Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC results and next steps?

As a follow up to my initial thread we moved forward with assessment testing and have received preliminary results with a full write up due in the next couple weeks. I can�t thank those on this board enough who were encouraging and supportive in our decision to test.

The meeting with the tester was truly eye-opening and helped confirm our �gut feelings� and address some fine motor issues we were unaware of � see PSI. DD has an odd pencil grip and she works very hard and methodically to form her letters. Her hand tires easily and during the test, she spent a lot of time double checking her written work and shaking out her hand.

This brings us to the next chapter in the journey of what might represent the best educational fit for DD. Our tester feels the best fit for her would be a private school for the gifted however, the cost might be prohibitive. We�re open to taking a look but we also want to get a better understanding of what our current private school might be able to provide.

With that said, there isn�t a gifted program at our school but the administration is willing to meet and discuss potential options for classroom differentiation. From what I understand, this instruction would be led within the classroom by the teacher and hopefully will include a small group of students who have similar needs. There will be a coordinator who works with the teachers, but I�m unaware that she has formal training in gifted ed. The other programs that are currently provided are creative thinking/problem solving in math, writing and reading.

I could really use help in two areas:
1. With DD8 having an ability at a much higher grade level (WIAT results), during our meeting with our school administration what should we focus on in terms of potential acceleration, differentiation, grade skip etc. (We are clueless!!)
2. Dependent upon the educational component being met, will staying within our school setting provide the intellectual peer relationships necessary for DD to develop better social skills or would a gifted school possibly provide a more suitable environment ? What do we need to consider in this area?

My initial post lists out our concerns about her underachievement and potential social issues � it�s what led us to testing in the first place and might be a good read for those who would like to comment or provide any input!

Thanks again!!! This forum has been a HUGE support - we are new to this and appreciate any suggestions!

Is your son in the very next grade up? Would it work for your family if DD is in the same grade or even higher grades?

One way to look at it is to try and get your daughter into the classroom where she would be 'able to make mostly As IF she works at it.'
Another way to look at it is to try to get her into a classroom where her 'ready to learn' level is within 3 years of the class average. This isn't scientifically documented, but word in the gifted world is that most teachers, most of the time, are fine going up to 3 years beyond the class average with 'differentiation' but that after 3 years it take a superteacher.

As far as peer development, acceleration can do that quite nicely. Most kids are a mix of ages throughout the day - and what about the one room schoolhouse where kids of all ages played together? She just needs to spend some time each day with kids who get her jokes.

Of course, if she goes to her own school then passing her brother is much less of an issue.

I would encourage you to look at other schools, mostly because I learned so much from watching those experts evaluate my kid. And there may be scholarship money so that it's not much more out of pocket than your current school.

Good luck,
Grinity

Hope that helps,
Grinity

Thanks Dottie -I love this last sentence! Yes, it would be ideal for all of the pieces to fall in place and I would guess that for most families it's a matter of determining which pieces are most important for the particular child and then doing the best possible.

Ideally, we would love to stay at our current school and I'm interested to meet with them and find out what type of accomodations they are willing/able to make. Visiting some other schools would give us a much better understanding of options & specialized programing.



Do you have any advice on how should I prepare for this meeting? I don't know enough about what might be best for DD and the school seems to be in the very initial stages of providing increased differentiation. In other words - they don't have a plan in place and are going working on developing this program.

Thanks again for yoru feedback and thank you for providing the FSIQ. I suppose the tester didn't provide it due to the lower PSI. It's nice to know though!

Hi Grinity - thank you for chiming in!


DS is in the next grade up but after going through the testing with DD, and with respect to DS's academic performance/OLSAT scores, we've come to the conclusion we should get him tested as well. Those results could potentially change the landscape for him too.



My only concern about grade skip is that another child who recently went through this at our school hasn't been treated well by her peers in the grade she skipped to. The parents weren't necessarily kind either (to the mother) and sadly, the child has been ostracized on the playground, etc. - many days coming home crying. I'm not willing to forsake DD's academic needs, but we also need to make sure the social situation is a fit. Another issue the tester brought up was that it becomes difficult for girls when they start developing physically and emotionally (interest in boys) and our DD would be in the middle of that prematurely. I believe this is why she felt a gifted program would serve her well academically & socially. I would be interested to hear thoughts on this from those who have gone before us!!!




You & others have been a tremendous help!! I can't imagine trying to work through alone. We probably would have put off testing if it hadn't been for the encouragement here - but now we KNOW we need to make some accommodations!

As a side note and thanks to this forum and some of your suggestions in particular, we have signed the kids up for some fun "academic & creative thinking" camps for the summer that they were able to choose from a huge list. I can't wait to see which of these they get excited over so that we can work towards providing future opportunities in their paticular areas of interest.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all!

I think this is perfectionist thinking. The schools work with you very well indeed and you are the master! They even ask you to help them interpret other local kid's scores, right? They even say that they thought you were crazy, but your kid has proved your right, or am I misremembering?
Wow! And you've even kept your son inside his 'readiness to learn level' in Math totally within the public system, yes?

I'll bet that all of your kids do get this to some degree. It's easier for the teachers because the kids are placed inside their readiness level, even if it doesn't match their age. It probably happens all the time, but so naturally that no one notices.

I remember learning about how to use the microscope - large wheel for gross adjustment (grade and subject skips) - small wheel for mild adjustments (in class differentiation) - the thing not to do with a microscope is to review your children's educational experience and blame yourself for every wasted moments. Part of school is learning to take the good with the bad - and because of your efforts, your children got plenty of good and a handful of bad now and then, right? That's really the goal - yippee Dottie!



Love and More love,
Grinity

Thank for the link to the PDF - I had been searching for SOMETHING that would tell me what we were looking at with respect to a comparison between the two tests! So clearly, she's in the predicted values range and that's very helpful to know. Really for my husband and I, it's about helping her "where she is" and not aspiring for her to be "something she's not". It seems there are many great gifted programs out there she's qualified for that could be advantageous to pursue. We'll have to look into those!


Are the cheesy pullouts (love this term) the subject acceleration or are they accelerated in their respective classrooms? I'll have to search your posts and read your "backstory"! FWIW - for those of us who are newbies and totally lost - spending time reading through this board is invaluable - IMO!

Ouchies! I'm so sorry to hear that...Does your DD already have social connections to the older social group through her brother? It looks to me like you have a very delicate situation on your hands. We have faced this from time to time, and what we've done is watched DS suffer in one direction for a bit, then changed course and tried something new. It's almost never perfect, but it's never been as bad as all that either. ((shrug))

Just know that solutions that work for one family might not work for the next family. I do know that socially speaking, our son had 'mixed experiences' socially after his midyear skip in 5th grade. For us this was good because the year before at a different school in 4th he was so socially successful that he looked like he was going to go through that teenage - I don't care what my parent's think, it's what my friends think that matters - thing very 'precociously' and that wasn't a good thing. Once the social sparkle calmed down to a more normal 'highs and lows' and DS got skipped into 6th grade mid-year he was much more willing to rely on parental structure. But I will say that when DS switched school between 7th and 8th he had a terrific year socially - it did help that the new kids accepted him and his skip as a 'fait accompli' rather than watch it happen at their own school. But mostly DS was far more self comfortable and better behaved socially at that point.



As for puberty and dating older classmates, yes, parents of girls have additional concerns that I didn't have to face. So I would encourage you to take the advice of your tester seriously - perhaps the ideal is out there - won't know until you look!

I hated girl-peers from age 12 until age 18. With a few wonderful exceptions, they were mostly boring and petty and mean. I don't know what happened at age 18, but suddenly they became fascinating, deep and wise. My theory is that puberty is hard.

I don't know if my 14 year old son is dating or not, but if he is, I hope he is being treated better by that age chunk of girls than I was. I don't envy him. I don't envy your daughter either, but I'm unhopeful that an extra year of shielding is going to make that much of a difference.

Remember - bullying isn't because of your glasses or nose size or having the temerity to skip, it's because peers and adults allow it to happen.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

P.S. If you walk into the school with acceleration off the plate, you are limiting yourself too much. Of course, with such a recent 'failure' on everyone's mind I would be surprised if the school was even willing. Better for them to cover up their own weaknesses, yes? Asking for a flexible '6 week trial' and see if things get better or worse might be the way to go. It may be that everyone learned from the pioneer's experience and the next full skip will go well...maybe?

And I don't blame you if it seems like 'too many choices and not enough good ones.'

Thanks Dottie - sent you a PM! Would love to chat further!

TxB