I'm preparing for a parent meeting with my daughter's principal on Friday. She's in 2nd grade, and it looks like she's in for another "lost year." This one is better than last, because she's not with a teacher who's punitive about her behavior/distraction/sociability, but there's still not much going on.

I'm curious if anyone has insight from personal experience or, even better, links to articles and research about what happens to gifted kids who are left in unfertile soil, so to speak? She's not in bad environment: she likes her teacher and likes her friends and enjoys her "specials" like art and music. But, she's got a lot of downtime during which she entertains herself by occasionally reading but just as often by making folded paper fortune tellers or stuffed rabbits from paper and staples.

Here is a link to a Linda Silverman article about gifted girls. It's old but it's short enough that you might get the teacher to look at it. I think that it still is relevant:
http://www.jeffcogifted.org/images/jagc/pdfs/where_have_all_the_girls_gone.pdf
It talks about gifted girls' ability to be chameleons, able to fit in and seem fine, and the downside to this.

Here is a sample:

We know that gifted girls fit in by pretending to be less capable than they really are, and that this habit pattern often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (Borland, 1986). If elementary school work is too easy, girls are unprepared to meet the challenges of advanced coursework later on, avoid more difficult courses, which unnecessarily limits their career choices, and come to believe that they really aren't smart (Dweck 1986).

Thank you! That was a really interesting series of articles. I'm definitely printing it out to bring with me.

I don't know if this overlaps with what knute posted, but this is a good article: http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/gifted_girls_many_gifted_girls_few_eminent_women_why

From personal experience, through what we saw with our DDalmost10 a few years ago, I would say that they wither and hide the longer they are in the situation. We knew that something needed to change for DD a couple of years ago when she became sullen and uninterested in school or learning about anything. When we finally got her talking about what was going on she said things like: "it's not that I have no friends, because I do, and I like my teachers, but I am just really tired of nobody understanding what I'm talking about or what my questions are about...so I've just stopped talking and asking questions and tried to be interested in what everyone else is interested in."
When we talked to her about alternatives for the following school year, her first comment was "I'll give it a try as long as I'll be able to talk to someone about interesting stuff."
We had heard that it was really important for gifted kids to be properly placed by third grade, especially girls or they will be lost and start to shut down in school. When we starting seeing it with a previously voracious learning it was scary! It took the entire summer vacation and a month or so of home schooling before her appetite for learning came back. We have luckily been able to keep at least part of her schooling to include some challenge so that spark doesn't die, but it is really hard to keep her from hiding in certain situations because she wants to fit in more than stick out.

This is a good article about what kids don't learn when not challenged: http://www.portage.k12.in.us/16072010221...doesntlearn.pdf

And a thread discussing the article: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/59730/What_kids_don_t_learn.html

Thanks for posting this question the responding articles. "Lost Year" is what we are experiencing here in kindy. Nothing terribly traumatic (thank goodness)...but absolutely NO academic growth - NONE. We are also seeing my ds who has always been a VERY passionate learner becoming more listless and disengaged. He complains every day that school is boring - though he does like to hang with his friends and play at recess.

With my work schedule, it is hard to put into play a very thorough after-schooling plan.

I'm so glad to get the links and advice, and the commiseration. Thank you!

Evemomma--"lost year" is exactly how I refer to DD's 1st grade year. Her kindy teacher was amazing, but last year sucked. Unfortunately, while this year is proving to be emotionally better, it's still boring as heck for her, and I have to listen to her every night talk about how many days there are left til Friday. It stinks to have a 7-year old already having at TGIF mentality. She asks me regularly to home-school her, but I don't know we could financially make it work.

I wish we could look into the future (well duh, don't we all?) and see what next year holds for ds in first grade. At this point, I know we can't seek a grade skip as he isn't get differentiated enough to do first grade work to get ready for second. I've thought about pulling him for intensive work this semester, but then I worry that they won't let him skip and he's just going to be bored again next year!

You know, I could even deal with bored as in "this doesn't interest me"...but bored as in, "I learned this two years ago" seems to a be the worst.

With my evening work hours and flexible schedule, I've tinkered with the idea of homeschooling, but I'm not sure if it's the right choice. DS was SO excited for school, and it really does make me sad that he leaves hungry for learning every day.

Evemomma- As usual, I'm right with you having these thoughts and whirling around what to do and what is best for ds. Wish I had the answer. Hopefully, things will get better....

Evemomma--

Right with you.

The meeting with the principal was lame, by the way. I just don't think he "gets it" and he's seems to be so letter-of-the-law with the core standards and very anti-acceleration (in a very sweet, conciliatory way), that I'm thinking now that we just need to get out of the school district. We need to decide if we can move, and if we can, start interviewing districts. If not, there's a "school choice" district that does response-to-intervention pretty intensively, and I may look into that. I wish homeschooling was an option with my husband's and my work schedules.

ETA: I don't know that DD could skip, either, for the exact same reasons.

Staceychev-
Sorry the meeting with the principal didn't go well. Keep us posted!

Anecdotally, staceychev, I did not do so well. I was a very "bright" child and I received no help. I am from Australia, and I don't think giftedness was taken seriously in my state until this century! I think, individually, teachers could recognise something and would give me some extension work. It was until I moved to a state where they took it all seriously, the school gave me an aptitude test upon enrolling, and I was put up a year and given extension work in maths. I was happy, did very well (except for some distraction issues...) and I was dux at the end of both years I spent there.

However, I then had to move back to my original state- and was put back down a level. They said I was too young at 11 to start high school. Truly, the worst year of my school life. At the end of the year I was given an IQ test and it showed I am PG. But it was too late. My schooling suffered so badly, I never did well again, except on tests. I ended up leaving school at 15.

Not every child will do badly because of lack of support; but for me, having a combination of extreme lack of confidence, and a lazy mother, really ruined things for me. I believe that having a parent really encourage you to do homework and study and show you different ways of learning would have really helped. I am now studying a double major, and it is torturous to do: I can not get motivated, and I get so bored, despite the subjects being my favourite. I get frustrated and embarrassed because I know I am smart enough, but I just don't have the other necessary skills needed in life. I either don't end up handing in work, or I do and get High Distinctions.

The moral of this long, boring story is: you need to fight for your child's education. And if the school can't provide what he needs, then you have to.

Had to look up what dux meant. All hail google.

My mom was an unidentified giftie who responded by rejecting school and authority. As a result, she never had any idea that she had any noteworthy abilities whatsoever, and had very poor self-esteem. She spent her adult life in bad relationships and poverty, and drank herself to death by her mid 50s. It was only after she died, and my DD's school journey prompted DW and I to begin reading about the nature of giftedness, that I ever understood how much alike we really were.

So there's a worst-case scenario for you.

About the concern about not being able to skip due to lack of differentiation:

I understand this idea and used to worry about that myself, but with these kids who learn so fast, I wouldn't get discouraged yet.

With books like Spectrum that give you an idea of national standards for each grade, and different curriculum materials and websites (like ixl for math, which breaks down all the skills for each grade level) you can teach your child on the side either after school or on weekends if they'll have it (my problem eventually became my DD getting so discouraged you couldn't get through her wall to even try, or sometimes the child becomes convinced they can only learn what their age peers at school are learning etc.) If you can teach them, you could have them tested with an achievement test privately to show a potential new school they have the skills to be promoted. The new school might hiccup at the tests not being theirs, but in the case of our DD at least it prompted the two private schools we "interviewed" to test her themselves prior to admission decision.

If the school district/principal you're in now is so dead-set against skipping, as you've figured out you'll have to try elsewhere.

But my point is the child can get moved up a grade and even pop back given the right environment. My DD was barely grade level for math (they hardly taught her anything and I couldn't get anywhere with her) upon entering her new school but 3 months later she is doing work for the next grade up. The new school assumed she'd need tutoring for the foreign language but took a "wait and see" attitude but she's doing great. etc. She was just hovering, waiting to LEARN AT SCHOOL.

So don't give up on skipping or entering a more robust environment and thinking it won't work because they've fallen behind - they will eagerly catch up, given the opportunity. Of course, the longer they go with being sidelined and never learning anything at school, the worse it gets for their education and their self-concept.

I would say don't wait until after 3rd grade to do SOMETHING. That's just my personal idea/opinion.


Hope this helps!

p.s. in case I made this sound easy, it hasn't been at all-

first, she could probably go up a grade because she gets good grades just by absorbing in the classroom and we still struggle with study habits (but attitude is much better overall) but her writing challenges will hold her back from that being allowed (until we can sort out accommodations) and her nerves have suffered damage and she needs support in that area for the rest of the school year at least for her to feel more emotionally secure - in the upper elementary grades with the social scene pushing toward middle school stuff it's a little complicated.

But without this school change or homeschooling she'd be much worse off and it does feel like a step in the right direction.

I understand the lost year! Nothing against my son's teachers but I feel that K, 1st were both lost years for my DS9. Mid 1st grade year I just had enough of it and really just didn't want him to become lazy and not care. After 4 months of back and forth we were able to get him accelerated to 3rd grade math the beginning of his 2nd grade year. Then another change the following year. We accelerated him to 4th grade. So he skipped 3rd grade (except he had really had 3rd grade math). I can tell you that our principle was so opposed to it. She couldn't even look at the positives to it. After testing and so much back and forth and finally appealing the decision to the superintendent they decided to let him do it. 1/2 way through the year of 4th grade and it has been AWESOME!! He likes it, it is going well, frields are going well. Couldn't be happier. However, it was 3 months of very stressful back and forth with the principle and a couple other key people. I wish I could say that since this has gone so well the principle will be open to it the next time. But I believe she will never be. It's really unfortunate but somehow in the end it worked out.

Good luck! Acceleration isn't for everyone but after you do the research, you know your child the best! Fight for what will be best for them.

If you haven't read Nation Deceived yet please check it out it is a great book and helped me make some decisions.

I was a child who SHOULD have been accelerated and wasn't. My mother (herself an educator, but definitely NOT gifted) bought into ever nasty (untrue) educator myth about it and refused, though I learned later that the school wanted to do so on THREE different occasions-- once in 3rd grade, again in 7th (different district, even) and again as a high school sophomore.

After the last time, my best friend (also HG+) LEFT high school (and left me behind) for community college. My mother insisted that I needed to slog through it and that I was not following the path blazed by that best friend. My grades slipped in a BIG way due to my perfectionism taking off into stratospheric task-avoidance without a tether to reality (previously provided by that HG+ friend). Oh, that and boys (well, much-much OLDER 'boys' lets just say). And drugs and alcohol. And truancy. Pretty much anything to escape and feel okay about myself for a while.

I thought that there was something horribly wrong with ME. I didn't understand that I was just stuck in a setting that had so little in common with meeting my needs that I couldn't possibly fit in. My trajectory had finally completely "broken" in my 10th grade year, my first in high school. I was done-- you could have stuck a fork in me.

It took me until my senior year in college to really recover from that, and heaven knows it cost me an elite graduate school, that undergrad GPA. Plus, you know, learning study skills. LOL. I am not much of a success story for gifted education-- and this was back in the day when it actually existed in my home state. Even my "gifted" classmates weren't really at the same LOG. It was a problem. It was horribly lonely.


Okay. Moving on to my DD, who is also HG+ (and probably much more PG than myself). We were reluctant to accelerate outside of what seemed readily accomplished in light of her weaknesses as a student. That meant three years was the outer limit, basically, if she was still to do "well" in terms of written work.

Unfortunately, this had the unintended consequence of making everything ELSE perfectionism-ripe. Yup, everything else was easy enough that it's pretty much 100%, 100%, 100%, 99%, 100%, 98%.

That has caused problems. In retrospect, we were right to be concerned about her maturity; particularly her executive function and her writing skills... but even so, a 3y acceleration was VERY conservative and it has resulted in some damage to our child.

I can't even begin to articulate such a thing elsewhere, it sounds so patently ridiculous on the face of it. But it's true. She has grown to LOATHE formal education because it is boring, repetitious, and basically only good for punishment-- never for intrinsic reward. Why? Because the ONLY authentic work she's ever had is in her areas of RELATIVE WEAKNESS, and the rest is ALL just busywork-- which eats up time she'd rather spend learning.


If I knew then what I know now? I'd have been "that parent" over SUBJECT acceleration ON TOP OF that 3y global acceleration. My DD should have been doing high school science and literature in early middle school. (9-10yo) I also think that we should have been VERY much more aggressive about math starting in 3rd grade. Heck, she'd already blazed through three years of Singapore in a year-- clearly standard pacing was a bad idea. I just don't know why that wasn't more obvious to us all at the time.

Maybe we just didn't really see the harm. {sigh}

For myself, I absolutely agree with your first line. For my dd...ugh...she has only skipped one year, and her report card looks like 97%, 99%, 100%, 100%...thankfully I think she has a wonderful language arts teacher this year who loves Jane Austen like dd and is getting her phd in gifted education and was doing research on perfectionism...but what about next year. Esp. re: english/literature, I think it is really painful to not be challenged in the area you are passionate about. Crud. I don't think my dd is at the same LOG as HK's dd, but she is 99.9% in VCI. I should prob. be doing more.

Hmmm-- one more interesting thing to add to my DD's story about acceleration (or not), and how much 'accommodation' is appropriate in the destination grade for things like immaturity or lack of motor skills, etc. Asynchrony writ large, in other words.

When I asked my mother (a professional, long-time and VERY good elementary educator about this); shouldn't we let her do some stuff she's really really GOOD at? At the level that she's ready to do them, I mean?


She answered that if a child NEEDS accommodations (say for a writing deficit or adaptive technology to accommodate age-appropriate motor skills), then that child should NOT be accelerated otherwise in terms of content. They should spend all of that extra time (you know, since they already know the curriculum?) working on skills where they are only 'good' or 'very good' for their age. Handwriting drills. Automaticity of math facts. Yes, this was my mother's answer for our educational conundrum with my 5yo who was reading at a high school level. MAKE her do handwriting until she could do a perfect Palmer hand. Show her who's in charge (I guess). Don't LET her get so far ahead in those areas of strength.

My mom's answer still sends chills up my spine-- but I mention it because this was an otherwise EXCELLENT educator. (Though I think it's obvious that this person would be all wrong for gifted students.) I'm ashamed to admit that we actually tried our best to take her advice for a while. It was horribly harmful. My mother loved her granddaughter dearly, by the way-- she just genuinely believed that PG didn't exist, and that we were being overindulgent and short-sighted.

Miraca Gross' "Exceptionally Gifted Children" provides quite detailed synopses of the education each of her EG+ students achieved. In the cases of a few of the most gifted children, early and significant suppression of learning was associated with underachievement, behavioural problems and, in one case, early abandonment of school.

I'd recommend the book. It's an interesting set of case studies.

HowlerKarma-I just wanted to say that how you describe your Mom is exactly how my ds kindergarten teacher thinks. However, in addition, she also relates it to typical kindergartener (ex- "comprehension" of kindy books which is really just memorizing the items in order). Thus, since ds is not great at memorizing those too easy books, he must not understand anything more complex. (Can you tell this is driving me crazy?? I have to readdress this with his teacher, but I'm not sure how to not sound offensive.)

It's a step further in my child's case. Verbal answers or circling the right answer won't suffice. He is required to write the answer for reading comprehension. I completely agree with what you have said. Sometimes, I think my kid's teacher does not quite know what to do with him.

mom2one- Wow. Sounds like you are right on the money about the teacher not knowing what to do with your ds. I know my son's teacher has zero idea which seems crazy as a teacher of 20+ years.

Is there something about 2nd grade and making things out of paper?! My 6 year old second grader is having a similar year. He was accelerated from Kindy to 1st grade last year. He is in the highest 2nd grade reading and math groups, and he s making straight A's despite bringing home Bs and Cs on tests (because he rushes through them). I worry about all the things listed in the article about what they won't learn...because I didn't learn most all of them until later. Some I am still working on!

Stacey, I just sent you a pm about EPGY open enrollment.

Thanks, Gabalyn!

NicosMom--My experience, too. I worry about what she won't learn because of what I myself didn't learn.

My son was the second youngest in his class, but the only one reading more than a few words when he started kindergarten and he had not gone to preschool like most of the other kids. When I told the teacher that he was already reading well and I was worried that he would be bored with letter-of-the-week and letter people, the teacher agreed to let him read reports to the class that went along with his letter-of-the week show & tell. My son and I worked on the reports together. We would look for information on his show & tell article and then he would decide what he wanted in his report. After typing the reports I always checked the Flesch-Kincaid reading level and they were sometimes high school level. I think the one he read to the class about the GPS came up 12th grade level but most were probably around seventh grade. He felt good about doing this. He could not color in the lines well because of a disability that affects his motor skills. The disability caused the tops of his fingers to bend way back so it was harder for him to control the pencil or crayon, yet he could write all of his letters and they were legible, but just barely. He had low muscle tone and his hands hurt after coloring or writing and they wanted him to spend lots of time doing these things. Sometimes he would get frustrated and scribble instead of coloring inside the lines because it would take him longer to do this than the other kids and it hurt. The teacher would post samples of their work on the wall outside of the classroom and he could see that the other kids could color better than he could. At least he got to read to the class and he could feel good about that. They would not give him OT. Our state law did not require it because he wasn't failing, but was instead above grade level. We were shocked when the teacher told us that she wanted him to go to a transitional first grade (a year in between kindergarten and first) so he could work on coloring. She didn't think he needed to learn anything at all for an entire year. She thought it would be best to try to even him out.

Luckily a first grade teacher with gifted sons of her own, who knew how the other teachers felt about acceleration and accommodation, told me that my son would not get what he needed at that school and I would either have to put him in private school (which I couldn't afford) or I would have to homeschool.

At home for first grade he practiced reading from National Geographic magazine and his science encyclopedia and books he chose to read that were grade levels above what they would have let him read in school. He liked taking quizzes on bookadventure.com over what he read.

I am so glad that I did not hold him back because now that he is going through the difficult medical issues I don't have to worry so much about him having to take long breaks from studies. He easily reads and comprehends college level material and has for years. I often wonder what would have happened to him if I had left him at that school.

My son and I sat next to a group of five high school age kids at a restaurant recently. I listened to the way they talked. They frequently used words for homosexuals to describe people who have a physical weakness or difference of any kind. It is not the first time I have listened to high school age boys and I am so glad that my son has not been socialized in that way and is able to use a much better vocabulary and can carry on interesting conversations about the latest news better than a lot of adults. When he speaks he uses a much better vocabulary because he does not feel the need to use hateful, derogatory language. I am so glad I did not listen to his kindergarten teacher.

Lori, your story reminds me of my personal "light-bulb" moment-- when my DD was VERY newly five, and we attended "kindergarten orientation/welcome" at our local library.

One long-time primary teacher had me point out my daughter, because I'd mentioned that she was already reading "pretty well"-- this would be my DD5 who who was quietly, happily reading a novel (maybe Harry Potter? maybe Redwall? could have been The Hobbit), swinging her dangling legs back and forth, seated out of the way on an adult chair at this "reception," while her peers were running WILD, darting through clusters of adults, grabbing cookies, and shouting. That teacher took one look at her, one look at me, and leaned in to say, quietly-- "I never told you this, but please do NOT enroll your child in a kindergarten class-- with us or with anyone else in town, frankly. We can do NOTHING for her-- until at least third grade, and you'd be risking her life each and every day for nothing."

I was so stunned. It took me a few days to understand what she had meant. See, I'd intended to talk about how the district handled life-threatening food allergies. I had no idea just HOW remarkable she was. After all, we lived with her every day; who knew that kids didn't just start reading and within a few weeks jump four or five or more grade levels, right? Who knew that kids didn't learn that fast?

Besides, my mom (a career primary educator and master teacher) seemed to think that she was "just a typical, perfectly normal, bright little girl" whenever I asked about something that seemed a little unusual. (You know, like teasing a parent and laughing about it at 13-15 mo... her vocabulary at 12 mo... asking questions about existential matters at age 2-4... that kind of thing.)

QFT

My education was strictly by the book, including getting to read when I'd finished my work. It took me until I was in my late 20's to learn how to work hard at something and I still have bad focus or determination.

More important than anything else, a child needs to learn how to work at something, how not to give up if something's hard.

That's what worries me--I was that kid, too. I sailed through AP classes in high school, then almost failed out of my first year in college (squeaked by with a 2.0). I still have issues with focus and planning and not-procrastinating.

DD7's teacher has a list of things they can do if they finish early. Every day, DD7 finishes her homework/busywork in class, reads books, and makes craft projects, all because she finishes early.

Unfortunately. Or my expectations are too high. She sends notes 4 times a month (usually Wednesdays. I wonder what it is about that day that a note must be sent to me) about work not being done, and it is usually a picture with some parts remaining to be colored. I wish I could call her on it, but she seems to not really like my child, or want to work more with my child, so right now, I am doing nothing. She also told me that she finds it hard to assess my child. I again offered to volunteer but I was turned down.