Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments What happens to gifted kids who ...

Hmmm-- one more interesting thing to add to my DD's story about acceleration (or not), and how much 'accommodation' is appropriate in the destination grade for things like immaturity or lack of motor skills, etc. Asynchrony writ large, in other words.

When I asked my mother (a professional, long-time and VERY good elementary educator about this); shouldn't we let her do some stuff she's really really GOOD at? At the level that she's ready to do them, I mean?


She answered that if a child NEEDS accommodations (say for a writing deficit or adaptive technology to accommodate age-appropriate motor skills), then that child should NOT be accelerated otherwise in terms of content. They should spend all of that extra time (you know, since they already know the curriculum?) working on skills where they are only 'good' or 'very good' for their age. Handwriting drills. Automaticity of math facts. Yes, this was my mother's answer for our educational conundrum with my 5yo who was reading at a high school level. MAKE her do handwriting until she could do a perfect Palmer hand. Show her who's in charge (I guess). Don't LET her get so far ahead in those areas of strength.

My mom's answer still sends chills up my spine-- but I mention it because this was an otherwise EXCELLENT educator. (Though I think it's obvious that this person would be all wrong for gifted students.) I'm ashamed to admit that we actually tried our best to take her advice for a while. It was horribly harmful. My mother loved her granddaughter dearly, by the way-- she just genuinely believed that PG didn't exist, and that we were being overindulgent and short-sighted.

Miraca Gross' "Exceptionally Gifted Children" provides quite detailed synopses of the education each of her EG+ students achieved. In the cases of a few of the most gifted children, early and significant suppression of learning was associated with underachievement, behavioural problems and, in one case, early abandonment of school.

I'd recommend the book. It's an interesting set of case studies.

HowlerKarma-I just wanted to say that how you describe your Mom is exactly how my ds kindergarten teacher thinks. However, in addition, she also relates it to typical kindergartener (ex- "comprehension" of kindy books which is really just memorizing the items in order). Thus, since ds is not great at memorizing those too easy books, he must not understand anything more complex. (Can you tell this is driving me crazy?? I have to readdress this with his teacher, but I'm not sure how to not sound offensive.)

It's a step further in my child's case. Verbal answers or circling the right answer won't suffice. He is required to write the answer for reading comprehension. I completely agree with what you have said. Sometimes, I think my kid's teacher does not quite know what to do with him.

mom2one- Wow. Sounds like you are right on the money about the teacher not knowing what to do with your ds. I know my son's teacher has zero idea which seems crazy as a teacher of 20+ years.

Is there something about 2nd grade and making things out of paper?! My 6 year old second grader is having a similar year. He was accelerated from Kindy to 1st grade last year. He is in the highest 2nd grade reading and math groups, and he s making straight A's despite bringing home Bs and Cs on tests (because he rushes through them). I worry about all the things listed in the article about what they won't learn...because I didn't learn most all of them until later. Some I am still working on!

Stacey, I just sent you a pm about EPGY open enrollment.

Thanks, Gabalyn!

NicosMom--My experience, too. I worry about what she won't learn because of what I myself didn't learn.

My son was the second youngest in his class, but the only one reading more than a few words when he started kindergarten and he had not gone to preschool like most of the other kids. When I told the teacher that he was already reading well and I was worried that he would be bored with letter-of-the-week and letter people, the teacher agreed to let him read reports to the class that went along with his letter-of-the week show & tell. My son and I worked on the reports together. We would look for information on his show & tell article and then he would decide what he wanted in his report. After typing the reports I always checked the Flesch-Kincaid reading level and they were sometimes high school level. I think the one he read to the class about the GPS came up 12th grade level but most were probably around seventh grade. He felt good about doing this. He could not color in the lines well because of a disability that affects his motor skills. The disability caused the tops of his fingers to bend way back so it was harder for him to control the pencil or crayon, yet he could write all of his letters and they were legible, but just barely. He had low muscle tone and his hands hurt after coloring or writing and they wanted him to spend lots of time doing these things. Sometimes he would get frustrated and scribble instead of coloring inside the lines because it would take him longer to do this than the other kids and it hurt. The teacher would post samples of their work on the wall outside of the classroom and he could see that the other kids could color better than he could. At least he got to read to the class and he could feel good about that. They would not give him OT. Our state law did not require it because he wasn't failing, but was instead above grade level. We were shocked when the teacher told us that she wanted him to go to a transitional first grade (a year in between kindergarten and first) so he could work on coloring. She didn't think he needed to learn anything at all for an entire year. She thought it would be best to try to even him out.

Luckily a first grade teacher with gifted sons of her own, who knew how the other teachers felt about acceleration and accommodation, told me that my son would not get what he needed at that school and I would either have to put him in private school (which I couldn't afford) or I would have to homeschool.

At home for first grade he practiced reading from National Geographic magazine and his science encyclopedia and books he chose to read that were grade levels above what they would have let him read in school. He liked taking quizzes on bookadventure.com over what he read.

I am so glad that I did not hold him back because now that he is going through the difficult medical issues I don't have to worry so much about him having to take long breaks from studies. He easily reads and comprehends college level material and has for years. I often wonder what would have happened to him if I had left him at that school.

My son and I sat next to a group of five high school age kids at a restaurant recently. I listened to the way they talked. They frequently used words for homosexuals to describe people who have a physical weakness or difference of any kind. It is not the first time I have listened to high school age boys and I am so glad that my son has not been socialized in that way and is able to use a much better vocabulary and can carry on interesting conversations about the latest news better than a lot of adults. When he speaks he uses a much better vocabulary because he does not feel the need to use hateful, derogatory language. I am so glad I did not listen to his kindergarten teacher.

Lori, your story reminds me of my personal "light-bulb" moment-- when my DD was VERY newly five, and we attended "kindergarten orientation/welcome" at our local library.

One long-time primary teacher had me point out my daughter, because I'd mentioned that she was already reading "pretty well"-- this would be my DD5 who who was quietly, happily reading a novel (maybe Harry Potter? maybe Redwall? could have been The Hobbit), swinging her dangling legs back and forth, seated out of the way on an adult chair at this "reception," while her peers were running WILD, darting through clusters of adults, grabbing cookies, and shouting. That teacher took one look at her, one look at me, and leaned in to say, quietly-- "I never told you this, but please do NOT enroll your child in a kindergarten class-- with us or with anyone else in town, frankly. We can do NOTHING for her-- until at least third grade, and you'd be risking her life each and every day for nothing."

I was so stunned. It took me a few days to understand what she had meant. See, I'd intended to talk about how the district handled life-threatening food allergies. I had no idea just HOW remarkable she was. After all, we lived with her every day; who knew that kids didn't just start reading and within a few weeks jump four or five or more grade levels, right? Who knew that kids didn't learn that fast?

Besides, my mom (a career primary educator and master teacher) seemed to think that she was "just a typical, perfectly normal, bright little girl" whenever I asked about something that seemed a little unusual. (You know, like teasing a parent and laughing about it at 13-15 mo... her vocabulary at 12 mo... asking questions about existential matters at age 2-4... that kind of thing.)