Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Plateauing

Yeah-- the climb can be ugly for the adrenaline junkie within.

Like Ultramarina we know a lot of alternative minded folks who don't hothouse to the point of avoiding early academic development, this was particularly the case when our eldest was young. She went to a very alternative preschool and school, where I would hazard most of her (tiny) cohort was at least MG with at least one PG child in her group (of 10). NONE of them started school really reading. Most of them were truly reading by mid year, novels by the end of the year (ie way beyond normal reading progression, though to varying degrees). Except my own DD of course, who has multiple learning issues and was still working on the alphabet 2 years later. But because of this cohort not being academically encouraged before school she had looked perfectly normal until they all finished preschool and went to school... None of them had been supported to learn to read, all of them were advanced in general knowledge, problem solving, etc. Certainly some more than others.

On the other hand the school we moved to next was a high end private full of hothousing families... Our 2nd daughter is HG+ and has learned at a far faster rate than most of her peers - but again did not look developmentally unusual amongst a group of super enriched 4yr olds because she was doing sandpit and dressup while they were doing Kumon...

I think given these sorts of differences in approach to early life, when combined with the rarity of actual 99th-99.9th++ kids, it's little wonder teachers think "it all evens out".

Ironically enough though we have been told more than once that children who are as behind as our eldest was in yr 2 do not ever catch up, let alone get ahead like she has. So apparently it's only the kids who are ahead who are expected to "even out", not the strugglers.

Everything mumof3 said, plus my 2cents, which is really the same as what she said...

There are hothoused kids and middling kids and kids whose parents avoid early academics. There are kids who will struggle with reading, there are middling kids and there are kids whose brains are hardwired to decode. There's no correlation between those two groups so some born decoders will have been reading since two because of coaching, some will start K not reading and all other permutations.

Teachers are most likely to see early readers who are heavily coached middling ability children, and they will even out because the not heavily coached children will, after four years of instruction, have reached their own natural skill level. The odds of any given teacher seeing more than a couple of kids in the 99.9th percentile is low. We had a 40 yr veteran teacher and ours was the third at that level she'd ever seen. They are not talking about our kids when they say this.

Hothousing is like buying and reading the textbook the week before class starts. You look smart on the first day, but as everyone else is taught the same stuff you fade into the pack.

That was pretty disjointed, apologies.

I think also the fact that you are talking about 6-9 year olds also play into things. DS 7 last year found the captain underpants books in his school library. They are maybe 15 levels below his reading level, but he found them just as hysterical as the other boys in his class. Because he was 6 and its toilet humor! However those boys are not then capable of reading and understanding Neil deGrasse Tyson's book about killing Pluto - mine could. Comprehension is often the thing teachers or others who believe in leveling out hang their hats on - he's not getting all the depth of a book, like after reading the little prince, or something else with depth. So they think sure he's reading but he's not absorbing so then at 3rd grade when all the others are reading those books, they think DS's depth has not developed, possibly because unless you engage in a deep conversation you won't find out if they understand it deeply. But any teacher actually doing reading assessment should be able to see the difference. I also think the whole reading on a 4th grade level or whatever terms are used also often mask things - the average 4th grader or the gifted 4th grader.

What also interesting is that this leveling out conversation disappears in high school where separation is encouraged, with honors and AP courses.

DeHe

This is the primary problem we have with DS9. His communication skills are poor for his age, and he doesn't care for writing (delayed fine motor skills), so you sure as hell aren't going to get a book report out of him... so when I tell them he's capable of understanding high school level books they honestly don't have a good way to see that for themselves... At least he's been able to show at least 6th grade comprehension on the AR tests.

Also, I do personally think it's hard to tell a bright kid from a really bright kid unless you're spending a lot of time with them and/or are unusually observant. I know a lot of kids who have been tested for GT who did not get in, and a lot who did (since DD is at a magnet where they only take kids in the 99th%). There is a big group there where I would have to say I just could not have predicted which way these kids would go. They probably are all in the 115-140 range.

Did some of those 115 kids look really sharp as toddlers and young kids? Maybe, yeah, and some of the 140 kids might have looked behind. My own daughter looked more "out there" as a toddler than she eventually tested, though I'd hardly say she's plateaued. Meanwhile my son didn't look nearly as precocious and now looks a bit more scary-smart. Time will tell. They're both basically in the "smart enough to do whatever they want and need to keep a careful eye on it" group, but not the "so smart we're really in trouble and school isn't going to work" group.

Personally, I think the tests are blunt instruments at best, but do serve a valuable purpose in sussing out unknown areas of really high ability and unknown areas of challenge. They provide additional info, but day to day experience is invaluable.

One of the things I have noticed going from preschool to school is that the relationship with the teacher is much more superficial. My son's strongest test was problem solving (AE of 16+ at 5.8) which really only shows if you give him hard problems to solve or have an depth conversation. The preschool teachers had the time and inclination to do that as they are interested in the child developing. School teachers have less time and are more interested in the child conforming. That's what is seems like anyway.

My DS's reading level at school has not changed since early 3rd grade (he's in 4th grade now). Did he plateau? Well, no. He hit the highest level they test for and so there's no room for him to be assessed higher. The other kids have not all caught up to that level, though.

At the beginning of the year he came home freaked out because his teacher said they were expected to read 3 chapter books per week. I told him to show her what books he was reading and she changed the requirements for him.

That said, his reading did not progress smoothly. He pretty much refused early readers and was only slightly above grade level at the start of 2nd grade. He was reading and understanding the False Prince (a middle school book) by the spring. So, imo, his reading level before that was fairly meaningless. His younger brother, now in 2nd, reads WAY better than he did then and is 9 months younger (May birthday compared to Sept.) He can pretty much read anything you put in front of him (although he doesn't always demonstrate what he can do).

Kids are all different and have different trajectories. Suggesting that that means they will "even out" in 3rd grade is just silly.

Thanks - I'd not heard of the False Prince so I will have to see if my DD would be interested because it looks like an absorbing tale.

My opinion of the 'plateau theory' is that it is believed only by those who have never encountered HG and above kids. The thing about >=HG, in my experience at least, is that the rate of learning is so much faster than 'normal' - that given the right access to knowledge they may never plateau until well beyond secondary education.

If they appear to plateau earlier than that the school is doing something wrong - very wrong.

Exactly. They don't plateau-- they ceiling. Big difference.