Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research PG? Husband is a skeptic, I am on the fence

Solaris, I am not feeling pressured to homeschool by anyone, more by myself, my constant questioning if I am doing the right thing. We love our school and the teachers, just unsure after we saw the test results. For now, won't fix what doesn't feel broken.. We don't the time due to DD3's issues. But I am learning from you all with interest, esp if you have experience with older kids who have similar profiles (no outstanding academic achievement in early years, very high test scores and maybe some precocity at home). And you are very right in that once you are in 99.9%, it is hard to know where the kid actually is, and also I don't know if any higher score with extended norm will change how I'll manage his education beyond that 99.9% knowledge, because I think the 99.9% is already in special need category (out of reach of many if not all private schools for GT).

Platypus, you said some of the things that have been in my thought.. I think my DS1 might be gifted in engineering, but that is not a subject that is touched much in elementary school. So that might make him a late bloomer. For now I'll have to feed his hunger with accessible materials like legos. I might be able to dedicate time for him in a couple years, when I expect my DD's issues to largely resolve. Any starting point to learn about homeschooling, if/when I manage to scrape some time, just for feasibility study? Also the potentials of mixing home schooling with regular schooling, for instance do everything at school except for math and/or science work for instance. Thank you!

I'll have to admit that I am feeling intimidated more than once when I am thinking of it, but I've been thinking often that I will try something in a couple years when I have more time.

Platypus, now that I reread your post, I found one similarity. DS thought he is not good in math. His math grades are ok, better if we give him attention, just meeting expectations otherwise. How could this be with a kid who is in VS extended range and who understood complex patterns and geometry at age three.

Easy, if your math curriculum looks anything like ours. Ours is very verbal, and is far more a language exercise than a mathematical one (reflecting the strengths and interests of the math phobic teachers who run ours schools and set provincial curriculum, unfortunately). There's a whole lot of writing and very little math.

The other common problem with elementary school math is that in most curricula, there is very little content. It covers basic calculations, and spirals every year to do the same stuff all over again (with one more digit - yippee.) There's no depth, no problem solving. If your strength is conceptual, not calculation, there's not much there for you. And repetitive worksheets of basic arithmetic will shut down any gifted kid. Add in constant demands to "show your work" without providing any questions complex enough to involve actual work, and the kids have to write the answer and then invent and recount in detail a whole bunch of unhelpful steps they never actually used but pretend they did (which doesn't make them cynical at all). If your kid is super visual spatial and can see the problem in their head - and has crazy high working memory to boot - well, that just adds to the frustration and tuning out. In mine, this kind of meaningless task sets off his inattentive ADHD something fearsome, which battles with his slowness at all this writing, to challenge him ever finishing.

And that's how you can have a gold medal in a national math competition and Cs on your report card.

You'll find informative articles on the Davidson Database, including Homeschooling Tips which begins with the advice to parents: know your State's Laws on homeschooling.

Gifted Homeschooler's Forum (GHF) is also a helpful resource.

This may depend upon your State Laws and local school policy and practice. In addition to brick and mortar schools (public, private/independent, parochial), some parents have worked with online schools. These also come in public, private/independent, and parochial varieties.

Should also note, we live in a wonderful time where there is a wealth of materials out there for the curious to wallow in, lots of it free. Youtube channels like Numberphile are wonderful. I'm addicted to AoPS (Art of Problem Solving), which is math by mathies for mathies, all for the love of math. There's lots of great threads on these kinds of resources.

When school taught my math monster not only to hate math, but eventually also to believe that he was no good at it, I finally had to put my foot down. I try hard not to undermine his school, but in this case I explained point blank that that stuff he did at school wasn't math, THIS was math and this is something he has always loved. It took a couple of years for him to come back fully, but now he's back to begging daily for more math.

I wish there was a like button for Platypus101's last post. That pretty much sums it up.

I flipped through all of DD7's work when it came home at the end of the year. My favorite math worksheet had some word problem and then a huge white space where they were supposed to show their work and DD just wrote the answer along with "I used my brain". Needless to say that wasn't what they were looking for.

This is a good one . I often find DS7 coming up with the answer without writing down the steps, or use his own "flow" (his word) of solving a problem that is different from what the teacher would like to see.

I apologize in advance if I seem so out of touch with this, and so inappropriately given my math training, but I don't have early childhood training. My DS does a lot of word problems and also writing down steps (the model, according to teachers). They use Singapore math. He had a few times just said that he knew the answer, mostly he was right, but sometimes he was wrong though I think that was because of carelessness. I deal with a lot of words and writing models, given my work in applied mathematics, so I thought that using word problems was a good way to teach him, and also being able to explain how he gets to the solution but then I never learned in modern classroom here so I don't know what to expect. His VI is a tad over 2 SD so maybe he should be ok with the language aspect of math although not to the same level as his vs.

Singapore math is good... that is to say, most parents on these forums, and their children seem to like it. (Conversely, Everyday Math is bad... that is to say, most parents on these forums, and their children seem not to like it.)

Thanks Indigo, so I know that at least for that our school gets it right. I don't think he is "bad" at math, as he worded it, and he likes the subject, but I don't know what exactly is going on. I was never ahead in math either in my childhood, though it always came easily to me, until junior high school when I started getting Calculus and algebra, and then at the university. So maybe he is just a happy conforming kid!