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I found this blogger on gifted issues from Tamara's website. http://themorechild.wordpress.com/2...hers-overlook-the-verbally-gifted-child/

I thought this article is interesting and fits my son.

here is another one of her blogs in response to Tamara's Post over at Unwrapping the Gifted. http://themorechild.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/tamara-heres-my-scream/

Bumping away the spam!

Someone told me that a high VCI would translate to being able to process information on a higher level. So if a child is in 2nd grade, he's getting material presented on a low-mid 2nd grade level when he is capable of having the material presented at a level much higher - according to her son's psych.

I'm thinking of this in regards to my son. He's MG according to WISCIV scores but finds school unfulfilling. I've never been able to put my finger on it. It's not like he's light years ahead like the kids at this board. His math computation skills are only about a year ahead. He can however handle algebraic concepts and solve beginning linear equations. But the material he is presented at school seems superficial and watered-down. I know he can handle the content being presented in a more advanced fashion. I don't know, perhaps I'm not putting my thoughts into words sufficiently.

Nope, I think you did quite well, Dazey!

I think you're right that verbally GT kids can often handle more sophisticated ideas presented in a more concentrated form, but they don't often get it. It's why I think verbally GT kids sometimes have a tougher time than mathy kids. A teacher can often give harder math problems without too much trouble, but they almost never assign a GT child a harder book for discussion or give more complex comprehension questions. That sort of differentiation just doesn't happen. The stuff the blog author wrote about verbally GT kids losing ground in reading during the school year and regaining during the summer is both right on target and terribly sad, I think.

I think maybe it has something to do with the fast vs. deep GT kids. For the deep and verbal kids, they need more, not just the same stuff faster. That just doesn't appeal to their strengths. In fact, faster can actually handicap them since they can't keep up and need time to mull things over. But a different, more sophisticated presentation of info plays to their strengths, gives them something to chew on.

So, yeah. I hear you!

We have actually had quite the opposite experience. In our district (for the most part) students are put into differentiated reading groups so they are allowed to advance in their reading. In English, my dd is in a reading group by herself because she is so far beyond her classmates. Teachers also provide higher level thinking questions for the advanced groups to use in discussing their texts. In addition, during any free time in class students are encouraged to read for pleasure, which can be at the level of their choosing.

OTOH, math has been a real battle. The teachers are not allowed to present higher level material. They are only allowed to present materials that provides depth and breadth on whatever topic they are scheduled to teach during that interval.

I guess it just depends on the philosphy of the school.

Reading groups make SUCH a difference! I agree with you, TS! That changes everything.

There are no reading groups in our area. Everyone reads the same material.

Ugh.

Our K teacher differentiated for DS7, but the 1st grade teacher did not. At all.

Even the books she sent home for me to read with him were the same as the ones everyone else got. How hard would it be to grab a harder book to put in his bag? She wouldn't even have to have read it herself!

It's bad.

My son's reading group (the highest) read the book individually and then answered some questions in their reading log. That was it, according to him....never much discussion. They read "The CHocolate Touch" and he said Teacher didn't bring up "King Midas." To me that's a no-brainer.

But what I was getting from that blog though is that this goes beyond reading groups. It's about how information is delivered in social studies, in art, in science, in language arts ... that the kid can handle more info, faster, deeper so it's not such much knowing the content in advance, but a mis-match in learning style, if you will.

I spoke w/ a teacher friend of mine and she agreed that the 4th grade curriculum at our school is very superficial. That's 4th grade!!!!

I recall a conversation w/ Teacher friend a few years ago after I had read "Mr. Popper's Penguins" with DS then 6, I think. I asked him why the author named the town Still Water. I can't recall the exact answer, something about the town was like still water, nothing much happened there and that is why the man wanted to get away....I should have written it down lol my memory is foggy, any how, she was blown away by his answer. She said he is not going to get that level of discussion at school, not even in a few years. We had a similar discussion about what other people where learning to read liberated them (Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH) again she was shocked that he came up with slaves and how learning to read helped them...drawing on info from other books we had read previously. Now I find this hard to believe this was anything but normal, ND kid type-stuff but my teacher friend insists he won't get that in school. WHen he's in school, we have the homework battle, 2 other kids to deal with (and now another kid w/ homework) so I had hoped the school was addressing critical thinking skills, making inferences, and the like, but nope. And it doesn't seem to get any better through 5th grade.

I guess the take home message I got was that the verbal ability went beyond just needing appropriate reading level, but it was pervasive in all subjects.

I think that's right. It's about information gathering and processing in all areas.