My DD8 is in third grade. Started reading at 4 and continues to be an excellent reader. She's mostly comfortable in school at grade level. She doesn't find the spelling challenging, but it is fine. The reading and writing components of the curriculum are sufficiently differentiated for her to be interested and engaged. She started getting bored with Math in first grade since that was not at all differentiated.
I am a math teacher. I worked successfully with teachers in 1st and 2nd grade to keep her engaged and enjoying math. This mostly turned in to me sending in materials for her to work on in a folder that she was able to work on in lieu of whatever classwork they were doing. She has always had the option to check in and out of math class as she saw fit. Again that was more or less successful. I started a math club for her and 11 of her friends. That has been been an amazing success, both for her and her peers.
Now she is in third grade. I decided to try something different and let her try out a computer program where she could self-teach. From time to time I have explained a concept to her, but she has gone kind of crazy with it. She is allowed to do that instead of her school homework so instead of doing a worksheet that takes 3 minutes, she spends at least 30-60 minutes working on math. She's also allowed to do that in school, and often takes advantage of that. She also reads 1-2 hours a night, again, without my prodding. If anything I find myself telling her to stop reading and go to bed.
I absolutely don't feel like I push her, though I certainly give her plenty of positive reinforcement for all the work she does. I never really considered her 'gifted', more just a hard worker with an extraordinary level of internal motivation. But recently, I have been getting feedback from teachers and staff that makes it clear they feel she is a classic hothouse kid and I am the ultimate tiger mom. I wouldn't care so much except that it almost seems as though they are just waiting around for her to fail or at least return to the level of her peers. If I hear 'it will all level out' one more time......
So I had her tested and she had a FSIQ of 134 and a WAIT-II Math score of 160. Grade level equivalent of 8,3 for Numerical Operation and 9,4 for Math Reasoning.
My question is: do you think these scores reflect a hothoused kid that will come back to earth? I'm thinking the IQ is too high and the math too advanced and maybe if anything, I wasn't giving her enough credit for just being smart. Clearly the high math score is in part the result of me providing her with additional materials, but does it really matter at this point? Do you think if I share the scores with the school, they will focus more on meeting her needs and less on waiting for her peers to catch up?
Any thoughts are very much appreciated!
