Hi,
Just thought I would bring up the issue of academic red shirting (when a parent holds their child back a year, regardless of birthdate, before kindergarten soley to gain an academic advantage over peers).
This has become quite an issue in our school as many kids in the gifted program are a year older than their classmates. Since our school relies soley on achievment testing at the end of 2nd grade to determine eligibilty for the gifted program, many bright, more mature children who are not really gifted get into the program. The immature gifted kid often gets passed over.
Our PTO moms brag about how holding their children back gave them an advantage & some have held all of their kids back for the same reason.
I cannot imagine a Mom of a truly gifted child ever wanting to hold their kid back "so he gets more practice with the basics". Maybe if the gifted child has other special needs I could understand. However this has not been the case here. It's more the "thing to do".
Anyone else have experience with this?

Yes, it's not uncommon in our school district. Perhaps this is the set of kids that 'level out at 3rd/4th'? GS9 didn't get identified at the end of 2nd grade, and by the time his 3rd grade teacher saw enough of him it was too late to get him tested for the 1st half of the 3rd grade gifted program. He was tested for the math in the 2nd half, and accepted. They dragged their feet on testing him for reading, so by the time they did that it was the second week of 4th grade.

Our school uses the state guidelines for achievement tests, so it doesn't really negatively affect the younger gifted kids. They're going to float to the top 5% on a nationally normed test.

Hi NJMOM,

Our upper middle class district is the same way - I would say it is definitely UNCOMMON for any child born in the month of March and after to be in kindergarten the year they turn 5. My DD4 will turn 5 this month and start kindergarten at the "normal" time next year. We had her tested this past winter, and her FSIQ is high enough that we considered a grade skip to 1st - but after learning that she would be TWO years younger than half the class, we've decided against it for now. Unfortunately, enrollment in the district gifted program is often considered a status symbol - most parents don't really consider what is best for their child's actual academic needs. It's also interesting to note that this trend seems to be more common among wealthier families - middle class and below tend to put their children in K during the normal year because they no longer have to pay child care costs. In a situation like yours in which only achievment tests are considered, I would expect that the GT program is overloaded with high socioeconomic status kids. It's this kind of thing that makes gifted education look "elitist", rather than a special need. Frustrating.

Here in NYC most kids enter private K at almost 6. They would consider a child who turns 5 during the summer, or even the spring in many cases, "too young" to start Kindergarten.

So my gifted son, who really needed the small classes only available in private schools here, would have had to wait a year-- which is a terrible idea for a truly gifted kid.

There is no way to redshirt in NYC public schools, because the birthday cutoffs are strictly enforced and actually really late (Dec. 31) (They are this late so that parents who struggle to pay for day care will have free day care as early as possible)-- BUT gifted programs are actively sought here by almost everyone as an alternative to "bad" local schools, and people routinely and aggressively "prep" their children for the tests. So many kids who are bright but not really gifted in the sense we discuss here are in the gifted programs.

Here is an interesting article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080818184420.htm

There are some families who choose to do this locally. I also know a few families with younger girls they tested to get into kindergarten early.

With the local push to all day, very academic kindergarten, I can't say that I blame some parents. Particularly those with young active boys. There were a couple bright boy's in kindergarten with late August birthdays that were shamed all year into "good" behavior by trips to the principle's office and time outs, etc. I'm not sure that's a good way to set up for a happy and successful school career. There was also one boy in my son's K&1st grade class that was older - July birthday. But was still struggling with reading even though both his parents teach at the college level and are highly engaged parents. So in his case, it was totally the right decision. It really depends on the kid and the kindergarten's and first grade's classrooms they are going to. On the other hand there was a boy in DS's kindergarten class with an April birthday held back reading a couple years beyond grade level who was acting out at every turn. He definitely should not have been held back

My October birthday HG+ son still had an adjustment to all day kindergarten. It wasn't horrible for him, but I wouldn't say he just jumped right in and loved it. Academically, it would have been fine a year earlier. Behaviorally and socially - not really. Half day would have been ok. It's hard to know. It clearly wasn't a good fit in many ways.

Our district uses the NNAT. Which is not ideal by any means, but it's normed by the month the child is born. So getting IDed as gifted shouldn't necessarily be affected by your birthday anyway. Although, it is affected by your ability to focus on a group test in a classroom clearly. They are still over IDing in some cases, and missing kids in other cases just using the NNAT though.

St Pauli girl - loved the article.
Red shirting hasn't exactly effected us yet, except my hg DS 7 is asynchronous in a few areas (mostly social/emotional) and his teachers compare him to a bright boy a year older.
My friend was told by her daughter's K teacher that her daughter was behind & said she was very young (she was 5 with an August birthday). She was being compared to classmates, >80% of whom were at least 12 months older. When I mentioned this to a CST director/school psychologist she said that year doesn't matter at this age. I respectfully disagreed with her.
When my friend's daughter started reading in 1st grade it really struck me that if her Mom had held her back the teacher surely would have pegged her as gifted. She' a wonderfully normal and typically developing kid - bright but not gifted.

Other people's academic redshirting was what started our big problem with the K teacher this year! My DS started K at 5 with an April birthday and was a normal (though HG), wiggly 5 year old boy. His teacher within 2 days wanted to know if we were sure he was ready for K and wanted him evaluated for fine-motor disabilities. I assured her that he is just 5 and that he'll come along. She insisted that he go see an OT. Sure enough- he's "normal" for fine motor. It just happens that he is the ONLY boy in her entire class (and for the last 5 years she said) who started K not either already or almost 6.

She continues to argue that his coloring is below level, wants me to hold him back for coloring and hand weakness because he has no "stamina". She's even taken DS's coloring pages and finished them for him so he could "have pretty work too." I've reminded her politely, and then not so, that putting numbers in order from 1-15 all year long is not a stamina problem, it's a lack of interest problem. Give the kid some 3 digit math problems and he has laser focus and stamina!

I don't mind people redshirting because they have a reason (social/academic or whatever) but redshirting so your kid can be the biggest? That bugs me. We have a dad in DS's class that actually has said "Well I got beat up in junior high and I didn't want that to happen to him." He has built a bully on purpose... that's sad.

From St. Pauli's article:


So doesn't that suggest that early entry should not only be considered but encouraged for gifted 4yos?

My ds6 has a May birthday and went to school "on time", so he's one of the younger first graders. I'm soo glad he wasn't a fall birthday because we'd have had a time deciding whether to go for early entrance or to wait until he "should have" started. He did have some immaturity issues, but I don't know that those were due as much to age as to inappropriate curriculum.

OHGrandma, I totally agree with you here:


I think that's very true and I think using achievement testing probably catches almost all of the young gifted students -- as well as a few high-achieving older students. If the assessment process for your school, FNJMom, used teacher inventories, then I think there'd be a bigger concern. Since it's straight-out achievement testing, there's less bias against younger, wigglier kids. (In my humble and most unprofessional opinion, LOL! I have no way of knowing if that's true, it just seems logical to me.)

Good lourd, CAMom, that's amazing! This woman is pulling out all the stops, isn't she? "Pretty work" my foot. Taking a kid's coloring pages and doing them herself is out of line. Did you go to the principal with that?

He's probably wondering why he should bother with coloring pages if the teacher will just do it for him...

My goodness I might laugh if someone said that to me about my kids. Coloring scmoloring. I remember being chastised for my coloring outside the lines in K (one of my few K memories) and it had no impact on my life whatsoever (yeah, I have bad handwriting but so what; I think that ds6's handwrighting is now better than mine after finishing OT, LOL - he writes in cursive thanks to his montessori K teacher).

The idea of redshirting really gets under my skin, though it doesn't seem to be a big deal where we live so it hasn't had a direct impact on us at this point. And sometimes I get concerned for the few cases in which it might sound reasonable that those particular ones were not checked for LDs. But mainly I feel that it overemphasizes "social" skills (which means so many different things to different people) since that seems to be the primary reason kids get redshirted, leaving academics playing second fiddle. I read random posts on various websites about people worried about their child's skills as compared to a kindergartener when they may have six months or a year before K would even start, which doesn't seem very fair to the child (talk about the "gift of time").

Maybe the biggest reason it gets under my skin is that my ds6 (just turned 6) could possibly have been the poster child for redshirting, looking prospectively from preschool. He had serious speech and fine motor delays - could not write or hold a pencil correctly. He was ahead in math in preschool but reading was a distant dream - he didn't even know the sounds of all the letters. He had no friends and was very, very introverted. He has trouble with transitions. He is very small (38 lbs). But he got the help he needed in K and is now achieving above grade level, including in reading/language, despite the fact that he still has speech issues significant enough to continue therapy for another year. What if I didn't know any better? What if his teacher hadn't shared my faith in him? What if I listened to those chattering voices on the internet and I wanted to be trendy? omg, the idea of him being in preschool and starting K this fall, instead of first grade as he will be, would be heartbreaking - he's quite the late bloomer but all morning he was working on a supposed first-grade language arts workbook just for fun (until he noticed that the cover said something about grade 1, at which point he started erasing, saying he would have to wait till August lol). I hate to think what it would have done to his love of learning, which seems to be accelerating a little more every day. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but holding him back from K would have made no sense looking at where he is now.

Wow! That is really crazy. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher was concerned because I couldn't skip well. This is still a running joke in my family. And I do have a summer birthday and was a younger child. I also survived elementary school by chronic underachievement and putting all my energy into my OE's.

MIA
My fault I was not clear - our school relies soley on a single teacher survey k-2. Basically a "can he sit still in circle time" inventory. They use the highly unreliable Otis-Lenon to test for the gifted program that starts in third grade. Our gifted program has become a status thing. It's sickening but funny to listen to these moms go on and on about how smart little Joey is and how great the one day per week pull out program is. I just keep my mouth shut. For my son a one day a week gifted program is not going to cut it - just one of the many reasons he won't be going to that ps anymore. We aren't even going to wait around for 2nd grade testing. No point, really.

I've read of a few cases at various places where academic redshirting was an issue. The parent would complain that the child was bored, the teacher would look at the child's file and notice the child should be in 1st grade rather than K. A friend held her DD back b/c w/ an August bday, she'd be the youngest by several months due to wide-scale red-shirting. Parents are basically balancing the more academic nature of K compared to a few years ago, by delaying entry into K.

Ahhh. That's different, maybe I read it wrong! Well then, yes, that's bang out of order. I don't know anything about the Otis-Lenon -- can anyone share?

My ds would have easily qualified for GT with achievement testing even as a younger student against red-shirted kids, but a teacher survey? He was defiant and disengaged -- he certainly wouldn't have made the cut if his teacher were judging on "sitting in circle time," though he desperately needed something more.

FWIW, we didn't hang our ds's public school until second-grade GT testing either -- the school's attitude was more than enough to drive us away. And a one-day-weekly pull-out wouldn't have done anything for my ds, either. It's frustrating to hear about "great gifted programs" that consist of once-weekly "enrichment."

My son's Kindergarten experience was similar. He was 5 with a May birthday and one of the youngest in the class. Academic red shirting is very popular here and most of the boys in my son's class were a year older than my son. None of the other kids were reading or doing math at the beginning of the Kindergarten year. It didn't matter that my son was reading at a 5th grade level and able to do some multiplication and division and had made up his own way of doing subtraction with negative numbers. All the teacher cared about was that he couldn't color in the lines. He wanted to learn and they wanted him to color. He told me that school was not very educational.

I was told that I needed to homeschool my son. I can't put my son back in public school because they still list crayons on their 6th grade supplies list at the beginning of the school year and my sons friends tell me that they still make kids color in 6th grade and it better be in the lines.

Trying to research private school acceleration and would the grade placement be honored if we move to the public school or would we be stuck with the age requirement... I stumbled across this article which fits into this conversation.

http://www.pacificoaks.edu/PDFFiles/ChildrenSchoolPA/When%20should%20a%20kid%20start%20k.pdf

This was my problem.
What do you do with a child that is gifted and ahead academically, BUT who still desperately needs that creative side that Kindergarten USED to have. Now, it is just a focus on academics.

My daughter has a September birthday,and technically misses the cut-off, has an articulation delay, and is very creative... the sort asking questions about death/God at a young age, but no interest in letters until 4.

I put her in a play-based pre-k program instead, and she started K when she was almost six. She is in a gifted program this year.

There has never been a question in my mind as to whether she is gifted or not... I didn't delay her so she could 'seem' to be gifted. We waited because being she needed a bit more maturity to sit through any classroom with more of an academic focus.

On the flip, my other daughter, I wish she could have gone to K this year.

Yes, sometimes parents that are waiting are trying to give their child some sort of age, but many parents are balancing that academic nature of K. For some, it is to give them that academic age, while for some like me, it is because their is no passion/interest in what "schools choose to call academics".

Tammy

What bothers me most about redshirting is that parents have the ability to do it here, no questions asked. Yet I cannot test my kid for early entrance (without jumping major hoops, calling the local TV people, getting lawyers involved, etc <--note a lil' sarcasm). I do not think it's fair that a parent can hold their child back without being evaluated by the school or another professional. I hear the "don't want my kid to be the youngest in the class" excuse. To me that is no excuse at all. I think if they allow redshirting, they should at least offer tests for early entrance as well.

This thread got me thinking about several people I know that talk about how very advanced, etc. their child(ren) are because they did X,Y, or Z "early". Then they go on and talk about how they taught their child(ren) X, Y, Z skill(s). I'm talking about the "I wanted my child to learn to read, so I started formal lessons at age 2 and by the time they were 3.5 years old s/he was reading" and other discussions where the parents drilled and/or spent copious amounts teaching the child in a sit-down-and drill type format.

I'm probably going to come off as a jerk here, and I truly don't mean to - I'm just a bit frustrated - but the whole thing just irritates me. I do, generally, believe that a child will acquire *and* internalize a skill when s/he is ready - mentally, physically, emotionally - and not before then. However, when the child is drilled for a year or more on a subject or skill and the parent states the child is "advanced" or "gifted", I'm reminded of "red-shirting". It seems almost a case of "six of one" to me. In one instance the child is held back so that they are older, bigger, etc. than the other kids (I realize these aren't *always* the reasons for "red-shirting" but they *seem* to be the most prevalent.); the child comes across as seeming smarter, more mature, more athletic than many of the other children that started school *on time. Whereas when a child is "taught" (a) skill(s)early then s/he may also appear smarter, etc. than the other kids.

Admittedly, my soapbox is built of a bit of jealousy. A parent can brag that Joey is fastest kid in 1st grade (because his parents held him back a year) and that's okay. A parent can say, "I started teaching Jane to read at age three and now at age five she can read independently". Mostly, I am *truly, most emphatically* happy for the parents and their joy for their child(ren). Sometimes though, (and this is where the "jerky" part of this post comes out even more than it already has) I just really wish I could say, "Well Boo was reading before age two and adding and subtracting up to quantities of twenty by 18 months of age...and I didn't have to drill her or actively teach her anything. Unless you count Leapfrog videos, singing lots of children's songs and Starfall." But I don't say it. I *can't* say it - not the way I described above or even in a more toned down fashion. If I did *I'd be labeled as a braggart, or liar, or fill-in-the-blank.

I'm sure I sound snarky; I feel a bit snarky! It's just so darn frustrating at times to spend so much time supporting others, listening to them gush about their kids when even the most innocuous comment from me re: my kids can get me shunned or end a conversation in a hurry. So I have to pad what I say, limit interactions to fluff, etc.

I'm stopping now, before I really start ranting. (Too late, I know!)


ETA: Disclaimer -I in no way think it's a *bad* thing or somehow discounts a child's giftedness, in any way, if the child's parent teach the child something, because they followed the child's lead based on the child's interests and readiness, etc. My post was limited to those instances when a parent *drills* a child on a skill or subject regardless of the child's interest or abilities and other similar situations. (Basically, "hot housing".)

This post was really helpful. I thought K was for 5 year olds. I kept wondering why the K kids were so big. I was even told well they grow a lot between pre k and K. Yeah like two years worth of growing. So early entrancing is like a 2 year gap? yikes(maybe).

Also Mizzoumommy, DD then 2 spent a lot of time on starfall when I was pregnant and sick with DS. I felt a little better knowing that she was doing something other than watching me loose my lunch. As an extra bonus she learned how to read. Yay starfall.

I like hearing about new things other kids are doing regardless of where they fall on the spectrum. I sometimes have to be careful because I haven't had a good sense of what typical development is in the past and I think things I may have said innocently came across wrong when I first had kids. hopefully I am better about this now.

We like Starfall here, too. It's helped both DS and DD learned to read.

I agree with your entire last paragraph. I hope I didn't come off as not liking to hear about the new things other kids do. I only meant my post in the "I wish I could share more and not have it '[come] across wrong'" sense.

Just recently, I was discussing reading with another homeschool mom whose child is having "trouble" reading. (I put trouble in quotes because the child is 5.5 years old and IMO she has plenty of time to become a fast and fluent reader.) Yet the mother was concerned; so together we brainstormed some ideas to help the mom feel more at ease and confident in her ability to help her daughter read (and homeschool, in general), and ideas for ways to approach (teach) the subject with her DD without her DD automatically balking and shutting down.

Then she asked me, "How did you come up with all of these ideas? Is this how you taught Boo to read? How old is she, again?" So I had to do the "side-step, wriggle" move, (which, by the way, I still don't have completely down). I answered, "Oh, I'm sure I read about most of them somewhere" and without ever answering the questions about my DD, I quickly re-routed the conversation back to the other mom and ways to help her out. I felt that I couldn't give an open (full-disclosure) answer without making the other mom feel (even more)worried about her child or come across as insulting, etc. I left out the part that while I thought most of the ideas sounded good, I never used (most of them) because Boo had pretty much taught herself to read years prior rending most of the ideas obsolete for her (and, now, her brother).

And when she commented, "Doesn't that seem a bit much for a 5.5 year old? Maybe in a couple of years we could add that to our curriculum," and I replied, "Oh, I figured you would just take what you needed and adjust it all to fit your needs." All the while, wondering in my head "Really? It is? I had no idea this was for older kids."

It can be a terribly fine line!

Oh, and to be clear, my last post was geared toward the comparison of "red-shirting" and "hot-housing". I do enjoy hearing about other children's accomplishments and I will always offer a helping hand and act as a sounding board how ever I am able. I dislike hearing a parent go on about how smart their child is because the parent drilled them on reading so the child could read, early. Frankly, I feel badly for the child; I also get irritated, because it's parents like that that give the parents on *this* boards and others like it a bad rap.

This has me laughing, because I often feel like you do, except that Leapfrog & Starfall both seem very teachy. DD3 had taught herself to read some sight words by the time she was 2 (and is now reading at least at a first grade level), but I feel like she didn't really teach herself because I let her play around on Starfall. I feel sort of like one of those people. And now that she is 3 and loves to talk about numbers and math I feel like I am cheating and "teaching" something I shouldn't be if I try to explain a concept. (Never mind the fact that she specifically asks me to teach her.) OF COURSE I don't flashcard or drill or anything even like that...but that line between teaching and letting them teach themselves still seems elusive to me.

My take, FWIW:

If the child asks, you're not hothousing. Not ever. Even if you're teaching. After all, teaching a child who ASKS to learn is never a bad thing. It's really not! I'd hate for teaching to get a bad name when it's child-led! If the child likes Starfall, asks to play it, then I feel very strongly that it's perfectly fine.

OTOH, if a parent is taking the lead because s/he wants to impress friends with everything the child knows, that's hothousing. IMHO, even *that's* only a problem insofar as 1) it isn't about what's good for the child but is about the parent's image, and 2) there's an opportunity cost of all the things a child isn't doing and learning while s/he's being flashcarded to high heaven (or whatever).

And of course, it makes people doubt what HG+ kids can do on their own. I'm with you on that completely!

The fine line with hothousing comes, I think, because sometimes the parents tell themselves they're trying to help the child to get ahead. But in hothousing situations, that usually goes back to wanting to look good to the parent's peers, perhaps just further down the line. Does that 4yo really care about going to Harvard in 14 years or so? If not, that's a parent's goal, not a child-responsive one. To me, that seems misguided.

In short, I think hothousing has little/nothing to do with teaching or not teaching; I think it's about what the parents' primary goal is. Is it to follow the child and help him or her to grow, or to lead the child so as to make Mom and Dad look good in their peer group?

I suspect people reading this forum are in the clear. In my experience, usually people who are hothousing don't think twice about hothousing!

Mizzoumommy... it is no secret that I am anti-hothousing and your posts really sums up a lot of my issues with it. One of my close friends has a daughter 2 months younger than mine and she decided the curriculum for her child never once was it that her DD was interested in the subject. They started with colors than shapes, numbers and then ABCs. It really frustrated me because all I saw was rote memorization from her child. She doesn't take the idea of shapes and use it in her surroundings such as the door is a rectangle but rather can recite the pages in the book. But what really frustrates me is everything is a competition with her. I can't really tell her anything about my DD because next thing you know that was added to her curriculum and the big difference is my DD taught herself most of it and was interested in it... guiding what she wanted to know. She so wants her daughter to be gifted b/c she herself was the smartest in her high school. And I am not saying her DD isn't gifted... only time will tell but drilling your kid doesn't seem right to me. And now that DD is past the basics she can't make that happen for her DD though she tries. The big one is reading. She really tries to force her reading and it is clear that she isn't even close to being ready for it. I made the mistake to share with her DDs first sign of reading which I got will that is the easy thing of memorization like it was no big deal but this was before my child was even 2. Now 9 months later she is still trying to get her DD to read and it isn't working. Yes I have an evil side to me because I can't help but think yes that is the easy part right? But no I don't say a thing to her. I am a big believer that all children develop differently and in their own way and I don't see the need to rush things at all. So now knowing about gifted and looking into what the curriculum is for Kindergarten it has made me hold my child back or at least try to but she learns no matter what I do.

Providing educational materials furnishes ammunition for accusations of hot housing, but the augment has no depth beyond the sound bite. The majority of kids will not figure out elementary level math and reading at age 2-3 just because they are given edutainment products to play with.

My kids loved early elementary level computer games when they were little. My son was approx. 30 months old when we moved to a new house. Our new neighbors came by with their slightly younger son in a stroller for introductions. I was really excited that there was a similarly aged boy nearby and I pointed to an open window and indicated that our two year old was inside, on the computer. I immediately realized how odd that sounded (by their expressions) so I added quickly that we don�t allow him on the internet without supervision.

Interestingly they were among the most accepting of our son�s differences that we ever encountered.

I don't see hothousing as providing educational materials and I don't think mizzoumommy was saying that either. It is the aspect of drilling the kids when they have shown no interest in the curriculum. When a child is interested then giving them that information is not hothousing. My daughter loves sites such as starfall and pbs.org. She is very independent on the computer and has been for months so if she wants to play she knows how to open the site and get into the games. I really don't see that as hothousing. If I forced her to do it then yes that would be a problem. Just like flashcards. If the child loves flashcards then great but if the parents are drilling the kids with them different story.

And to put this thread back on topic of red shirting I forgot to mention my humor in the fact that my DD will be one of the youngest children in her class. Her b-day is August 16th and our state cutoff is September 1st. I can not tell you how many times I have heard from different people that I should hold her back a year b/c of her age. These are people that really don't know my child just calculate her age and quickly jump to how hard it will be for her later in school when all her friends are already driving, etc. I could not imagine holding her back a year given that at this rate she will already be bored in school when she does start.

I have seen a distinction made in the literature between a child who teaches him or herself to read early and a child who is taught to read early. I have also heard that it is possible to teach a "normal" child to "read" at a very basic level through the use of drilling (or through regular video viewing) but that these kids typically do not stay ahead. Whether that is true or not, I have no way of knowing.

I definitely think that it is possible to push children too hard in one direction, and I think kids respond to it in one way or another. MY DD would respond by pushing back, but that is probably because I have taught her that she gets to make her own decisions and that I will love her no matter what. Other kids might respond by working as hard as they can to learn something they're not ready for to please parents they think will otherwise be disappointed. I don't think these kids are being "made gifted," but they are probably traumatized. And it is also somewhat traumatic for me to know that others think I've done that sort of thing to my kid.

Hothousing and red-shirting isn't new. Red-shirting only prolongs the agony of grade school for a gifted child. I see parents blogging on this site who were probably hothoused as kids, and they appear to be hothousing kids that aren't particularly gifted. The gifted ones are autodidactic, and will show up on standardized abstract reasoning tests in the top 5%.

I'll share my story with you. My parents had a grade-school education and we lived in poverty in a shack with no indoor plumbing. I still scored in the 99-100% bracket on grade school Iowa testing. I was self-taught with puzzle books and an adult dictionary and adult encyclopedia set that I'd read cover to cover in second grade. I spent grade school sitting in the principal's office because the teachers didn't know what to do with me, and I was profoundly lonely most of the time. The Iowa tests targeted me into a gifted "enrichment program" along with the son of the school district supervisor and some hothoused kids of prominent local merchants. Honestly, the gifted program didn't make a difference, and I learned about socioeconomic bias in our educational system. I heard "we could do something for her if she were a boy". " she won't fit in our program". "she can't go because she doesn't have the right clothes". "she's not college material [no money]". It didn't matter. As soon as I turned 16, the local community college took me. I aced logic, college physics, math and chemistry, transferred into a university physics program, aced it, and landed a great job that took me out of poverty forever.

The moral of this story is to stop worrying about how well your kid is doing relative to other kids, or whether you're buying the right stuff for them. Get them a computer and internet connection, puzzles, and point them in the right direction. Get them into early college or a program like the Davidson school. I strongly recommend puzzle books that contain the same types of problems that show up on a standardized abstract reasoning test. If they are gifted and they can learn how to solve the puzzles, they'll float to the top.

I found it very interesting that your school uses only achievement testing as a means for giftedness. I think that is very unfair. My school uses acievement testing to place the "high achieving kids" and full scale IQ to place the gifted. Thanks for reminding me to be thankful.

stronglight
can you give me an idea of a puzzle book like that. We don't have any.

Also i really appreciated your story and saw a lot of "me" in it. I went to school smelling like cigarette smoke, wasn't very pretty mostly because my hair was cut close to my head to be "easier" on my mother, did my homework in a hovel of a big mess with fights raging, etc. But somehow i got through it and will never forget when they called my name in fifth grade to participate in a gifted program. I remember seeing my fifth grade teacher peering at the list and then calling my name and was just shocked. I knew just what it wss all about, though i was only a little better than average with achievement at that point. My parents were so determined to get me out of the house that they started me in kindergarden early so i was the youngest by far in my grade.. We were in the middle of moving so they let me start school for one day in the district that had a later cutoff, then moved me to the new district which had to allow it since i had started already..So it must have been an aptitude test since i was so young don't think it could have been achivement test. . And with some bumps in the road i did rise above it all (though my family thinks I'm "uppity").. I dont' remember feeling that the other kids were in there were not deserving, but looking back they were all the rich , right-side-of-the-tracks types. And at least one was almost 2 years older due to red-shirting.

irene

Inspiring post, stronglight. Thank you.

Welcome!! Good post!!

Encyclopedias are to GT kids what Teddy Bears are to others!

Your story parallels mine (and many on this forum) in key respects. School was agony for me as well.

My husband, who is in his late 50's, did well on tests even though he never studied in high school. He didn't have time to study because he was working so he could have enough to eat. He was one of eight kids in the family who had to take care of themselves after their mother died. Hid dad wasn't around much. There was no one to encourage him to do well in school, not even his teachers, because he was from the wrong side of the tracks. Nobody was making sure he wore clean clothes to school or cared if he had clothes that fit or if he had enough to eat or was getting the proper nutrition.

He made it on his own because he had that innate ability to learn quickly, had good people skills, and his survival instincts were good. He made high scores on tests in the military even though he hadn't had the best education, high enough that they put him in the Army Security Agency, which Wikipedia says was comprised primarily of soldiers with the very highest scores on army intelligence tests.

My husband told me a few days ago that he never felt like he needed to have everything planned out like I do so he doesn't have anxiety over the possibility of things going wrong and needing to have a contingency plan in place. He always knew he could "muddle through" whatever he needed to get through. I can see that there were some good things that came from his difficult childhood.

But I still worry about my twice exceptional son. I think it is harder for a twice exceptional child to muddle through, especially when it seems like so many people don't understand that a child can be gifted and also have a disability.

I loved school when I was a child. Not because I learned new stuff, academics were usually boring. I loved the daily chllenge of debating with my teachers and finding ways to prove the wrong answers right.
My teachers either loved or hated me there was no in between.

We were also at the bottom of the financial scale.
~NE one remember having to turn in the pink lunch tickets instead of the green ones everyone else had.
I begged my parents every day to pack my lunch. I had to refuse to eat school lunches for almost week before they finally gave in.
If you did not eat your lunch at our school you had to sit in the lunch room until you decided to eat. I sat in the lunchroom all day, for 4 days in a row and refused to eat one bite. My parents finally got tired of the phone calls! hehe
Be glad you did'nt have to raise me, I was only in 1st grade at the time.

I am glad our family struggled. Hurdles build character. I was a prideful manipulative child and would have become spoiled brat if my parents would have had money. Instead I had to use patience and hard work to get what I wanted.
Not having it all also taught me to appreciate nonmaterial things, which is a rare ability these days.

I had never heard of nor even considered academic red shirting. This is such a new topic to me. I am not aware of anyone having done this nor if this is even possible in our district. All of the children in my son's first grade class were the "right" age for first grade.

Interesting thread. My son's elementary school has a high number of students who have scored very well. It was enough to be considered into the gifted program, however, it was only one componet of a matrix.

For the most part, my son's 2E issues didn't persuade me to have him participate in the GT program until middle school. I thought at the time, he needed to learn to manage his time and study skills well before we attacked something more challenging (little did I suspect ADHD problems)

Anyway, I think my son's elementary school also considers only allowing less than 10% to be serviced with a pull out program because, the students will get advance work within the regular classrom

I find this topic kind of interesting that many people 1) get accused of hothousing and 2) care that people think that they do it. Let me preface I've never been accused of it, but I kind of wish I had been challenged. I feel like I'm missing out (just kidding of course).

I never, ever went about teaching my kids to read. My MIL did try with my eldest though when she was about 4 and I was embarrassed that she was sitting DD on her lap trying to point words out in books to have DD parrot them back. I, on the other hand, read and sang a lot of songs to her. She didn't read to me until K - but quickly progressed (basically, once I pronounced a tricky word, she subsequently remembered it and was progressing fast through the grade levels. She moved from not reading to reading 7th grade material in 2 years). She also draws parallels between books or other information she takes in. It's really cool to watch those connections being made.

My second dd self-taught. Truly. One day she couldn't read and the next day she's reading to me Green Eggs and Ham (though she spent an inordinate amount of time making up her own stories based on the pictures in the book). She was 4.5 at the time. She's not quite 6 (September birthday) and will be going into K and finished her first chapter book (dinosaurs before dark). She's not a voracious reader, but she'll read at least one book or chapter a day (well, I must amend she reads to herself on the toilet a lot - will take a stack of books in there, but as far as reading a lot out loud to me, not so much). But she is still becoming quite fluent for not having to work hard at it. She'll take a stab at quite complicated vocabulary words and often gets them correctly the first time around. Other times of course she needs a hand.

Had it not been for her selective mutism, I would have probably been alright to push for early entrance. But that would not have helped her anxiety. She simply wasn't ready. But I always viewed this holding back a year as a negative, not a positive. I don't know. Maybe because it to me seems that way because it could be interpreted as being "held back" because you repeated kindy (even thought that's not the case). I didn't realize until recently that this was seen as a "good thing" for any kids unless they weren't academically ready.

But aside from that, I do show my kids lots of things. I don't force anything into them, but whereas many parents might do crafts for their kids, we study nature and we do science experiments and I provide lots of math materials and math games to play with. The older ones occasionally teach the youngest one her letters (they pretend play "school" with her).

My dd5 comes to me with her dry erase board and says, "mom, lets do math". So, do I tell her "no"? Of course not. So I draw her picture with some addition problems (three flowers + four flowers = ?) and she fills in the number sentence. Then she says to me, "okay mom, it's your turn to answer". And she'll laugh as she draws me 7 flowers plus 12 flowers and thinks she can stump me. Not that she's far ahead in math, because right now she isn't.

In fact, she tells me she's worried that she doesn't "know math", and seems to not believe me much when I tell her that the teacher will teach her what she doesn't know. My guess is though she'll pick up the patterns because she's great at seeing where patterns exist. She just doesn't know that's what she does and that will work out to her advantage. I just have this feeling that, like with reading, she'll just "get it" and will adapt rather quickly.

My oldest 7 comes to me in first grade and says "mom, can you teach me multiplication?" because she hears about it from her teacher. Do I say "no"? Of course not. I go buy a pack of flashcards and a workbook - not to quiz her on them, but so I can show her with manipulatives using the cards (because I don't like my handwriting). So, I pick an "easy" math problem, like 3*3 and set it up three rows of three objects. I show her that 3*3 is 3+3+3 which is also known as 3 groups of 3 items. After doing some other problems, she's realizing that this is where all the skip counting comes in handy (2,4,6,8 and 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on). Now she gets there was a reason for that.

I think kids quite plainly know what they want to know and to not honor what they want to know is the quickest way to kill their desire for learning new material.

I also feel kind of bad if I let DD play with starfall. We also have not done Leapfrog stuff as I'm not huge fan of DVDs, and if she watches something I prefer it not to teach her to read or count, I wish her to enjoy children's culture. Not saying there is anything wrong with Leapfrog but we have no time for it as I work fulltime and she goes to daycare.

I think it is just funny to think that if you would teach your child to read by yourself it would be worse than Starfall or Leapfrog, I would prefer the one on one parent time over computers or DVDs anyday

I don't see how the redshirting could be a big problem. I was always youngest in my class with late December birthday. I was also tiny and immature and the kids that were year older, big and mature maybe did better socially but not academically. They might have made it bit better during first few years than later but the difference was never anything huge that should make any difference in gifted placements.

I am actually pretty embarrassed about it because when I discovered starfall, I was just looking for a kids' website that would be interesting to DD, easy to navigate, and not too flashy/commercially/noisy. I seriously let her play on starfall for a year before it really occurred to me that it was designed to teach kids to read. I too prefer one-on-one time to computer time, but DD really wanted something she could do on the computer by herself, and starfall isn't horrible, like many preschool sites.

I guess the difference is that I wasn't trying to teach her to read (obviously). And, honestly, she gave lost interest months before she started sounding words out, so I'm not sure how much influence it had. It just drives me nuts because I'll say something to my mom about how DD taught herself to read, and she'll say, "No, she played that computer game."

Not that it really matters. DD was in charge of her own learning, and that is what is important to me.

We have found that being a lot older, combined with the type of parents who made that choice based upon giving their kids an edge, does make some degree of a difference in terms of GT placement in school. While the decision re GT labels isn't technically made until the end of 3rd grade here, the teachers do start recommending kids for GT watch by 1st grade and track them accordingly in class. The kids who weren't identified as being academicially ahead in the first year or two aren't given any enrichment or taught anything above grade level, so they are less likely to wind up in the GT placement which is based a lot upon prior placement and achievement scores in school.

Secondly, a couple of the kids in dd#2's GT reading class were redshirted to a significant extent by their parents (11 y/o 4th graders as compared to dd who isn't 9 yet) and have continued to be parented a bit differently to give them an edge. For instance, years of outside tutoring, Kumon, Sylvan, etc. along with being 1.5 yrs older, which does seem to make some difference in terms of achievement. Anecdotally, one of the moms told me that "you know, you can buy the CogAT online..." which has also left me wondering if some of these kids may have been prepped with answers to that test ahead of time to give them further chance of getting into GT classes.

I won't post where in that I wouldn't want to encourage that type of behavior, but I was concerned enough by that comment that I looked and, lo and behold, you can buy the actual test online.

What I'm getting at is that, if the reason a child was started in school later than s/he was eligible to start was due to really pushy parents and a desire to have the child appear better (academically, in sports or whatever) than the other kids, that type of mentality doesn't likely change. With a parenting mentality like that, it can make for a child who is hothoused into appearing to belong in a GT class.

I try to remind myself that someone else's decision to hothouse doesn't change who my children are. On that level, it doesn't really matter to me what others do (except that it makes me feel bad for the hothoused child).

A positive, I suppose, could be that my children (who are in typical grade for age) have peers a year older--instant placement with older peers! Does that count as acceleration? (Just kiddin' folks) LOL...

I think the primary reason that it chafes, is that so many of us have had our attempts to explain/get help for our DCs met with suspicion in school, and when DD9 is compared to redshirted DD10, it is sometimes more difficult for the school to recognize learning differences.

In our district there has been a lot of discussion about identification and programming. The question has been raised as to why a bright, high acheiving child who is not gifted should not be able to participate in the same types of learning opportunities as those given to gifted students (or, in the case of our school, *theoretical* opportunities ). For instance, should there be a litmus test to enter honors sections in high school? Or should anyone wanting to take it on, be able to take it on? After all, they would be incurring the risk of a lower grade if they are actually not up to the challenge. For the most part, I like this generalized access. However, I think that there is a danger too, because as teachers we need to let assessment and learning drive instruction. If a group becomes overly weighted with bright, but not gifted students, and therefore a majority of students are not able to meet the initially high bar set for pace and product, then gifted students may once again find themselves in classes that are moving to slowly and demanding too little.

The discussion about Leapfrog and Starfall reminds me of a revelation I had recently. My mother always claimed that I "taught myself how to read" when I was three. She remembers me spontaneously picking up a newspaper, saying "I know how to read now," and then reading the newspaper out loud to her.

A little while ago (last year, perhaps) I was flipping the channels, and on PBS I saw a tribute to the 70s show "The Electric Company". I didn't consciously remember the show, but I was amazed to find myself singing along to every song on that show. The character would say one thing and I instantly knew how the second character was going to respond.

Amazed, I called my mom and asked her about the show. She recalled that when I was three she was sick with her pregnancy and slept on the couch every afternoon after parking me in front of PBS.

So, I didn't teach myself how to read-- The Electric Company taught me!

So, does that mean I was "Hot Housed"? No, benignly neglected is more the truth. Even if Electric Company did teach me how to read, that doesn't discount the fact that I was a gifted reader.

What does hothoused mean?

http://giftedkids.about.com/od/glossary/g/hothouse.htm

Think of the parents from Parenthood. A common mis-perception is that we hot house our children.

JB

O.K. my youngest of three is nearly 5 now, but until I started looking at this site I hadn't ever heard of Starfall. I guess I'm just out of the picture on the latest stuff out there.

I don't believe that allowing a child to play with an educational game or watch educational TV is hothousing. I do believe that forcing a child who is otherwise not interested to do the same would come closer to that definition.

I was such a clueless parent. I had no idea that GT testing in CA schools was a multiple choice test and that the kids were scored relative to other kids in the same grade, and not their age peers. When I was a kid, CA sent a psychologist to my house to administer the SBLM; my score was divided by my age. It never occurred to me that the state had switched to something much cheaper, and unfair in a different way.

I blogged about it ad nauseum in Implications of Academic Redshirting Implications of Academic Redshirting. The comments I received are very interesting.
http://badmomgoodmom.blogspot.com/2009/07/red-shirt-kindergarten.html

See, and I've thought about why it does bother me and I think that it is primarily b/c a program that is full of hothoused kids probably isn't going to meet the needs of gifted kids. My dds don't perform well in pressure cookers where the parents and/or kids are super competitive. They need different learning approaches, not just bragging rights and lots of extra work which is what seems to happen in some of the gifted programs that aren't really geared toward gifted kids.

This is all very interesting. I had heard of redshirting for academic or sporting reasons, but never really thought that much about it, as how did it affect my child ? Ds6 is in 1st grade at a Title 1 school (about 70% of the students are free or reduced lunches). We actually open enrolled our son there,as it is convenient to my work, as well as being the specialised "Math, Science and Technology" school. I doubt very much that there is any redshirting going on here, so other than kids who were held back in Kindergarten, they are in the "right" grade for their age on the whole. Ds6 in now in 1st grade, he has a June birthday so is probably one of the youngest kids - and is definitely one of the shortest However, he is way ahead of the game academically (one of two top readers, and the top in math). It's interesting to think how different things might be if he were in a different school - there are several where I know many kids don't start K until a year late (I run a daycare, and a couple of my kids went to private preschool, and were told they weren't ready for K, even though I know they were !) An interestng discussion - thanks !

In DD8's school there are 4 kids out of 35 in her grade who were redshirted. 3 of them are in her class of 17. There may be more but I only know of these because their parents have said as much. We were considering putting DD5 who is in K through a k12 virtual school in the same school next year.

I must admit that redshirting is one of the items that is giving us pause when considering what to do for DD5 next year. Through her VA DD5 will possibly have completed first grade reading and math by the end of her K year. She has a summer birthday and will still be 5 at the end of her K year. In the school her sister attends there are a number of students in both DD5's age appropriate class, rising 1st, as well as in the rising 2nd who were redshirted. In DD5's case if she were grade skipped she'd be 6 all year in 2nd grade and in a class with some children 2 years older then her. She is tall for her age if it even matters and we believe she is socially advanced. She is not prepared though for some of the social issues that comes with age for some children and has no tolerance for unpredictable or manipulative behavior. Basically, she's not worldly enough to deal with some of the social issue which could arise. For this and a number of other more pertinent reasons were are most likely going to continue doing the VA and consider entrance into a B&M school when she is older and more socially savvy in conjunction with a grade skip.

As far as hothousing goes we still see it in DD8's 3rd grade class. They have a pullout math enrichment program with students being pulled out for it for each unit. They are tested prior to each unit and if the ace the test they go to enrichment. I have had two mom's say that they research the curriculum online and then either hire a tutor or teach the child themselves at home the material so they can get into the program. In the meantime DD8 does not care to do well on the unit tests because she says enrichment isn't any more challenging for her then her regular class. She's sat in enrichment teaching other students how to do things according to her. She has little desire to do any of her beloved math at home anymore because she does not want to get further ahead and _we_ are told by the school not to teach her advanced concepts.

I wonder how Gladwell's book, "Outliers" will impact the trend of redshirting for non social or academic reasons.

we're just seeing red-shirting first hand here but at this point it helps us a bit. My daughter is in kindergarden with 2 children who are already six. My daughter and these two are grouped together for reading and other advanced topics. So without these two i wonder if they'd bother to do it just for my daughter. But i do find it annoying to talk to these moms about their "gifted" children who are actually quite typical but in the wrong grade!
irene

what bugs me is that districts allow parents to make the decision to hold their children back without testing them first to see if changing their age appropriate placement will be best for the child, but parents who would like their child to start a year early must have their children tested to see if they qualify to change their age appropriate placement. it all just seems so backwards. what are we really valuing in a situation like this- size? age? cheating? lol.....bc it doesn't seem to be academics.

I had no idea this went on. Very interesting!