When I read about children who score around the same level, most information says that his range, which is just inside "highly gifted" according to Hoagies, are okay in public school with differentiation or enrichment. ... I guess I am just confused as to why the scores don't mirror what he is saying.
Amber - I hate to ask, but could you send a link to exactly what you are looking at from Hoagies that you are reading? It's a big site.
Also - Go back to 5 Levels of Giftedness, and look at the end of the book, and see what Ruf says about this issue. My son is Level 3, but his scores fell a bit differently, and he crossed the DYS cut off line, so even Level 3 is 'gifted enough' that a certain personality of child would get pretty fed up with regular school.
The thing to remember is that 'Gifted' has no standard meaning. Some school districts use 'top 3%' while others use 'top 5%' and a few use 'top 10%.' Your son's verbal abilities are in the top - help me Dottie! - 0.2%, so it isn't a like your kid is '1 in a hundred' is is that he's rarer than that!
Also - getting a school to do 'differentiation and enrichment - to the extent needed' isn't easy, although many of us have achieved it. I think that if done right, a lot of kids with much scores could really enjoy school with differentiation and enrichment - especially subject acceleration.
Remember that your child is really young, and some key 'personality factors' aren't clear yet. The most important data in all of this - to me- is that his current preschool isn't working for him socially
even though you have a preschool teacher who knows what Davidson is.This is key, because MOST preschool teachers have no idea what Davidson is, haven't ever heard of it. This suggests 2 possibilities:
1) You live in a neighborhood where unusually gifted kids aren't so unusual. This is very good news.
2) She has some personal reason to know what Davidson is, and she is 'hinting' that she has vital secret information to share with you if you would like to receive it. Sort of an underground railroad of 'family to family' support.
So go back and ask her about how she has heard of Davidson and ask her to share whatever stories are rattling around in her head about 'gifted.'
Your son's scores are very very close to DYS cutoffs, and remember that 2/3rd of kids in the program are bunched up around the cutoff line - it's because of the shape of the tail. Nowadays the tail is broken off just a bit to the right of your son's scores because the test-makers have acknowledged that they can't really measure differences well up where the air is so thin, and just created a 'hard stop' at 160. But the bottom line is that if you son was invited to a birthday party of a child to happened to have invited all DYS kids, he would have a wonderful time, and you'd be in tears to see him acting so 'normal' among other 'just like him' kids.
And the best news is regardless of the vagaries of 3 points on the Verbal scale, there is a Hoagie's list of conferences that are open to whoever wants to go!
Love and More Love,
Grinity
