed' with PGlets. They need someone who is self aware and gives respect to all people regardless of age - without behaving as though they have much preconceived ideas of what folks should be like at any particular age. You need a tester who treats your children (and you!) as though it's normal to be intelligent and understand things. Some people are just blessed with the ability to flexibly react to other people while dialing up or down, IQ and otherwise, how best to communicate - it's amazing when you see it in action.

I love Colin's Mom's suggestion:

Also post something in the Geographical Topic area - you may get lucky! Finding family friends with similar kids (or close enough) is mind blowing. I saw a whole side of my son that I hadn't know was there when I got him together with some boys I met through Davidson Young Scholar's Program. I have chills just remembering it now, and that was 7 years ago!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I doubt if there are any kids in that school like your daughter. I'd go and visit and see. I'll bet they are working on letters and counting 1-10 with the 4 and five year olds.

Intellectually, your daughter should be put in with the 4 and 5 year olds but in a month she will learn everything they can teach her. Then she will need to go on to 1st grade and will learn all that material in a month. And so on.

We are finding out that there are no schools for PG kids until high school. And even then its fleeting.

PG kids are truly unique and very rare. With the exception of the elite high schools, people have never worked with one.

Here is another article to take a look at.

http://talentigniter.com/ruf-estimates

I'm probably going to just reiterate what others have said, but I doubt that either a gifted school or a gifted program in a public school is going to be the best fit for your children. My kids are not as advanced as yours and fall more into the HG+ area (and one of them is 2e), but your options sound similar to our local schools except the only semi-local private gifted school closed a few years ago.

Like Grinity mentioned, programs aimed at gifted kids in public and private schools are usually looking @ about 5% of the population or even more if they are doing what we see locally to me. Here they look at kids who are in the top 5% in any one area, so a 95th percentile score in any area (reading, math, writing, etc.) plus a 95th percentile score on any one area of a group test like the CogAT or OLSAT (again, verbal, non-verbal, quantitative, etc.) will qualify you for a GT and possibly placement in GT classrooms. They also take kids with high achievement scores into those classes even if they don't have ids b/c they don't hit the requisite group ability test score.

I'd start by looking at what qualifies as gifted in your local public schools. The broader the definition, the more inclusive, unfortunately the less likely it is to meet the needs of your kids.

I'd also give a call to the GT coordinator for your district and the admissions or curriculum person for the gifted school and ask them how many kids they have like yours. If they tell you lots, I'd look elsewhere b/c it is more likely that they don't understand the rarity than that they have tons of PG kids. I recall a conversation I had w/ a GT coordinator for a local school regarding my 2e child when we were looking at changing to that school. I didn't even ask how many kids they had like her but the coordinator volunteered that she had lots of kids who were gifted and just like dd (dd has a 99.9th percentile GAI on the WISC-IV (IQ) and ADD). Knowing the school from some prior experience there, it told me more about the coordinator's lack of understanding of what that meant than the population of the school being full of HG+ kids.

Other options would be looking at homeschooling if that is an option for your family. Do you have a homeschooling cooperative locally? Something like this was my dream to have locally for a long time: http://www.voyagersinc.org/wiki/bin/view/Public/WebHome

You might want to contact some of the IL groups on the Gifted Homeschoolers forum: http://giftedhomeschoolers.org/giftedresourceselsewhere.html

Even if you don't go the homeschooling route, they might have some resources for you and give you some good social connections.

Just a thought--research your options, but don't assume you know your kids' giftedness levels yet for sure. I agree that you should look at your 3yo first for now. I do have a daughter whose early milestones were very much like your DD's but who appears to be more MG or HG. She is definitely not PG, anyway. Also, my son (who is 3) had fewer early milestones and was not nearly as dazzling as she as a young toddler, but now seems to be well on the road to reading at 3 (DD did not read till nearly 5). I suspect he may end up to be of similar IQ as DD, maybe even higher. However, he is more of a go-along kid whereas DD is a major squeaky wheel.

In other words, in your shoes I would assume that both kids are gifted and that it's hard to tell who is more so and who will need what. Definitely do your research, but don't lock yourself into a particular opinion just yet. They are both really young.

ETA: FWIW, our local distruct requires 99th% IQ OR qualification via an alternate program intended to ID ESL or otherwise disadvantaged students for entry into the GT program. We are only in our 3rd week of FT gifted school but so far the kids seem to certainly be gifted, not just high achievers.

I hate to tell you, but in my experience with my oldest DD the IQ scores at a later date may level off. She was much like your child at 16 months, and although she still performs at a HG+ level, especially in non-verbal reasoning and her VCI, she only tests MG on most tests and would not qualify for separate gifted schools. (She had the highest math average for her school last year in top-block 6th grade pre-algebra and is consistently the highest in STAR reading scores/AR points in her school.) In her case, however, it is likely a 2E situation with written expression/non-verbal working memory/dysgraphia/anxiety issues coming into play.

Hello sweetpeas and welcome! You found the right place Sorry, I have to make this fast but I wanted to say that I have to agree with ultramarina...Your children are still very young to form an opinion on their exact level of giftedness. Of course I would still look into all the resources you can. The books that were recommended are great. There is something with your children for sure, but is it truly "giftedness" or a high achieving child? What I'm trying to say, is that I was absolutely convinced that my oldest was profoundly gifted. He actually hit the milestones earlier than what you mentioned and after reading Dr. Ruf's levels of giftedness, he clearly was a level 4. Long story short...After testing, he was obviously very bright but highly gifted??? Ummm well, no. Through the years we have found that he is and always has been a parent/teacher/people pleaser and a perfectionist to the max. When it came and comes to academic type stuff like you mentioned (colors, letters, words, numbers...)he would blow everyone away, but when it came to the real brilliant out of the box "wow" thinking, he was and still is just "average" Lol Public schools with added academic competitions and regular honors classes have been great and has been enough for him. Now my youngest was a different story...He had all the amazing "wow" moments but not neccessarily the early academic milestones like my first. He was and is still not a pleaser or a perfectionist and could care less what teachers want him to perform on...Haha Well, HE is the one who tested highly gifted not the firstborn. This is just my experience and thought I would offer more to think about before uprooting your family. Partial homeschooling along with subject acceleration in public school has been great! Trying to figure out all the complexities of our childrens personalities and needs can be overwhelming. I'm so glad you found this forum. You sound like a great mom!

Thank you all - what wonderful responses! Very helpful.

Part of the reason that we are thinking about this now... we've outgrown our house and are debating if we should do an addition or just upgrade to a larger house (possibly moving nearer to the gifted school as well). We are leaning very heavily to staying here, because we like this area and it is near my parents - who are very involved with our kids. The gifted school is in a very densely populated, and we are more "wide open spaces" types. So if we decide the gifted school is the best idea, I might bite the bullet and drive them. It could be a good hour with traffic, but that is life in suburbia.

It's really good to hear some of you had children with similar "achievements" as young toddlers that leveled out a bit as they got older. I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but I do hope that is what happens with DD. Gifted is wonderful and I could deal with it. DH and I were both in gifted programs, so I kind of "get" those challenges. But PG is an entirely different bag of bones and, honestly, a pretty scary proposition in my mind. So I do hope that DD is maybe just having an intellectual growth spurt and this won't necessarily be her trajectory.

Our strong preference would be to send them to the local public school. I like the idea of "partial home schooling" and as a stay-at-home mom I would certainly be up to the task.

We are going to go and check out the school, have a tour and whatnot.

Since my son will be starting kindergarten in a couple of years, I agree that the wise thing to do would to be to focus on HIS education needs first. I do feel that DS would do OK with the local public schools, but given his personality I do worry that the high student/teacher ratios would not be ideal.

It's possible that your local schools will understand about giftedness and levels of giftedness and will try to provide an appropriate education for your kids. But it's also possible that they won't. Here's my meandering advice:

1. Make a list of questions and ask them of the principals and teachers at any prospective school, INCLUDING the gifted school.

Examples:

• My son started to read when he was two and now reads books like x, y, z. How do you approach kids like him? (When you say it this way, you won't put them on the defensive.) You do not want your son spending kindergarten and first grade learning about the letter of the week and sounding out Level 1 readers.
• What is your policy on kids who are working two or more years ahead of grade level in math (or whatever)? Stick to specifics: use numbers and subject areas.
• What is your policy on acceleration (grade skipping) in subjects or for a whole grade?
• Do you do out-of-level testing to determine placement? (Schools often don't think to test past a student's age-grade level: it doesn't seem to occur to the ones I've talked to.)

Listen carefully to their answers and maybe even write them down. If they say things like, "We will observe him for six weeks and then revisit the question," be careful. You'll be stuck at that school after six weeks. What's wrong with testing him sooner?

If they say things like, "We've never done a skip and I, for one, never will," or "We let a kid skip a grade in 1982 and it was a disaster and we'll never do that again," you're in for an uphill battle. Watch out for phrases like "All children are gifted." They're a sign that whoever says them doesn't get it.

2. Federal law (No Child Left Behind/NCLB) punishes schools for low test scores but doesn't reward high scores. So schools have no incentives to help talented kids but lots of disincentives in that regard. Some try very hard to help gifted kids, but remember that the law is pushing them to work with kids on the other end of the achievement spectrum.

3. Does the private school have an IQ cutoff? If so, how high is it? The top 2% (130) is very different from the top 10% (119-120). Your kids may be past the top 0.1% (145). There are a few schools that use 145 as a cutoff. If they take the top 10%, the school may be oriented toward above-average learners rather than truly gifted learners, and you might have to do some research to determine if the financial sacrifice is worth the return you'll get. Anecdote: teachers at a California school for gifted kids did an interview not long ago where they said that the kids who learn to read when they're two or three all "even out" by fourth grade and that early reading is "just another milestone" like walking. So much for them understanding about gifted kids! So, back to point 1: I would ask the gifted school how many two- or three-year-old readers they've had and what their policy toward them is.

If you think seriously about the private school, get stuff in writing before you give them a check. It's easy to get excited about a school; remember that the reality may be very different from the PR --- in part because PR is more open to interpretation than the daily grind.

4. Other minor points: how long is the school day at each school? In California, public K-5 schools (in the Bay area at least) have short school days: ~8:20-~2:20 except Weds., when they get out at ~1:20. Private schools have an extra 5-6 school hours per week. This is a huge advantage over public schools.

But public schools might have better programs if they're bigger (usually applies more in middle and high schools). How big is the private school? What kinds of programs do they have?

Are the public schools talking about cutting the school year to save money? They've started saying this in California.

Phew. That was long. Hope I helped. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to avoid doing my taxes, which I must now do. I hate taxes....

Oh one more thing: you mentioned your son's personality. My eldest son is stubborn and knows his own mind very well. My daughter is more compliant. She would have fit in better in the public schools as a result, but I think they would actually have damaged her more than my eldest. He's more prone to speak up or act out if something isn't right. DD would be far more likely to just go with the flow and probably wouldn't have been stretched appropriately. She turned 7 last week and is in 3rd grade. It's not much of a challenge so far, but her brain would be quietly ossifying if she was in 2nd grade now (and because of cutoff dates, some schools might have pushed to redshirt her and she could still be in first grade!!).

Great post, thank you!!! You shared a lot of good information - I haven't absorbed it all yet.

But you mentioned their cut-offs at the gifted school. Funny, I never even thought to check it out. They have an IQ of 125 listed as the minimum. hmmm...

Thanks - more later, but gotta run at the moment!

Welcome!

Our DS7 is PG according to tests, and we have some experience with some different school options. But as a preface, I would never say to anyone that a particular school option will likely work for their kid, and the kid will be able to stay there for all of elementary; there are too many variables, and the kid's personality will be a big factor. (FYI, we are in a smallish city 45 miles outside a major metro area.) Here is what we did. We got IQ testing on our son at age 4, because we thought he should probably start school early and in our state the schools generally require proof of IQ >130 to start early. We were shocked with much higher scores, and the psychologist gave us advice to wait another year to enter school and let our kid play awhile, since we would likely have lots of school changes in our future. We approached the local GT coodinator the spring before DS would start kindy with IQ report in hand, even though the district GT services didn't start until 3rd. We asked her what we should do. She acted as a liaison with the prinicpal, who helped hand select a kindy teacher who was good at differentiation and who would like having a kid like ours in her class. The school psychologist did some achievement testing, and we also filled out some other sort of social testing. It took half a year before DS was given appropriate math (which ended up being really great - the GT coordinator bascially tutored him on 2nd grade math). The kindy teacher was good at differentiating in reading, so we didn't worry about that. At the end of the year, we used that Iowa Acceleration Scales to convince the school that DS needed to skip 1st. They ultimately agreed (since it would be easier than the planned differentiation of 2 years for math/reading if he had stayed in 1st). We had troubles when DS started 2nd in getting him the right math (he was supposed to have 3rd, but they just kept him in 2nd, which he had already done). When we finally got math right with the local 2nd, we heard of an opening in a school for HG kids 45 miles from our house. The school is a year advanced, so with the grade skip DS was 2 years ahead baseline. We transfered DS mainly because we wanted him to be with kids closer to his level. The biggest change was that my stress level went down immediately, since DS was finally getting appropriate challenge across the board and we didn't have to closely monitor/remind the teacher that DS needs more in something or another.

DS is now in 3rd at the HG school (just started). I am hopeful that this will be a good fit for a while, but I am prepared to be flexible. This school seems particularly good at letting kids work at their own levels, and grouping kids by ability. Although it is easier on us to have him at this school, the local school was very willing to work with us and was pretty flexible, so I think we could have made it work if we didn't have this other option.

A quick comment about private schools. They do not have to do anything if they don't want to, so I wouldn't recommend moving near a private school unless you had a bunch of assurances in writing. Also, I'd try to track down families with kids like yours in the area who went to various schools and ask them how things went.

Gotta go. Sorry for the rambling. In sum, I'd say that if you remain flexible, things will be fine, even if you are not in the ideal school (if there is one). Work with the schools like your are partners, and try not to be too demanding.

I'm not offended and I totally understand where you are coming from, but I wanted to offer some reassurance. I have a child who did not level off at all. While PG may seem scary initially, some stuff that scares us turns out to be wonderful. The extreme gifted stuff has made aspects of our lives more complicated particularly as it relates to planning out education. At the same time though there is also immense joy. I no longer wish to will away some of the giftedness because it is part of who the child is and how he experiences the world. Yeah, it wasn't what I expected but isn't that the best part of parenting - all the unexpected stuff? So, I just wanted to say the best you can I urge you not to fear her development. It is part of who she is and being different doesn't have to mean having an unhappy or difficult life. In fact some of the g stuff can help make life pretty great.

School: I would strongly discourage you from moving for a school until you really know the school well and how it will work for both of your kids. There are a lot of variables there beyond the gifted part and I wouldn't make a major commitment until you've really worked with the school for a while and you are confident it will be a match for your kid.

Homeschooling: I would keep in mind that you don't have to do it all. Particularly as you are thinking about the cost of private school, taking just a fraction of that to hire out some of the education can simplify the process quite a bit. You can look to homeschool organizations and co-ops for social stuff - arts, PE, field trips, etc. And, then think about hiring tutors such as retired teachers or graduate students for any subjects where you'd like some assistance.

I am seconding this, though moving off on a tangent. We went into testing after having read Ruf's levels, and thinking "well, it's a relief we don't have a PG kid, because that would be so hard." Then we got results pegging our kid as PG. But he's certainly not what I thought of at the time as PG - he is not one of those kids who stands out as doing amazing things. He's pretty quiet and blends well. He does not act out in class if he's in the wrong placement, as he is a teacher pleaser who doesn't want to get into trouble. He is sort of "sneaky" PG; every once in awhile he'll say something so amazing that it reminds you that he's a little different.

I guess my point, if I have one, is that PG comes in all different shapes and sizes and flavors. There are those prodigious PG kids, who are obvious to all, and then there are a whole lot of others who test into it, and who do learn at an extremely fast rate and know tons of stuff and test really high all the time, but you wouldn't necessarily think of them as PG if you just happened to meet them.

Also, it's hard to say if your kiddo will level off or not, but I'm guessing that she won't seem so extreme in a few years. Our DS probably did most of the things your DD did at an early age, but once you get in school the other kids who learn things at the normal developmental time start to know a lot of that stuff too, so your kid doesn't seem quite as out there. It's when they're really young that they really stand out. (I remember hearing people say, shocked, "Did the BABY just say that!?") I'm not saying that "they all even out", but rather than it's not quite as extreme as the other kids have finally gotten to the first level, and some of them have strengths in certain areas, etc. I'm still surpised whenever my kiddo brings home these super high test scores, since he doesn't seem out there to me anymore after meeting the other kids, but he still is.

I am sorry for going off into a tangent, but what age do some PG kids level off? Does this vary also?

I'm not sure how to answer this. A PG kid will turn into a PG adult, who will still do things like understand things more quickly than most others. I would imagine that if a PG kid finds a particular passion, they will never "level off" in that field. But maybe they'll become less obviously PG to others in other areas? I don't know.

It is my understanding that "leveling off" is referring to the fact that some kids will revert to the mean, even if they picked up on some things earlier than usual. I imagine it originated from the fact that in normally developing kids, maybe all kids, there are spurts in different areas. E.g., some kids may pick up on reading faster. So, perhaps some ND kids do level off at some point around third grade, as the myth goes. But the leveling off concept doesn't seem to apply to GT kids.

My DD is still very much GT, but her early development (very much like the OP's daughter) doesn't fully line up with her current development, assuming you were to go whole-hog and predict IQ from her development at say, age 1. She looked more extreme as a young toddler. I think her IQ results may not fully represent her, but I would still maintain that there is no way she is PG, despite looking kinda PG at that age.

It's not that I think she "leveled off," exactly. But I do think toddler development is not always a clear indicator. Toddlers are weird. I feel like I had a better picture of who she was by about age 4 or 5. Meanwhile, my DS is 3 and looking more gifted by the day despite being much less of a shocker at age 1.

Ok, I see. With DS6 it has been the opposite. We knew he was a smart toddler, but we seem to be grasping just how smart in the last year.

I wonder how much some of these differences are based on how gifted the child is in terms of memory, sensory integration and gross/fine motor control? As in, do some children need to channel more of their energy into learning motor skills? Or are they less gifted memory wise but great thinkers and therefore maybe don't seem so academically gifted as toddlers? Do do they not have the visual processing skills (as toddlers) to learn to read even if they do have the intellectual capacity (that's without even touching on dyslexia an other specific learning delays)? Personality has got to be a major factor too. Each person is so unique and the first 5 years or so of development so intense that there has got to be an awful lot of room for different ways of developing normally AND different forms of advanced development.

Yes, I think you're right about all of that, MumofThree. In DD's case, she has a truly phenomenal memory that was especially shocking in a toddler. It's not that she isn't a deep thinker, but some of her most out-there skills are speed and recall.

One issue with pg/eg kids is that you don't know how they are going to respond in an academic environment and school setting until they are placed in one.

My 5.5 DS was born with special needs (attn and visual processing issues) and was in special needs preschools until last Sep when he started to read and write 3-, 4-, 5-letter words. I knew he was bright but that was it. I then put him in a gifted school in MA since MA doesn't offer any g & t programs and I knew he was quite bored in the special needs preschool and needed more.

Within 2-3 months of being at the gifted school, my ds completed the pre-k/k/1st grade curriculum. I was told that he might be pg/eg and that the gifted school could no longer accommodate him so we pulled my ds and put him in another gifted school - which is an open/unstructured/mixed age one-room type schoolhouse situation.

At the first gifted school, my son really resisted the teacher-driven, traditional - subject based approach to school. He resisted the drill and kill. He is a visual spatial learner and this particular school had a lot of verbal kids so he didn't fit in socially.

At the second gifted school, it is intrinsically-motivated and more flexible. My son's school has 34 kids between pre-k and 8th grade with 3 teachers. It is private and expensive but we were left with few options in MA.

Yesterday, I got the verbal results from a neuropsych test we had on our son. I'm still grappling with what happened, what level my son is operating on, and appropriate educational placement.

My son is not a typical eg/pg kid if there is one, but I think if you read a lot about giftedness you'd find there is quite a range and my son seems to fit within this range. Asynchronous development, intensity, anxiety, attention issues, etc., are not usual for this population.

One warning, the phenomenal speed at which eg/pg kids pick up knowledge or process visual or written information is staggering. It seems like they take great gulps at time. They can be quite intense at times, or at least mine can, but what a journey it is!!!

Hmm, DS10 has few "true peers" at school but now that we are getting to middle school I see the PG kids starting to find each other. It's actually amazing.


what does this mean? why would a kid "level off"? is that when they are so bored and disengaged from lack of an interesteding, challenging school program that they just stop? I can't imagine a PG kid ever stopping.

I've heard parents of non-gifted kids say things like, "well, they all level off by 3rd grade" Huh?

Anywhooo...
Well, we've only done gifted schools for PG DS10. Starting with pre-k. He just was too "out there" to be accommodated in a mainstream school and too asynchronous to fit in with the mainstream kids.

I wish we had a PG school option with a high cutoff but things are going very well for him here. We are in our 2nd year at this new school, it's a 130 cutoff but such a better program then the one we left (which was private, big bux and attracted the hothouse crowd)

You all are amazing - what a wealth of information! I'm so glad I've found this site.

My husband and I have been giving it much thought, and we've taken all the advice given here to heart. We haven't reached any conclusions yet, but that's OK - we still have plenty of time. Even once we make the decision on where to send the kids to school, we may need to change plans later depending on many factors.

I guess what I am hearing is that we can't really know what our kids will need nor can we know exactly how well any school will accommodate them until we are actually THERE and trying to work with the system.

Here are our options - local public schools (underfunded and overcrowded, but they do have a gifted program that starts in 3d grade), local Lutheran school (small school and small class size advantage, although we are Christian we are not sure if we are totally on board with a religious school, doubtful they have any special gifted program), local montesorri (small class sizes, only pk-6, not sure how this would transition to a traditional school),and a private gifted school (50 minute commute, big price tag)

Our pediatrician had mentioned a Montesorri as a possibly good option. There is a pk-6 montesorri near us. I don't know much about this type of school - or even how to spell it (sorry about that). From what little I know, it sounds like kids can accelerate in areas where they are really strong - it sounds very individualized. But it also sounds very different than the type of schooling that I grew up with, and therefore sort of foreign and uncertain to me. I'll have to look into it more, but I am very interested to hear any experience with very gifted kids in Montesorri.

AntsyPants - You mentioned that at one point you were at a school that was private, expensive, and attracted the "hothouse crowd." I'm still learning my gifted terminology, but I think i understand what you mean by that. My question to you - is there anyway you can tell if a private school is just for hothouse-types, maybe parents who want to pay big money to say their kids are in a gifted school? This private school in our area is very expensive. I looked at the kindergarten curriculum and it is well advanced beyond what public schools offer - but it is still stuff that my 3 year old is learning now (like fractions). So I'm really questioning if this is truly a gifted school, or just a school for bright kids with wealthy parents. Any red flags I can look for? The IQ cutoff is 125, which doesn't seem as high as I would expect.

Thanks again!

You have to remember that LOG is an emerging concept. Most schools don't believe that there are subcatagories of 'gifted' so they expect all kids to thrive in the 125 and over category. I think it's because IQ tests aren't created to sort kids over 125 very effectively. Now if you find a school that does all it's Math for each grade at the same time so that it can sort the kids by 'readiness' or ability, and it's normal for kids to wiggle up and down the hall at Math time, and maybe Reading time too, then you know you have a place that doesn't see Giftedness as a unitary adjective.

If they don't do that, they might just be lucky to be flexible - ask, how long since you had a child who needed to be placed in a room with older kids for all or part of the day. How did that go?

I wouldn't even bother asking about enrichment because all the schools will claim that they are doing that already, and it's impossible to tell. One teacher may do a great job and the next year you are paying the big bucks and it's almost a bad joke. Looking on the shelves to see what books are in the room, and observing the classroom is what makes the difference. If the school has a 1st grade classroom with 'Harry Potter' on the shelf, then you know it's going to be ok.

Keep posting - we love that you found us!

Smiles,
Grinity

Just to be totally different , I'm going to mention homeschooling. My son went to 2 years of PS. We tried to get him into a gifted magnet, which is very much a MG school anyway, but they do have the terminology and training. He hit the ceiling of their screening test, but still didn't get in (chose by pure lottery once you qualify). Hindsight, that may have been karma.

We are starting our 4th year of homeschooling, and it has been a wonderful fit for both my kids (My son is 10, my daughter turned 7 this summer). It has given them time to work our some asynchronous development and really dive into topics as deeply as we can. It's a year to year proposition here, but it has been wonderful for us so far. The big piece with that is finding like minded community and resources. My kid's started music lessons as preschoolers and that was a great outlet for them too.

I agree with many of the other thoughts here. I think for a child reading at 2, you're going to have a hard time whatever you choose. There are advantages and disadvantages to any choice. I also don't think you should make any early judgments that your 16 month old is going to have more challenging educational needs than your older.

Sweetpeas - I would try to ask the schools if they:

1) have experience with profoundly gifted children or those who are working at x grade level in reading, writing, math or whatever subjects; schools may question what you're saying, but it's still worthwhile to ask.
2) can accommodate such children and how.
3) are children in mixed-aged group setting - your child may not want to stand out like a sore thumb in a setting with her chronological peers who are not functioning at her level
4) is the curriculum flexible and fairly unstructured/structured - this can make a big difference
5) I would ask what happens when a child exceeds a grade within a matter of months and whether they are bumped up a grade or provided with the next grade level material or not.

Of course, some schools may try to fib, but you might be able to get a better idea on whether a school is willing or able to accommodate you or not.

I don't know if you've seen this link on pg kids or not, but I found this useful - http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10115.aspx

I found that most gifted schools are still based on a traditional classroom (subject-based, teacher-driven, one-size fits all curriculum where everyone is working at a similar pace) and not aimed at pg kids. More often gifted schools can accommodate when a child is advanced in reading, writing, or math but not when it's all three or more subjects.

I did have a discussion with the assistant principal of our local public elementary school just this morning. It was rather disheartening. They do not allow students to skip grades. They say they differentiate curriculum for all students, but I imagine all schools would claim this. When asked if they have worked with other very gifted kids in the past, she said that they have had many students will "accelerated skills" go through their schools and the parents have been pleased with their progress. So, just using the term "accelerated skills" told me that she wasn't quite understanding what I was describing. I mean, when my son was two he had already almost mastered their entire Kindergarten curriculum (but he wasn't potty trained - LOL!) I have no way of knowing if my children would need to skip grades or not, but the fact that this school is unwilling to do it I think just illustrates that they aren't very flexible.

Through this website, I learned that a neighboring school district was easy to work with for one parent of a PG child. I checked them out and spoke briefly with their district office. They have pretty large gifted program in place which includes accelerated coursework and (maybe daily?) pull-outs, AND have a policy of allow children to skip grades. They are actually an award winning school district - great numbers, low student/teacher ratios, etc. So now my husband and I are thinking about it as an option. It would require a move, but just about 10 minutes from where we currently live. (They won't allow out-of-district students, unfortunately.)

So that is another option, perhaps. I think the flexibility of the district is what is going to be most important. This discussion with you all has been SO helpful to us in narrowing down exactly what we should be looking for. A flexible public school may be more accommodating to our kids than a private "gifted" school - and that is a concept than never really occurred to me before discussing things here.

While I am open to homeschooling them, my husband is less so. He wants them to have the "school experience" - at least to some degree. I understand this point, and I think we won't know until we try it if school will work for the kids. My husband is supportive of the idea of part-time homeschooling. So I can supplement the kids school education by exploring more advanced subjects with them at home. (If that seems to be what they desire- I wouldn't want to force a bunch of stuff on them.)


ETA: I have a tour scheduled of the gifted school at the end of next week. You all have given me some good ideas of what to ask, let me know if you think of anything else I should look for on this tour. With the cost and the location, there are two big strikes against this school so it will really have to impress us to make us think it is the right school for our kids.

A lot of schools will say they differentiate. When they say this, you need to ask for specifics about how they do this. What does it look like? What are the more extreme amounts of differentiation they've done, and what did those look like? How specifically do they differentiate for a child working three, four, five, or more grade levels beyond his age grade? Do they provide extra work or different work (important difference there)? Do they have a way to provide actual instruction at different levels? Or do they just toss the kid a workbook and call it good (and this is actually better than many schools do)? If the school can't give specific, detailed answers and examples for these questions, or if the staff become defensive or dismissive, those are important clues about how the school will deal (or not deal) with your child. If they do provide strong, detailed answers, then ask if you can see some of these situations yourself.

I would also ask what the school's policy on clustering is. Does the school cluster the highest kids together in one class, so they can have academic peers? With a PG child, even at a gifted school, there may well not be any real academic peers for many or all subject areas, but there may be one or two who are close enough to be a good social and/or academic fit for your child. Be very, very wary of a school that says they don't need to cluster or that all of their kids are very gifted!

Everyone has given you good advice, but I'll reiterate that a private gifted school is often not the panacea that we all hope for. Our own experience was that our local private gifted schools felt that they were for the gifted, so what more could we want? They said all the right things, but they did not put any of it into practice. I now wish that we'd asked much more careful questions and listened for the specifics--then we'd have known to avoid the school!

I have recently learned that DD's gifted magnet school will not be differentiating in-class reading instruction. Yup, you read that right--at least in DD's class, all 18 kids are reading the same books for in-class reading. They also get individual silent reading time of whatever they like, but I am fairly gobsmacked to learn that this is the practice in a school that talks up differentiation. So....what Nan said.

It sounds like sales and operations aren't on the same page.

If this ends up as a double post, I apologize in advance. (Don't ask! LOL!)

First, thank you CDFox for the link to that article. I finally had the chance to read it today. I could very much relate to much of what was being said, and I know the advice given is something I will need to keep in my mind for many years. I've bookmarked it!

My husband and I have been learning as much as possible about our local school options. We've spoken with teachers, parents, read student manuals and policies online, etc. etc.

In the midst of all of this, I get another reality check from my daughter. She loves books, and can read quite a large number of words. Today she was looking at a book that had some tally marks - thirteen, actually. So I told her it was a way of counting or writing a number. You know how tally marks look - the number 13 had two sets of 5 and one set of 3. So I asked her (really just out of curiosity because she often surprises me) "what is five plus five?" and she said "ten!" Then I asked "what is ten plus three?" and she said "thirteen!" Yeah, that was a serious WTF moment.

We don't "work with her" on math, as you may be thinking. There are no math flash cards or anything like that. Her three year old brother really loves numbers and may have introduced the idea of addition to her, I'm not sure. But, anyway... seriously... WTF was the only thing that came to mind, crass as that sounds.

So I say all of this to illustrate the sort of toddler she is. She is only 17 months as of today, I can't even imagine where she will be when she is 5 and ready to start kindergarten.

What school - private or public, gifted program or not, could have the resources to inspire/excite/motivate a child who is PG. I'm not saying my daughter is PG, of course. I can't know that at this age, I guess. But it wouldn't surprise me if she does eventually get categorized that way. It just made me think - what's the point?? Is there even a such thing as a good school for PG kids?

I spoke with a mom at the neighboring school district I talked about before. It was really just a happy accident that I ran into her and we started talking about local schools. Her son was allowed to skip a grade, and he is also taking math with kids 2 grades ahead of him. So they are flexible and accommodating, not just on paper but in real life. This mom said she never had to ask of any accommodations - everything, including the grade skipping, was the school's idea.

We are still going to go and tour the private gifted school next week. I will post back here and let you all know how that goes. You've all be so helpful.

Sorry to ramble on so long again. It's so nice to have an place to unload all this with people that can understand and not think I am crazy or bragging or both.

I agree, WTF is a reasonable response! I assume from what you say that she was answering these particular questions in the presence of a tallied 13 written down where she could see it, which slightly reduces the WTF quotient, but not much!

As you say, you really don't know what she'll be like when she's 5, and especially, you need to avoid the presumption that she'll necessarily have more extreme educational needs than your DS. Depending on how much he talks to her about numbers it could well be that what you're seeing in her tells you at least as much about him as about her! But yeah, it's sensible to assume that you're going to need something special in a school. There are PG children happy in schools, so don't give up. That's a very hopeful conversation you had the other day - exactly what you want is a school where the staff will pay attention to what each child needs educationally and work out how to provide it without you needing to force them. Such schools do exist!

Hello Sweetpeas,
I just arrived on the forum and your topic caught my eye. That's probably because, in our own experience, placing our two children in a gifted private school was the best decision we made for them. Your two are still so little, which is wonderful; you are starting armed for the journey! If anything I write can be helpful as you forge your road, you�ll be ahead of where we were as we began!

We did not arrive early at our conclusion to send our children to a gifted school � it was a year-by-year, trial and error process, unfortunately. We had them in a very small, private school first. That was good because 1) it was personalized to each child 2) the Headmistress was an extremely broad-minded individual, who was not afraid to allow children to progress at their own rate and in their own style of learning. I consider admin. and staff perceptions/understanding a fundamental indicator of where a gifted child might fit. Our daughter had some similarities to yours, started talking at 6 mos, continued to a vast vocabulary, and early reading. She spontaneously read and loved the whole Narnia series between ages 5-6 � I just helped her through the last book. The first problem we ran into was when she was 6 in 4th grade (plus, it was a school that worked 2-3 grades ahead). Most of her peer group was 9-10 years old, and the greater social maturity in her friends became noticeable at that point. For example, their pre-teeny-bopper music phase was beginning, and also some girls were beginning their periods, etc. - we felt she didn't need to be going to those places yet!

We moved when our daughter was almost 7; our son, 5. We looked at the exclusively gifted school then but, in the end, decided to put them in a larger, more traditional, academically rigorous school, with grade-age peers. It was the �safest� choice, I think, and nothing had gone wrong yet! The first year for our daughter was fine, both socially and because she had an amazing teacher, who I believe now, understood giftedness. Again, I think this is key. But from 4th grade up, we began to hit obstacles. The hardest one was trying to explain to subsequent teachers, who had no training in recognizing differences in gifted kids (and how that presents in different situations/personalities) that something was not working. We gradually found that situations were being misinterpreted and we were being given a negative rather than a positive angle. We grew used to seeing a blank stare across the table during parent/teacher conferences, and we saw ourselves turning into two of the many parents advocating for their darling children! If I could go back, I would have changed things from this point.

Long and short of it, we stuck with a school system too long that kept promising to work with our children to provide �accommodations" to help them succeed through school! Oh boy. And this was a school with a great reputation for teaching smart kids! So again, keep assessing your situation and realize that what you perceive is probably correct. Watch how your children behave and respond over a period of time. Gradually, we became aware that giftedness (when it means �different� and not just super smart) was actually more of a handicap to our children than a benefit. We, as parents, in the thick of everything, were really quite slow at realizing just what we needed to do for the best. It's pretty much an extreme situation at home and school when you have intense intelligence around!

All changed dramatically in 10th grade when our daughter just stopped. She was exhausted from trying to fit a model of learning that was hindering her. She just could not go on jumping through inane hoops. We pulled her out of school for her own health and finally placed her in the gifted school, with teachers and admin. staff who finally understand giftedness. She literally came back to life over the next couple of years � but from the very first day she came home and said, �Mum, I LOVE these kids!� She'd found her soul mates. All gifted students are different to each other, but they all have a common bond in their difference from the norm. They enjoy each other enormously, whether they are moderately or profoundly gifted. In fact, I would suggest that it is beneficial especially to the profoundly gifted to have a mixed range of gifted students together � they help to balance and socialize each other, as well as finding a place of acceptance, and they all respect each other's differences. We placed our son in the same school the following year. Personality-wise, he is completely different to his sister, he managed his environment in the traditional setting much better � not because he was thriving but because he is extremely sociable and everyone loves having him around. So, you will also have to balance who your children are in terms of their personalities. As a parent, I love watching how gifted education allows the students to develop in a more protective atmosphere while they are young.

Thank you, Mumhere! That was very helpful to read - thank you so much for sharing your perspective.

ColinsMum - I seem to get a lot of those "wtf moments" with my daughter. Yes, I think maybe the visual of the tally marks was surely helping her make those calculations - that is the only way it makes sense. I think we do often assume our daughter is going to need more educational interventions than our son just because of how utterly shocking she is to us and to anyone that encounters her. My son is definitely very bright as well, but being less verbal and a bit more shy he isn't quite as "outloud" with his gifts perhaps. His math and reading skills are certainly at least a couple years ahead of his age. I am trying to shift my thinking to focusing on HIS educational needs, as he is the one that will be entering school first.

Well, we went to the private school today. I think both my husband and I were almost hoping there would be some red flags or that we wouldn't like the general vibe... but it was actually really great. The classrooms were wonderful. Many of the questions I asked, I got from you guys - so thank you very much for sharing your wisdom on what to look for. They answered every question the way I would have hoped, and with sincerity and "proof" to back it up where appropriate.

The commute would most certainly be longer than we thought. Well over an hour. This is much too far to commute every day. So if we wanted to send our kids here, we would need to move. We aren't sure we are thrilled about that idea, although it is definitely possible to do. It is a much more densely populated area, which means lots of traffic - something we definitely don't like. We are sort of more rural/small town types. But then we wonder if it is selfish of us to not want to move... work doesn't tie us to this location as my husband works from home. He can work anywhere.

I am also thinking about when the kids are teenagers... there is a lot more for them to do in a more populated area than in a rural area. They may enjoy living in the area, and honestly I'd probably get used to the high population density too.

Another good thing about moving closer to the gifted school is that the public schools in the area are much better than our local public schools. So even if we decided to not continue with the private school, for whatever reason, we'd be in a pretty good public school district that may be able to accommodate to some degree.

Our son would indeed have to get tested in order to be admitted, even for the pre-K. Part of me feels weird about that, although I know I shouldn't. I mean, if we want a "real" gifted school where people don't simply pay for admission but instead must truly be gifted then we have to expect testing. Part of me thinks "what if he isn't really gifted at all?" I worry what would happen if our son wasn't qualified, but our daughter was and "needed" their specialized education.

We are going to meet with a local public school too and hopefully get to see their classroom and learn more about how they handle gifted children.

In the meantime, my husband and I are taking a week off from researching it or even thinking about this stuff. (Er... starting tomorrow! haha!) We need a little mental break from it and we'll see if it gives us a new perspective.

It does seem like a move should be seriously considered for all of these reasons. It is scary to contemplate testing your son, but remember if he doesn't qualify (doubtful) then the move also provides -

It often happens that sibs need to go to different schools - sometimes because of a flat IQ difference, but more often because of personality and interest. Some kids need a larger population for friend selection, music program or afterschool activities. Sometimes one homeschools and the other doesn't. I've seen it work. Just like you are willing to move to a more populated area because it is closer to what your children need, (and what you used to prefer becomes very dry indeed once you see it isn't working for the kids) you will - over time - become aware of what each child needs and you will be happy if you can provide it no matter how strange it looks.

But please - don't price yourselves out of the homeschooling possibility. Even if it's never more than an escape plan, the piece of mind that come with it is - as they say on TV - priceless. Also - if your husband can truly work from anywhere, I wouldn't make any move that inhibits your ability to move to Reno in about 10 years. Talk about putting the cart before the horse - still my son is 15 so this is how things look from my part of the path.

Yup - get your son tested. You'll have no idea where your DD is in the ballpark until you see where your son actually is. My guess is that if he doesn't qualify for Davidson YSP, that he's quite close indeed. If your son doesn't wear his giftedness on his sleeve like DD, that's all the more reason to test him.

And you are very correct when you say that if the school is going to be 'less heterogeneous' that the community surrounding it, testing will be needed.

The tests are designed to be fun for the kids - he'll probably like it. My son's test day when he was 8 years old was the best day of his life up to that point. Gosh!

Grinity

Thank you, Grinity! That is great advice. I've been mentioning homeschooling a lot to my husband. He definitely is not for 100% homeschooling - he wants the kids to have the "school experience", which I totally understand and agree with (so long as that school experience isn't totally disheartening for them!) But a partial-homeschool situation might be something that could work, if needed. If we had a school that was willing to work with us, we could send them to school for part of the day and then homeschool them the other part of the day. So, yes, I am keeping homeschooling in my mind as an option if we need it someday.

My husband and I both feel a bit selfish for not wanting to move to a more populated area. We aren't making any decisions - we still have plenty of time for that. But we really enjoy the more rural lifestyle. Plus this area is closer to some extended family, and that has weight too.

I did recently find a nice public school that could be a contender. It is just over the state border. I have no idea if they would let our kids attend if we paid a tuition fee (some public schools allow this, others don't). It's actually only about 15 minutes from our house. I found that they have a gifted coordinator, so I wrote to her and asked a few questions. She wrote back the same day - and this was a Saturday!

I hope it's OK... I'd like to copy her response here to get your opinions. I think it sounds pretty great - very flexible. I'm taking out identifiers (like the school name, her name, etc.) just because this was a private correspondence and I don't want to get anyone in trouble.


I honestly thought these guys sounded more flexible than the private gifted school we visited. Plus with the money we'd save sending them to a public school (even if there was a tuition fee, it would surely be less than the private gifted school), we could afford to do a lot summer enrichment experiences later - like science camps, trips, and the like. What do you think?

Thanks again - you all have been so helpful to us in thinking this through!

That does sound verrrrrrrry interesting. Better find out if they allow out-of-state/district kids before you get too excited, but this seems like a better first step than moving to the private school. Extended family is very important - and as a nice bonus, there may be some cousins with similar 'gifted issues.'

It's wonderful that the GC got back to you on a Saturday. I would ask the specific questio of 'how many' kids were offered a full grade acceleration. But it is great that they have a system in place at all.

I would ask what the timeline is for your son to do an 'early enterance' and if they provide the testing. You can always decide not to 'early entrance' your son, after all the information is in. But I think the more accomidated he is the better - with your DD hot on his heels. He might need a running start.

Smiles,
Grinity

We spoke to someone at the school today, and she said that they definitely take out-of-state kids for their 4k, and she believed they take them for the k-8 (with a tuition fee, of course). So we are getting hopeful that this might work.

So fingers-crossed. This may be a good starting place for us. I'm still trying to not get my hopes up, just in case this woman we spoke to was mistaken. We are planning to tour the school soon.

Thanks for all your help and advice!!

Awesome! That's got to be much cheaper than the private school!

Hello, I am new to the forum myself. I Live in a small town where our options are very little. My son is legally in 2nd grade, however he is doing 4th grade work now. I have found that a lot of states now offer free online public schools. I tried for 2yrs with the school system here, they just did not know what to do with him. This summer the state of Tennessee passed into legislation that we may now have public online option. It has been wonderful for my son who is learning so fast it is some what hard for me to keep up. I would not change it for anything in the world... I just have late nights trying to get ahead of him. You might want to check this out in your state. Good luck and never give up!

Hi KateNevil - Welcome! Glad to hear that your son is enjoying his life.

Are you doing the online option now? Is he able to stay legally a 2nd grader and do 4th grade work on the online option? If you choose to send him back to a regular public school and wanted to make him a legal 4th grader, is that option open to you?

Sounds like a great program!
Grinity

Hi KateNeveil- welcome.

Tell us more about the online program!

We got confirmation! They allow out-of-state students (with a tuition fee). Yeeaaaaa!!! District students will have priority for enrollment, but we were assured that it will most likely be no problem to enroll our kids. They are nowhere near full capacity.

We are going to go and tour the school this week. I spoke with a parent who has been very happy with the school. So everything is looking good. We are so happy to have a plan, even though we know it'll be subject to change. We are very relieved to find this school that may work well without having to move.

Our son will be eligible to enroll in the 4k next year, and we'll just wait and see where he is at if he would be better accommodated by starting regular kindergarten.

There are gifted schools and gifted schools...Nearly as I can tell the gifted magnet programs in my district are set up to serve affluent children who like to do homework. My daughter has chosen to enroll in our magnet program this year, but already I'm frustrated with the fact that they don't have the faintest idea how to work with profoundly gifted kids, and especially not 2e. She's been repeatedly admonished for personal failings which are classic characteristics of both profoundly gifted kids and her particular disability. (The IEP meeting next week should be a rockin' good time...)

That's my impression of the private gifted school close to us, too.

Speaking for our DD8, who is HG, the most important decision we made for her was to place her in a classroom with a lot of other gifted children.

For DD the priority has always been fitting in and feeling comfortable with who she is. We had no idea how miserable she was until the tail end of 2nd grade when she was finally able to express it. It wasn't the intellectual boredom, which was present but not her priority; it was wondering why her friends didn't laugh at her humor, or why they gave her blank stares when she said something she thought made perfect sense. She was thinking something was wrong with her and did not feel comfortable in her own skin.

All that to say, we overlooked her social and emotional needs because we were focused on her intellectual potential. I thought the cure would be feeding her intellect, when finally a wise educational psychologist told us to get her around gifted children. And now we're thinking it is a two-birds-with-one-stone thing and she's going to start focusing on the intellectual side now that her heart feels right.

Very interesting point. My son has very recently started having behavior issues at his playschool. I was surprised that the teacher linked it to the fact that he is intellectually really far beyond the other three year olds. What struck a chord with me in your post was your mention of the kids not getting your daughter's jokes. My son as a surprisingly adult sense of humor, coming up with jokes and observations that are genuinely funny but definitely not something other 3-year-olds would laugh at.


Also... previous comments about gifted schools being places where upper class kids who like to do homework excel (or something like that). Good observation. I could see that description fitting in - to some degree - with the private gifted school we visited. I really am not sure they could handle PG kids any better than a public school. PG kids are just so different in so many ways than kids that schools usually label as gifted.