Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Advice/Opinion 6 YO Kindergartener Math

Sidenote to Dottie: I went to the brink of insanity and back today, so I'm right there with you! It was a loooooooooooong weekend!

Ugh.

I'm two-for-two! Yahoo!

(That's about all that went right this weekend...)

At least I didn't get the speeding ticket I thought I was going to get...which would have made me run out of gas for sure...and made us late to the soccer game we had driven 3 hours to get to this morning...as my DS6 sat in the back seat saying "I TOLD you we should have gotten gas already!"

Like I said, to the brink and back...

I'll grab the soapbox for a couple minutes.
If a child is gifted athletically, would you do your best to expose the child to a variety of sports and find what really inspires the child?
If a child loves mechanical things, would you encourage him to explore the possibilities?
If a child loves to help others learn, would you encourage him to follow a teaching career?
If a child loves to learn, and learns quickly, would you discourage that ability?

I've got more, but the bottom line is we are not blowing out other kids candles to make our kids shine brighter. We're just giving our kids what they need to allow their candles to burn as bright as possible, and hope other parents do the same for their children. Keep in mind it's a whole lot easier in the American culture to provide a child with athletic opportunities than it is to provide a child with educational opportunities tailored to his specific needs. That's why this forum is so valuable.

Ah, OHG, well put! Really well written!

You might consider submitting that to Hoagies or someplace. I think more people should read that!

Hi, I am a Mom of DS5, he is currently in K. He excels in math (doing 4th grade math now). Your son is very good in math and my guess would be that he would for sure tested in 99%, probably higher.

Whatever you are doing is for sure working It's great that he is happy in school. Is his K half day or full day? How much is his teacher aware of his math abilities? K work is way too easy for him and he could use much challenging work. I would suggest Zaccaro book for elementary students.

It takes time to get used to the gifted label. I suggest reading Ruff's book. It explains quite well, how gifted children differ from other kids as well as each other. They really have different needs and smarter they are more difficult things get.

Hi Madmanmoon,

IQ & Ability testing are very useful to understand your child's strengths, weaknesses. It helped me understand my kids more thoroughly, rather than just instinctively. I encourage many people to do diagnostics on their kids, not just because they're showing great ability. Some parents wonder about learning styles or exceptionalities. It's just a tool and doesn't commit you to anything. We hired the district diagnostician who does private testing on the weekends for supplemental income.

Aside from the gifted label, do you have a goal if you were to test him? For instance, if you found he was 99.9% in math, what would you do about it? Would you try to get the school to give him advanced work? Subject skip? If you saw several strength areas, would you grade skip? Since he's new to school (which is a challenge in itself), he may not have any issues or problems now, but as time goes on, he probably will be bored to tears. Do you think it's right that he waits 4 more years to do math that he's able and anxious to do now? I would say that's tragic.

I think highly gifted kids are in need of "special education" as much as disabled kids. It means parents have their work cut out for them--I don't believe we are gleefully cheering how smart our kids are, but more searching tirelessly about how can we help them. There is a lot of research out there that indicates highly gifted kids are prone to depression (less so when they've been academically accelerated), higher high school drop out rate--we're being proactive in trying to make sure this doesn't happen to our kids and that they grow up to be happy, well-adjusted adults.

I understand the "if it's not broke, don't fix it" idea, but just be prepared that things might change.

I think Genius Denied is about PG kids. I think it's hard to find your child there. You can dismiss the book saying that you do NOT have a child like that, but you can easily see your child in Losing Our Mind. I don't like her LOG, but I still think it's an excellent and eye opening book when you are new to GT.

There is a nice book about math kids, Developing Math Talent A Guide for Educating Gifted And Advanced Learners in Math.

I think the baseball player is an apt analogy. I know some really amazing young players. They got so good that they cannot play in the local leagues, they're on some sort of all-star regional teams now. I think some parents would freak out if they played on the local team. With sports, there's a system in place. It's clear-cut who can advance to these better teams. It's purely skill-based. I would never ask one of these kids to play tee ball with kids his own age, if he could already throw 90 mph fastballs. Nor is is good for the other kids. It's not a big deal to have some sort of all-star academic type environments.

It shouldn't be a big deal, yet it seems to be.