Hmm, I am sorry but I have a two year old running around and it was getting hard to keep typing before.
He took the K-Bit II when he was 5. I asked the school system (we lived in PA at the time and are now in VA) to evaluate him for ADD/ADHD because I truly thought that was the problem. I was prepared to share the results of that test here but as it turns out, I forgot to get the copy from this school when I presented it to them so I am waiting for the copy of the report which I should get from the school tonight. Damian scored average last year on COGAT and I don't even know what the test results meant with the K-Bit because no one really explained it. What I DO know is that the evaluator did tell me that Damian was impressive but not ADD/ADHD. She said that professionally she could not use this label at 5 but he was exhibiting sure signs of high intelligence and extraordinary perception and creativity. When she wrote up the report, she came by personally with it and even showed me tactics for dealing with his high energy and lack of need for sleep, citing that many extraordinarily intelligent children have difficulty sleeping and often talk more than they listen. Her report expresses that any school Damian went to would need to accommodate the needs Damian had. At the time I was home schooling but she expressed a concern for his high intelligence, saying that home schooling him at such a young age would be troublesome later on if he failed to have adequate socialization.
When we moved here, about 4 months after the evaluation, I brought the report to the school along with the results of the test. His Kindergarten teacher was floored by Damian and did her best to get the school to look at him but they refused until 1st grade. In first grade they administered COGAT with average results. In first grade, his teacher was all but checked out. She expressed that Damian was a very curious, inquisitive child with amazing perception but didn't seem interested in backing me up at all.
He is now in second grade and his teacher says he is an inspiration to the whole class. He tutors one of the children in his class and when he started school in September, the teacher called me about Damian. Apparently he was finishing his morning work very quickly and when he was done, he requested to read the dictionary. The teacher said she was forced to get more dictionaries and when the other children are done with their work, they too now want to read the dictionary. Se was so impressed with Damian that she started keeping a portfolio of things Damian says and work he has done that make her believe he is gifted. She also invited the state gifted coordinator into the classroom to observe him, but she never accepted the invitation. She has accepted the portfolio. Damian is fixated on Dinosaurs and wants to be a paleontologist when he is big. He has been stuck on this for 4 years and his knowledge of dinosaurs impresses everyone. He ceilings on reading evals at school but the teacher explained that they are unable to test him beyond second grade for reading because they would not be able to administer the test in third grade due to the fact that it would be identical and could be memorized? Something like that. I am not the only one who sees this in him. And I think I have been lcky enough to get a teacher that truly cares enough this year to go to bat for him.
Other than this stuff, I have only what I see and what the teacher sees. I desperately believe my son needs the gifted program so that he can have a more flexible education. He certainly experiences times when he has trouble doing something but at this point, when those troubles arise, he gets extremely upset saying he is so stupid. It has always been easy for him to learn so when new things come up he either refuses to try if he doesn't think he can do it or flips out and says he is dumb when he doesn't get it right immediately. He needs peers that have something in common with him. His peers want to play Pokemon while he is trying to build robots out of recyclables or draw diagrams of how he thinks the dinosaurs died.
I guess the reason I want him in the gifted program is so that he can move ahead if he needs to, relate to his peers and have some flexibility in his education. Is that so terrible?
