What a lot of great advice! (although I have to admit it still seems overwhelming... :-) ). My son was in a fabulous school for Kindergarten that voluntarily tested him, and really did a great job of challenging him. So he took the CoGAT in K and was labeled "superior cognative." Then we moved - the new school district does not routinely test 1st graders, but I was concerned over what seemed to be NO challenges to him academically by Oct, so when I heard they were doing testing for 2nd graders, I asked if he could also be tested. They were reluctant, but did finally agree - but only Stanford Achievement for specific subjects, not any of the more general intelligence tests like the CoGAT.
I've been doing a lot of reading this week since his newer scores came in. There's a lot I don't know! I see there is a range of gifted kids, and suspect he is not at the top of this range - which may make my task a bit easier. On the other hand, he hasn't had much of a chance academically to show what he can do. In K they told me he read at the level of a mid-2nd grader. His most recent scores in 1st grade said his reading was at the level of a 3rd grader halfway through the year, and his math the level of a 3rd grader toward the beginnning of the year - but the school staff also told me not to put too much value on these estimates. I'm not sure what to think of that statement - why not?
I am miles from seriously considering whole-grade acceleration for him...but this morning we were chatting about his grades that just came out (all as high as they could be), and I asked if he'd like to go to 2nd grade for the rest of the year. He immediately said yes. When I asked why, he said it was so he would have a new teacher. I was fascinated. He has always been positive about the teacher, who is very entertaining in the classroom - but while she is a very nice person, and obviously very popular with most 1st graders, I've been very frustrated over the fact that she seems to keep making him do work WAY beneath him! It's hard to get my boy to talk about stuff like this, and I was unable to get more of an answer from him about his thoughts on his teacher - he had moved on to experimenting with cooking ingredients, mixing different amounts of salt/sugar, vinegar, etc.
I like the idea of really working to figure out what his levels are, so I am going to do some more reading and see if I can do that. And plan to go to my conference with many ideas to propose!
Susan
