Wow. I envy some of you that seem so secure and knowledgable about their childs giftedness. I'm not so confident.
My husband and I decided not to do any testing for our Daughter (age 2 1/2) because she's still so young and may not cooperate, we may never need any "official" results in order to advocate because she will mostly be homeschooled or private schooled... and it seemed very expencive etc.. etc...
Well, I'm rethinking that. I seem to be rethinking everything on a regular basis. Sometimes I even wonder if my little at-home-diagnosis of her being GT is just a figment of my imagination... then she properly uses words like realize and phrases like "It will help more flowers grow in the future" and I confess to myself that I am falling into GTness denial.
I got a cupon (I know... weird... a cupon) in the mail for a local tudoring center. I spoke on the phone to the lady that does most of the pre-k stuff and she was really encouraging. She said she could do a full or partial assesment based on the California Achievements standardized test and it would (using mostly pictures and letters) tell us if she was comparable to like a 4 or 5 year old or... whatever.
Does this sound feasable? Assuming she'll cooperate with a stranger (chances are pretty good)... will this really help us know what we're dealing with?
Just as soon as I thought this was NOT going to be an issue for us and that we wouldn't need any assesments or preschool programs.... we are coming up against a couple of issues.
#1 some of the church's we're looking into attending want to put her in with the babies! No lesson, activities, or following directions.... just nursery care. Church being one of her only social, group activity, classroom times in the week I'm feeling it's important that we make sure it is stimulating. Since she's not in school yet this is one place we expect her to get some stimulation.
#2 after visiting (and thriving in) a pre-school for a day this last spring (at barely over 2 years old) she still talks about! She wants that kind of stimulation (she loved to listen in a group and do the activities witht the other kids) so I may be needed to advocate for early entry into a pre-school.
Other than that our option is to send her to this tutoring center (the one with the cupon) where they have a pre-k program.
Obviously they would expect that I have her assessed with their curriculem in order to grant her early entry and all. but what I like about it is it's pay as you go! You can go 4 days a week or you can go once a month... or ANYthing in between. There is no long term commitment (many of you said be prepared to change the plan very often because gifted children change so fast) So everything about that flexible schedule seems awesome! It's a maximum of 3 students per teacher and I can send her like twice a month since she is still rather young and does a lot at home. That way between this program, her gymnastics class, and my local MOPS group she can have a variety of learning and group-time opportunities without actually commiting to a year of pre-school.
So, to top it off this assesment is only $60 and the if I send her twice a month for the pre-k program I'll only have to pay $60-$90 per month for it.
But I have no idea what the California Achievemnent test is like and I don't know about any of this stuff!!!
So, any advice or ideas would be great!!!
I think she is going to need some extra stimulation and "learning time" this year because she is just HUNGRY for it all the time. So... I wanna do something... but what?!
Thanks!
