Hello. I have a four-year-old who will be five in July, and I would like to get him tested. I want this not so much to see whether he is a good candidate for a Davidson gifted program, but more to find out extra information that would be helpful in his growing and learning process at home, as well as perhaps in the local school system.

Here are some of his traits:

1. He has what I consider to be a high level of artistic ability. He often combines objects and symbols in striking ways. At the age of two he basically discovered the form of Felix the Cat on his own, and his designs often show a great whimsy. He also shows more imagination than I would've thought a four-year-old capable, in terms of imaginative play and storytelling.

2. He has a fantastic verbal linguistic ability. He is constantly whipping out newly learned idioms with relish, and his grammar and syntax are impeccable. I can't estimate how many words and phrases he knows, and I am often amazed that he has been able to learn so many in such a short time.

3. He's reading at about a normal eight-year-old level, as far as I can tell, maybe more. About this, I admit to teaching him to read somewhat (although I dunno if it would qualify as hothousing by your standards here), but he does like to sit and read on his own and can do so for extended periods.

4. He's at least interested in math, although I doubt he is a great math genius. He can write and recognize arbitrarily large numbers (although he doesn't know the names of anything above millions), and is starting algebra. Now again, I have taught him math-- but it was partly to see how fast he could pick it up, and he is doing it very quickly. I basically postponed math teaching until quite recently, focusing on problem-solving skills instead. Until about two months ago, the extent of his math ability was counting to twenty or so, and doing small math in his head (keeping track o scores in simple counting games, etc.).

Right now, with sporadic and quite short ad-hoc lessons, basically whatever I can think of to throw at him at odd times during the week, he has a thorough grasp of the base-ten number system. I taught him the concept of a variable within several minutes one night, the next night built a simple scale with him to help teach the concept of an equation, and the next night he was able to do a simple system of equations (just basic substitution stuff with three variables) within several seconds. I had done this mostly because I wanted to gauge his aptitude at this point, as I had heard that children of this age generally are incapable of understanding abstract concepts such as variables.

He can also do integer math including negative numbers, which I taught him pretty quickly the other night using some Cuisenaire rods and a simple foldover paper widget I made. I am no math genius, but I do think I have a knack for teaching simple concepts-- so I don't know how much of this is considered to be hothousing, or how much of his ability is due just to the teaching. But I feel like the speed with which he learns abstract things must mean something, even if it is due to teaching in part.

5. He has pretty good game playing skills, which I guess are a special set of general reasoning abilities. He can beat his mother at Texas Hold 'Em handily (although she is pretty sucky at that game), and has picked up the mechanics of chess fairly easily recently, although he is not great at it yet. At games of what I would call medium complexity, such as different flavors of Blokus, Carcassonne, Risk, etc., he is capable of beating adults what I would guess is a large portion if not a majority of the time. He can't beat me so often, but does sometimes. We have a closet full of games he enjoys playing, including the ThinkFun solitaire games that he plays up to expert level and some of which he has finished.

6. He has great concentration. I have intentionally developed this as well as his memory, unfortunately for the ability to get a true assessment of genetic potential, perhaps... At the age of two he was able to sit through a feature film with sustained interest, and would often even at that age play with certain toys for hours. In fact some games, especially computer games like Warcraft III or Zoo Tycoon 2, he will play obsessively, to the point that I have to force him to stop. If he is doing something he enjoys, and I don't send him to bed, he will easily stay up until 2 or 3 a.m. until he falls asleep, exhausted.

7. In addition, he has one heck of a reasoning and argumentation ability. He is like a little lawyer, and will often make a compelling argument to get what he wants or to escape a punishment. He's also incredibly manipulative, although not in an evil way.

So...

He has just finished preschool, and we have to decide what to do with him. For financial reasons we will probably be sending him to public school at least for kindergarten. The thing is, in New Hampshire they apparently don't do a bang-up job of detecting bright children or making need-based services available to them; in fact the local educational philosophy seems to be based on "no child left behind", to the point that children are intentionally mixed together so that the bright children are in with the not-so-bright. Then, though they supposedly espouse the "habits of mind" approach, each class is taught to the same lesson plan.

I'm not so worried about this stunting my kid's development, as I can see that he will probably self-develop-- in fact I think I could stop teaching him and he would be fine. Still, I do want to give him the best chance at realizing his potential I can, so I would like to investigate documenting his level of need so I can push the school system to give him a little more in the way of specialized services, whatever might be available. My questions:

1. How likely is it that I am just a proud dad, and/or have hothoused him? (If I have been unintentionally hothousing him, I might not stop what I've been doing, since he has fun with it, but I may back off on thinking of him as having fantastic potential.)

2. Would you test my child, if you had to pay and money was tight? Or would you just let him develop naturally and not worry about it?

3. How do I find out what testing centers are available in Massachusetts and New Hampshire? Do I need to look for local psychologists instead of centers? I found one place in Philadelphia, but it would be inconvenient to travel so far.

Thanks a lot.

I don't think that you are hothousing, you and your son seem to be having fun - a particular family version of fun, but fun nonetheless.

I would get the testing, because having guidance one can trust is a wonderful thing. You are so lucky to be within driving distance of
http://www.davincilearning.org/

Aimee Yermish
30 Carriage Lane
Stow, MA 01775

(978) 461-4815

aimee@davincilearning.org
www.davincilearning.org

I would recommend to call her and say what you said here about your concerns. Also - go observe some Kindy classrooms and 1st grade classrooms.

With gifted kids the academic problem with school can be though about as
1) level
2) pace

So even if you were scrupulous about not introducing 'school topics' with your son and he didn't know how to read one letter, he could still need a gradeskip because the pace might unhinge him. You seem to be intuitively aware of this.

Public schools can be good places for kids of all LOG (levels of giftedness) but that requires someone (often the parents) to do some fancy footwork (advocacy) and be flexible (asking for whatever gradeskips and subject accelerations are needed to keep school fun and satisfying.

I would also ask Aimee for suggestions of social events where your son (and you and DW) would get chances to hang out with 'true peers.' I believe that it is good to have a wide variety of friends, and that variety comes in many flavors, but that finding 'true peers' rather than agemates is an important part of that mix. Depending on where one lives, this can be quite a challenge, and need some careful planning.

funny story about that linguistic ability - my son, now 13 also had that amazing linguistic ability, and lawyer-like mentality. In 2nd grade, one of the staff at his school treated him unfairly. He called her a 'hag.' He claimed that he didn't know what it meant, but that it just slipped out. He was duly punished, and became more thoughtful.

Bottom Line: Develop a poker face, because it was very funny, and I didn't dare laugh.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Welcome!

That doesn't sound like hothousing to me. Remember, that some kids wouldn't pick those things up even if their parents hothoused them so your son is obviously (to me) a very bright boy. I'd get him tested if the money is available. There is a lady in NH named Sandra-Leigh Sprecker Marlow who does gifted testing. Have you talked to your local school district yet?

How did you teach him to read? I ask because my DD4 is reading but it is very hard for me to assess what level she is reading at because she doesn't like reading aloud or to me or being asked about. She shocks me with the words she can read and when she is willing her fluency. I'd actually like to help her develop better fluency since I think she would like that, but am not sure how best to work with her and was wondering how you taught him (I have no probem with someone intentionally teaching their child to read if the child enjoys it so don't worry I will think you are hothousing. I am not so touchy about that issue as some people are).

Good luck.

Many thanks. I've sent an email to Aimee Yarmish and will follow up.

One frustrating thing about New Hampshire is that they have funding problems, but in addition they don't seem to do a good job of detecting giftedness, at least at this age. There is also a strong tendency not to grade-skip for kids entering kindergarten, as they told my wife when she asked about it.

To some degree I understand, especially if IQ assessments are considered to be unreliable at this age, but I see the problem not as my kid being with relatively less talented kids, but rather as not being with kids who are ready to play and learn at the same level. Even one or more grade-skips might not be ideal due to pacing and behavioral differences, but that's still an option that I want to explore. Thanks again.

Thank you for the info and support, TwinkleToes. It is greatly appreciated. So far we've talked to the local school district only at a pre-K information session.

Regarding reading, I used some specific techniques that are a hodgepodge of things I've read and things I thought of on my own, including:

* Sounding-out techniques, including encouraging him to bridge the sounds more and more instead of uttering them discretely, and to notice common letter combinations
* Hunting for small sight words like "and", "the" in pages to improve scanning and comprehension of sentence structure
* Using flash cards (the "Phonics Made Easy" flash cards by School Zone were helpful)
* Using letter tiles to teach different words with the same phonemes together, and playing a word morph game by changing single letters at a time
* Noting with interest oddities of words we were reading, and/or similarities to other words we knew
* Sending him on a scavenger hunt for a specific word, to find it in any book in the house
* Closing a book temporarily and asking him to spell a word for me that is somewhere in the page just read
* Inflection practice
* Doing drills such as speeding through a book just read, to improve recall in general and of context, which increased his confidence in reading the books himself
* Finding small contextual things in the text to remember. For instance, he always looked forward to "Big Dog, Little Dog" for the chance to utter the phrase "Fred got wet butt" (which occurs as "Fred got wet, but" in the text)
* Having him read subtitles on some movies, when they came up
* Whenever he finished a book, I'd get him a new one. This is a bit tricky because he already had a bunch of books, most of which on a particular day would sit on his bookshelves, but I'd take special care to find an especially exciting book for reward purposes.

His book progression has included P.D. Eastman and similar stuff early on, and later on stories such as the Otto and Uncle Tooth books (which I can't recommend enough), and at present he is enjoying a bunch of DK books as well as Tintin, Carl Barks duck comics, etc. He loves a good adventure, and learning about how things work.

I have a high opinion of some of the Step Into Reading types of level readers, but they are hit and miss; some are awful. The good thing is that they are cheap, and sometimes you can find a copy to look at locally before you buy. For early reading they were helpful.

I'm not sure about the best approach with your daughter. If she is touchy about reading, it may be that she is not sure of herself yet and wants to reveal her skill when she is. I just don't know what would cause that in your situation, or if it's just a personality quirk. I would try to make small games out of reading to get her to open up, I guess. Keep it light, playful, and without any possible downsides. When she wants to quit, quit.

Another thing to try is self-teaching tools. I have a low opinion of a lot of LeapFrog toys, but at one point my son used Fridge Phonics. Now, I actually hate some features of those products; for example, in ours they only have two slots for sounds made by a particular letter. But for double-checking things on his own, they were helpful. The only problem is that no self-teaching toy I'm aware of may be good for your daughter's current level. That's too bad, as a correct one would be easy to develop in my opinion.

Incidentally, I think that intellectual courage is one of the most important things to teach and encourage-- right up there with honesty and kindness, or almost. But that is a big topic and I'm not so sure that I can give specific advice about your situation. I just know what has worked with my son.

As a fellow NH mom I feel your pain. We used a private tester in Southern Maine when my son was 4 years 9 months old. I can give you her info if you still need someone.

We saw quite a few of the same characteristics that you posted in our son at that age that prompted us to get him tested. I feel that even though he was young we got a lot of great information about our son from testing. He also qualified for DYS (which was just a bonus).

Have you checked out the Manchester Alliance for the Gifted Yahoo group? We have a pretty good support system with monthly meetings at Barnes and Nobles in Manchester. I am also one of the founding board members of the Scholars' Academy- the first school for gifted children in NH.

My son currently attends public school and we have worked with the principal to make accommodations to meet his needs. It's not perfect but I have found that each school in NH must follow age laws until the child is 6 and after that the placement is at the discretion of the school. We have been trying to focus more on student teacher fit than actual grade placement because right now, to me, that's the most important factor.

Very good point!

Teacher-student fit can make a giant difference.

Other option is to keep child homeschooled until age 6, and try public school then.

((Humor Alert)) - Makes me want to start forging birth certificates.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Exactly! The truth is that many kids do not really need the fit to be custom-taylored, just in the ballpark - otherwise skips wouldn't work at all, and they seem to work well for many little gifties.

Sometimes schools act like 'we never do that' until they meet your child or see the IQ results, and then 'magic amnesia' they do. Perhaps your child could be a kindy on paper, but spend all his time except lunch and gym in various classrooms with subject accelerations to meet his 'readiness level' until he turns 6. A little creativity can go a long way once all the interested parties get on the same page.

Thanks so much for your detailed response. I actually admire parents who take the time to help their children learn to do things, esp. reading if the child enjoys it and there isn't a pressured situation, and am not touchy about hothousing at all. I'm oddly envious in a way because I love teaching (I was a teacher) but my DD4 likes to be in charge and we don't do structured learning yet.

I bought the Leapfrog fridge letters when she was a year and a half, slapped them on the fridge, and she taughter herself all the letter sounds a couple days later and I never touched them. To help her learn to read, I read tons of rhyming books when she was a baby to help with phonemic awareness, and traced my finger on words, and then there was a period when she was two years, maybe two and a half where she would ask me to write words, and so I did, then she started spelling out words so I one day I saw a pack of sight word flashcards for a dollar at Target and she knew every singe word in there and I was utterly shocked, really, shocked and that was the one and only time I tried flashcards. This was before her third birthday. I had no idea she knew all those words so for the most part I feel as though I have been trying to provide the right groundwork for reading--books, rhymes, songs, storytimes--but wasn't involved in the nuts and bolts of how she came to do it so now when I want to help her to go to another level, we haven't established that pattern and she just stubborn about wanting to learn things without "interference."

At this point, she can sound out and read words like constellation/ celebration / Antarctica / impressive / etc. so she really just need to read more to become more confident and fluent. I am just dying to know what goes on in that little head and feel left out of the process. She does read to me sometimes: reads my emails to me over my shoulder, reads things online, reads here and there in books to me, but I guess I am just greedy to hear more and I may have to wait and know she isn't showing me what is in there and I am just curious.

Yesterday we did play some games using stuffed animals and "they" will read and do learning type things. I think she has a perfectionistic streak that can get in her way with this, but in other settings, she is very confident. She doesn't want to do what others want her to do so she may just not do something if someone asked, even if they ask in a nice, playful way. It is strange because I have never pushed her, yet she just wants to do what she wants to do when she wants to do it and so I don't push because I want her to love learning and not feel she has to perform.

Grinity, thanks again for the great input. crisc, thanks for tips, and I will definitely at least look up that Yahoo group, and I am sure we'll meet someday.

Twinkle Toes (I smile every time I type that), your daughter sounds courageous enough, if she's tackling things on her own. She's probably just a bit perfectionist as you say, which wouldn't be out of place for an intelligent child. I was worried that she was suffering from what my own mother did to me when I was a kid. She proudly told everyone I was brilliant, and it got to the point that I was afraid to try when I felt that there would be serious consequences of failure-- that is, if I failed at something large, the perception might be that I wasn't brilliant. Together with some other bad lessons (e.g. laziness, through being rewarded for doing things well last-minute) I had a lot to unlearn as I got older.

I am starting the think that some Gifties are born perfectionistic, some are created perfectionist through a particular style of parenting, or by imitating their perfectionistic parents and some are created perfectionist through lack of significant learning time in the company of true peers. I'd hate to assume that because many gifties are perfectionistic, that it is an unavoidable outcome or all or most of them.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I have been very conscious in my reactions to wrong answers and imperfection and admit when I make mistakes and don't know things with a lighthearted chuckle and accept when she can remind me of something or finish my sentences and readily admit when I don't know something and we need to look it up online so she sees me accepting imperfection in myself.

I also try not to fixate on her being right or my being right. In fact when we disagree and she is completely wrong on something (she claims it is night not day at 8 am) I simply say, "You think it is night. I think it is day. We both think different things" and drop it because she will not be convinced of things if someone tries, so I just let her figure out what she can or we find another source for correct answers if she is interested since she hates backing down from a position she has taken even if she realizes she is wrong. If she is open, we could look something up in a book or on the computer.

I'm going to keep working on it being OK to not know, to be wrong, to make mistakes. When I was younger,I was very, very hard on myself. I remember literally crying when I got a 98% on a test (not IQ test, test in a class) as if that were a huge failure. I also cried when I received an A- on a paper. I have mellowed with age and experience and hope she can avoid that sort of inner pressure. It did not come from my parents since they had no interest in my school performance and didn't reward me for high grades. Really, my education and learning was all in my own hands.

How Lovely! Well Done!
I took that road as well, as my DS13 hated to back down when he was younger, and sure enough, as DS was turning eleven, he was able to say: "That thing I said isn't true."

I was so surprised the first time, that I almost drove off the road. So it takes time, but they do learn and grow. Knowing what I know now, I would have started saying: "I can tell by the look on your face, that you are considering that it is possible to see things two ways," a every opportunity around age 7.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

TwinkleToes, my dd, also 4, sounds very similar to yours re reading. She is just not interested if there is anything 'formal' about how we approach learning. She started sounding out words at 2.5 and would read words that completely surprised me from time to time ('squirter' without any context to indicate what it might say at just 3 for example). But she wouldn't even dream of picking up book and reading it out loud. A couple of months ago she started reading to herself at bed time and she will now read almost everything except a book during the day. I suspect - as she has done with many things before - my dd is practicing in the privacy of her room at night and once she has reading down, she will be happy to do it publicly.

I do believe some kids are born perfectionists. DD refused to crawl or bum shuffle and started walking, holding hands with help at 7 months. Within a month or so she could have walked as well as any baby just starting to walk, but instead she WOULD NOT let go of our hand until she was 13 months old and was completely solid on her fee. She would just sit there at child care until they moved her rather than try and walk without help. Once she let go she could run, walk, jump etc without ever taking a tumble. She's followed a similar path with other things like talking and writing as well.

We've had to follow a similar process to you to show that it is ok to be wrong, make a mistake etc. She is getting there - though her favorite saying at the moment is 'I knew that' whenever it has become evident she was mistaken... hmm...

Locounu, I think a decision to test is a personal thing. We got dd tested recently because I felt pretty sure dd was gifted, but I had some doubts because of things like her hot and cold approach her reading and so on, which made we wonder whether she was gifted or just bright. If she was gifted, I knew I wouldn't have the confidence to advocate for her without being sure - there'd always be a niggle in my mind that perhaps I was just a proud mum. I'm in Australia where there aren't the same requirements to cater for gifted children as there seems to be in some US states, so this quote might not apply to you, but another parent of gifted children I know said "you shouldn't need a test result to advocate at a good school, at a bad school a test result wont make any difference". I have certainly found this to be the case in our search for a school.

Your son does sound very bright to me and similar in abilities (if not learning style) to my dd who is (to use a phrase from here that I love), HG+. I'd have to say that personally I don't think you can 'hot house' to the level that your son seems to be at. I agree with the others that it sounds like you're fostering a desire to learn. If you have a look at Ruf's levels of giftedness (if you haven't already), you might find some useful information: http://www.educationaloptions.com/resources/resources_how_smart.php

Kvmum, I have funny feeling that training is responsible for a good deal of what we later observe as giftedness, but that not all of it is conscious. I think gifted parents probably can pass on a lot of traits, like perfectionism. But in addition I think children respond to feedback at a very young age. So even a look at a baby in a certain way, even if the child just understands "I'm trying to communicate with you right now-- pay attention", is an educational and growth-stimulating event. I think that's one reason parents that sing and speak to their children often find that their children have better verbal skills later on. Of course, children tend to do better when they feel loved as well. But a key part of those early learning moments is the child being encouraged to grasp at what they don't yet understand, as hard as they can.

But I'm not really disagreeing with your statement about hothousing, which seems to be pretty nebulously defined anyway. I would go along with a definition "pushing your child further than she wants to go", which I think is destined to fail in the long run, at least in terms of producing people that reach peak achievement.

The thing is, I think you can teach things like courage, honesty, drive, etc. perfectly well, even if there is a biological basis for some or all such traits. I don't find anything wrong with teaching, and in my opinion the end result-- a highly effective person-- is all that matters, not really brilliance. I love to tell my child stories of people overcoming obstacles to achieve great things. It's that heart of the lion that I think is most important. What does it matter if it's innate or taught, as long as it's genuine? The truth generally lies in the middle, I suspect; training accentuates traits that we all have in some measure.

I'm not getting across much of what I'm feeling right now, and think I've probably blathered enough here. But my strong feeling is that one could train anyone with adequate biological hardware (myelination or what have you) to perform at a genius level.

In terms of biologically driven ability, I suppose that learning or processing speed might be driven in large part by the hardware. If one person forms more connections during the same educational process, they will at least recognize connections between things more often, a key problem-solving skill. But even forming those connections (at least the high-quality ones) is also driven by experience; one can be taught to sift out interesting details in quite subtle ways.

So I really think that an ordinarily biologically gifted child (without denying the existence of biological gifts in general) could be taught to do high-level math at a young age, for example. There must be a best way to teach math concepts, whether or not it needs to be tailored to the individual. And if they have long practice in doing high-level math by young adulthood, in the flowering of their full biological development-- and if they have consistently been exposed to the full fruits of human intellectual development in the proper way-- they will be creative, because humans are creative, unless their growth is stunted somehow by a physical insult or bad training. So at that point you will have someone poised with the foundational knowledge they need to make a discovery, the drive to do it (which is easily teachable in my view), and the problem-solving skills to do it. And a number of such people will do it, although nothing's guaranteed, just as not all DYS kids will go on to great achievements.

I would bet that if there were proper research done for a million years on teaching, and you were to drop an ordinary infant of today far into that future, the people there could turn the baby into what we call a "genius" today. If I knew the perfect teaching methods that will surely be discovered, I wouldn't give a hoot for labels from other parents; I'd teach my son all day long and into the night. But I wouldn't be hothousing, because he, through natural inclination or learned inspiration, would be eating it up.

I guess that a biologically more gifted child with super-training would be even further ahead, compared to children of today. But I, layperson, still have a hunch that training is more important than biology.

Now I've blathered enough.

I am intrigued by this thread because my perspective is so different. But rather than ranting about my own opinion, I'll just ask:

What does "learned inspiration" mean to you, and how would you teach a child to be driven to make new discoveries? Where is the child's own self-determination in this schema? Does the child have no input into his or her character, abilities, motivation, and interests?

I don't think it would be ranting to give your full opinion, but it might be just repetition of what you've said before and a waste of your time. I would read it with interest, though.

Children are of course self-directed if they are raised properly, but that doesn't mean that they are not influenced heavily by their environment, or that they shouldn't additionally be somewhat directed in learning. To say that a child is self-directed or self-determining means to me that they have resulted in being self-sufficient, not that they have taught themselves from scratch.

"Learned inspiration" means to me, in part, inspiration that's passed along from a parent to a child. My four-year-old loves the Pixies, for instance, partly because he originally noticed me listening to them. In the moment of seeing me enjoying them, he learned that I considered there to be much of value in the music; and since he not only wants to be like me at this age but considers my opinions to be valuable, he decided to focus on the music to the point that he liked it too, even though I think the dissonance in a lot of the songs initially puts off a lot of people. Similarly he learned to like jazz, even though in his early times we gave him mostly Western twelve-toned classical music to listen to.

Inspiration can begin with a purely internal realization that something is beautiful, powerful, etc.-- like noticing a beautiful flower and spontaneously deciding to draw it, then later developing, in a purely self-directed way, recurring motifs or what have you that develop into a body of great work. But there's no reason that someone can't communicate the notion that flowers are beautiful in the first place, then communicate other bits of information that encourage the child to really look hard at flowers in different ways, with a resulting inspiration based on the beauty of the flower as well as the communicated ideas. At that point, it is all muddled together and the original source doesn't matter much; the child is inspired by the beauty of flowers. Additionally, one's initial notice of a flower's beauty is informed by experience; one, subconsciously or not, compares the form of the flower to things previously thought beautiful.

In fact, nearly all inspiration is the result of communication. A child raised by wolves might look up at the sun and smile at the warmth of it, I guess, or smile at a pretty flower. But you don't see cave-man drawings of flowers so much; you do see paintings of bison. Putting aside for the moment the role of religion in such paintings, the channeling of focus and inspiration was surely the result not only of individual value judgments but feedback from other cavepeople, which had a cultural effect over time.

There's no reason higher-level thinking skills are less teachable than lower-level ones. There is also no reason to suppose that things like drive and intellectual courage are not teachable, as far as I know. I think that these things are taught by caretakers of intelligent children, but in almost unnoticeable ways much of the time. Each smile at something a child does is a validation. Shaping is a quite powerful training technique. In the absence of things tending to stunt one's creativity and mental growth in other areas, simply providing gentle encouragement at small discoveries, which all children make, will teach them quickly to value making discoveries.

I do know that there are plenty of dull children out there who come from average biological backgrounds. I think if I were given a chance to teach them from birth-- and this includes loving them, holding them, etc.-- they would turn out differently. I just see too much evidence of it in the way my kids respond to me, and others' kids. And I'm a complete layperson, with just a particular set of knacks in a few areas.

I live in GA, and we have the same issue here. DS6 was actually tested during his second week of K and grade skipped after the testing was done (by the school - free to me). For us, we were lucky to have a great K teacher that recognized DS was FAR beyond the normal K'er. Turns out that the whole grade acceleration policy in our state/county is hidden deep within the policy book. It's smaller than the fine print. But it is there. So definitely get a copy of your district's policies.

Without private testing, I got no where prior to DS entering K, so I made sure to write down ever stepping stone he made, as well as everyone I talked to, etc... for us, being DS is a boy, him not being put into K early may have been a lifesaver for his maturity. Granted, he is more mature (most days) than the average 6yr old, but he had his "shining" moments.

Good luck to you!

Interesting. Again, my perspective is different. I'll try to articulate why, though I'll admit that you've got me thinking.

I don't think that there is any way to really tell why we like things or don't. It's great that your kid loves the Pixies and jazz music. Mine loves the Dead Kennedys (which I also enjoy), R&B (which I generally dislike), and anything with a trumpet in it (which I am truly indifferent to). It never would occur to me that she likes some things because of her true nature and some because of her environment. All of it is surely some of both. And none of it is under my control.

I come from the perspective that a child is a person, from infancy on. I don't believe that a child is a lump of clay that I can shape (or, worse, a block of marble that I can chip away at). In short, I think that we are fooling ourselves if we believe that we can change a child's character. In most circumstances, a child (just like any other person) takes from her environment only what she chooses to take from it.

Hi Lucounu,

I have to admit I am not sure what your question is now, as you seemed to have decided on your answers to the questions you posed in your initial post already (though realise that I often find an answer to a question as soon as I have asked it!) I do agree to an extent that it is possible to coach kids and that of course kids do benefit from active parental participation in their education (though I don't believe in hot housing as I view it - forcing a child to do something they do not wish to do). But I think there is a limit to what you can achieve based on either the child's intellectual capacity and/or desire to learn at that point in time. Can that desire be taught? I suspect it can to a certain extent, but not everyone is academically motivated and so that needs to be considered in the context of what inspires a child. Do I think that your son is working to a different level than he would have if you hadn't taught him those things in such a structured way? Well I obviously don't know you or your son well enough to say definitively, but I would guess that he is. But if he has a real love of learning then that would have become evident anyway. Certainly my daughter, as I mentioned, is not particularly interested in structured learning, but loves to think about maths problems when we cook or play in the park or play 'schools' and loves to read what she can outside books (though loves to be read to for hours a day, and will read to herself at night). I probably could sit down and force her to learn from flash cards, or a structured maths lesson but only in the same way I could force her to eat broccoli - through coercion (please don't think I am suggesting that you are forcing your son - it's just that my daughter isn't excited by that kind of instruction at this point). But look at the world around us and find words or number problems - she loves it. So it's a different approach to perhaps the same thing.

I do agree that a child will be formed in part by how and what kind of attention they receive and I do believe that kids who come from loving homes are generally going to be more open to learning and new experiences that will continue their growth. But I don't think that that accounts for the whole picture. I have gifted parents (whom I love, I don't mean this as a 'woe is me' statement) who were not at all interested in my education and for various reasons were not able to provide the environment we're talking about here. Did that impact on my motivation to learn and achieve? Definitely, but I still have a base level of intelligence that is above average and I, despite my early experiences, have achieved more than many. I guess it could be argued that the adversity I experienced acted as a different kind of motivator - but I guess my point is that I don't believe that all giftedness is created through attention and learning. I feel uncomfortable with the idea that a parent would have so much influence and I suspect there are many millions of wonderful parents out there who have 'normal' kids who might feel a bit put out that since they hadn't 'created' gifted kids, perhaps they hadn't done everything they could to help their kids reach their potential.

Status update: no testing is necessary for now. My son went through the screening for kindergarten, which is not designed to screen for giftedness. We got a letter in the mail accepting my son to kindergarten. T

hen my wife spoke with the school district and set up a meeting with our to-be vice principal, whose administrative assistant said that the way they handle grade skips in this part of NH is that the teachers assess the kid over the space of two weeks for social readiness, etc. and some tests are done one at a time during that period. If he does well in those tests, he will be skipped ahead at the end of the two weeks. I'm not sure what the chances are that he'll be skipped more than one grade, but I think I only want him skipped one grade right now anyway at a maximum.

I think this sounds like a pretty good system. It gives them a chance to see if he's emotionally/socially ready or would be better off in kindergarten. The testing is spread out, instead of being concentrated into a more stressful half a day or whatever. And it's free. I'm not sure who does the actual tests, but we'll find that out at the meeting.

Hi

I am new here. My son is 4.5 years old. We live in seacoast area, NH. My son is advanced in reading and math. He is reading at level gr. 1-2 books. Doing simple addition and substraction. He has expressive language delay that make him left behind in social and emotional skills.

Any information about testing in NH area ? How much the cost ?

Hi! We are in the Nashua area, and our son has just turned 5, so are in a similar boat. We contacted a couple of psychologists, including Aimee Yermish in Massachusetts. She gave us some good advice, and quoted us a rough figure for testing and some follow-up.

I would contact psychologists in the area, and just keep asking what they offer in terms of tests and rates. You can try contacting the local school system psychologist, if there is one-- sometimes, apparently, they do testing on the side. Another thing I read here in the last couple of days is that you can sometimes get a local college or university to do testing for cheap or free, if they have a psychology program (testing would be done by a student).

Why do you want the testing, for use with the public school system or for another purpose? If you are going to use it for a school, especially a NH public school, I would first start by reading the local school district's rules and following up with the local administration to see what they may accept.

Lucounu: thanks for your info and advise.

we will find further information about school distric rules.