I am very glad to have found this forum and have read several pages of discussions already. I wanted to introduce myself to everyone and ask a few questions.
I have two children DD8 and DS2. DD has been identified as gifted in pre-K assessment and last year in 3rd grade. She was an early talker, reader and we call her the walking dictionary about biology and wildlife. She did well in mainstream classroom even though she was a year or more younger than others. Teachers usually gave her more challenging books and she wrote poetry when she was done with regular assignments.
Unfortunately we ran into problems last year (3rd grade). DD came home increasingly frustrated and her grades were dropping and she felt her teacher hated her. My first thought was that I had made a mistake in letting her start school early and it was coming back to bite me. One of her report cards had a long note from the teacher that said she wasn't applying herself, she was not concentrating and was at time disruptive in class. This was right around the time that 3rd grade assessments came back: her cognitive skills index (CSI) was 140 (exceptional range) and subject specific results were all in the gifted range 98-99th percentile. Her teacher was very surprised about this and all of a sudden changed her tune. Now DD was immature, and blamed her age. Finally she recommended DD to gifted math and all of a sudden she was not disruptive anymore. I felt that her 4rd grade teacher missed the mark by expecting her to just follow along with everyone else all year and didn't communicate with me about problems when they first started.
So now, we have just started a new school year and 4th grade. DD is in a new building and I am not sure how much each teacher knows about the children. DDs school has a cluster of 3-4 gifted students in a class of 24 students. She also has a new gifted teacher this year.
I would like to set up a meeting to discuss issues that arose last year and ways to prevent it. How should I go about doing it? should I wait until Nov. parent teacher conferences or address this right away. This year's teacher is notoriously great at accelerating students and utilizes the gifted teacher a lot. I have also considered the Explore test for DD, any thoughts on it's usefulness? Also, how do I speak to her school about gifted issues without sounding like a "stage mom" who overestimates their child's abilities? I don't feel DD should skip grades, but I do feel she has areas that could be accelerated or she will have those "disruptive" behaviors in the classroom again.
Sorry this is so long, but I wanted you to know our background in order to answer my question. I appreciate any assistance you may be able to give me.
Jeni
