Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Am I Jumping to Conclusions too Fast?

My DD7 who is in 1st grade was tested gifted with a 150 IQ. She has not been challenged any this year and after getting the testing completed I was able to get an IEP for her which got her moved into 2nd grade Language Arts/Reading for 2 1/2 hrs per day. They ability group the kids for reading (she is in the highest group), but for the rest of the stuff, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension type questions, writing, etc. all of the class does the same work. There is a lot of "practice tests" for our state testing which happens in the Spring. She was moved into this class 2/3 of the way through the school year. Is it reasonable to expect her to just "fall into place" with the other kids or would there be some type of adjustment period as she really hasn't been exposed to the same stuff that the other kids in the class have been exposed to?

The reason I question this as on some things she does better than most of the kids in the class but some other things she really doesn't do that hot. Most of her struggles are with the reading tests, implied things, predictions, etc. Things that are not explictly written in the story.

She has only been in this new class for 2 weeks, but I must admit I am a bit concerned. Here I was thinking about a possible grade skip into 3rd next year, but I would really have thought she would be bringing home all 100's on her stuff which she did the 1st week, now the 2nd week, it seems like the wheels are falling off.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I'd say give her some time! Moving from a situation where everything comes easily to one where you are challenged can be very frightening! Is she happy? Does she seem anxious?

My son who is also an exceptionally good reader also seems to have some difficulty with inferences.

Give her some time to work through the kinks. My DS6 is in a 4th grade reading class and still has a very hard time with inferences. I've always assumed that it's because he's a very black and white kind of kid. "Why not just say what you mean?". It may be that your DD is the same way.

Thanks so much to the both of you for your quick replies. I am so glad I found this website. It is really hard for me to keep all things in perspective. I also have a DS12 who is gifted, but he is an entirely different personality and we really did not know anything about gifted education when he was little so am trying a different path with DD. DD is happy is her new classroom and really enjoys the work so I guess I do need to give things some more time. The school system just moves so slow that I already have next year in site for what to try to do that would best help her in her education. Thanks again!

This is DS6. I think it's the reason why he scores lower on comprehension reading tests than one would expect after hearing him read aloud and discussing what he read. He is similar to Sherri's son. If it's not spelled out there then nobody really knows, right?

I think it's a question of time and practice. We are homeschooling and have been doing more of comprehension reading lately (much to his dismay). I think it has helped and he now answers some implied questions and predictions.

Look at it this way, at least your daughter learns something new in her class