Hi, I'm new to the forum so I apologize if I'm posting a redundant topic.
My son is 5 and highly advanced academically. His kindergarten teacher has taught for 30+ years, K-5, including gifted children, and has made kindergarten her permanent grade and has received her masters in early childhood. She has assessed my child with the most advanced materials available to her and he has surpassed all of it. For example, they stopped with his reading/comprehension assessment at a level that equates to the end of 3rd grade. She says she has no doubt he can go beyond it, but she and the literacy coach just stopped there. Similar testing has been conducted for math skills as well, with the same results. They have modified his curriculum somewhat but his teacher says the modified coursework is "a waste of his time."
In all of her 30+ years experience, she says she has never seen a child this age able to accomplish and comprehend what my son can.
So my son will soon undergo a series of tests for early acceleration, starting with the Stanford-Binet V. I met with the school committee yesterday and am concerned that the school psychologist does not have much experience with highly advanced children. Also, when I read about the SB test, I find that the results may not be completely reliable. I thought this assessment would answer many questions for us, but before we even begin, it's already creating more.
Other tests in the series include the Woodcock Johnson tests of achievement, Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and some other adaptive behavior tests that appear to be a collaborative system between the school and parents.
I guess I'm just interested in hearing about others' experiences with this type of assessment and if your results were helpful in determining the type of schooling your children need.
A red flag for me is when I expressed my desire to learn whether or not my child is an alternative learner, or special needs child, and I hoped these tests would give us that information, the psychologist could not understand what I was asking. Basically I want to know if the public education system is fine for him, or whether we need to explore other schooling options. They are very pro- keeping children within their age groups but I refuse to stifle my child's natural abilities.
Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded. I knew we would have this to face when he entered school but I had hoped this assessment would lead us in the right direction. Now I'm wondering if we're even giving the right assessment.
Thank you for reading and any feedback will be greatly appreciated.
