Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Is anyone 'not' advocating re Kindergarten?

I went to a lot of school districts growing up. My parents did not advocate for me. They just accepted what the school did.

It was a very mixed bag. Some treated me as a discipline issue, some saw me as I was but did nothing, and others accelerated me.

As I got older, I advocated for myself. My 9th grade year in a new school district the counselor placed me in the "remedial" level for all my classes. The next day I went back to him and told him I wanted all honors classes. He kind of laughed at me, but moved me up.

This saved them the later certain embarrassment of having to explain why a Freshman in remedial classes took the ACT and outscored everyone in the whole school district.

What this proves is that the so-called experts are not experts until proven that they are experts.

TMJ, like others say, it depends on the child whether or not you might need to advocate. You mention that the psych wants to retest before school. If the results of that test indicate your child is MG+, then I would consider mentioning something to the school.

In my case, due to behavior issues with my DS in pre-K, DH and I had him tested privately and confirmed our suspicions that he was in fact gifted, and that many of his behavior issues in school were due to the fact that he wasn't challenged. So in our case, it was a necessity to bring up the issue with the school where he is currently attending kindergarten. In fact, I went to the school last May, and met with the principal, which started the process of the school doing their own reading and math assessments of my son. They worked on a plan for my son which I reviewed with them (several teachers and administrators) before the start of school last week. After the meeting, one of the administrators was very appreciative of the fact that I came to them as early as I did, because it gave them time to make accommodations for my son before the school year began.

Again, not sure if your son will need accommodations, but if he does, the school may appreciate the heads up.

I'm dubious about people who call themselves experts and doubly (or more) so of the ones who trust "expert opinion" unflinchingly. Too many of the latter group strike me as not having sufficient knowledge to form their own opinions. Which is scary if they make decisions.

Val

Thank you everyone for your responses, much appreciated.

Our son's quirky personality is probably what we consider the biggest wild card in this decision making process. As previously mentioned (in another thread, I think), he has ongoing psych appointments to help deal with perfectionism and learn to self-regulate his intense emotional reactions. This in itself is enough to make me want to give the school a heads up. However, the somewhat perplexing thing is that these intense reactions rarely take place outside our home - it's like he bottles everything up until he's safely with us, then absolutely explodes. I'm certain that the preschool staff would think I was joking if I told them, as according to them he 'always has great days - pleasure to have in the group'.

The other thing is, DS3 has only experienced open-ended, play-based learning to date at daycare and preschool. His academic exposure has primarily come from activities of his choosing at home. He alternates between wanting to learn math concepts (he calls this 'playing number games'), practising 'sneaky' reading/writing or inventing things. As such, I have no idea how he will go when he discovers that his math/language/science 'games' are subjects that others need time to learn.

I can only hope that these decisions become easier in time, as DD20mos is already actively participating in DS's activities... Don't even want to think about that at this point

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts!

I happened to mention to DS5.5's teacher that he could read and do simple math during orientation. After the first week, I sent an email letting her know to let us know if there's anything we can do to keep him challenged (after she had mentioned twice in person how smart he was). It was then that SHE brought up whole grade acceleration. Granted, I had to request that DS be tested officially, but she was the one that brought it up.

We are still in the process of course, and we won't know the results for another week or so. So he may remain in K, with a teacher that will keep him challenged, or he may skip to first grade - though I don't look at it as DS skipping a grade, just beating the birthday rule. Either way, we're not pushing from our end.

Hi TMJ,
Glad you hear that your son is good at bottling things up at school - that's a good thing, and that he is letting them out at home - that's a good thing too. If your son tends toward perfectionism already, and he's never been in an accademic environment, then it's really very important to find him an environment where he is reasonably challenged. Some kids have personalities where they don't take what goes on at school too seriously, and are more easy going. My son used to tell me that 'easy stuff was harder to do than hard stuff' because he would look at it 100 times and be sure that there was some trick to it. And that's from a kid who isn't perfectionistic!

There is also a range of giftedness. If your son really is MG (which is getting really hard to tell from this generation of IQ tests!) then school might be a 'good enough' fit with some enrichment on the side. About 80% of gifted kids are MG, so that leads some 'experts' to think that ALL gifted kids are MG. That can cause problems.

One really can't rely on the 'local experts' in unusually gifted kids, because few experts really see enough gifted kids to have seen a lot of highly or profoundly gifted kids. A classroom teacher might teach one child at the 1/1000 level in her lifetime, and how easy is it to blame that one child for whatever difficulties arise? Very easy indeed.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

My DD just entered K a few days ago at age 5 1/2. She has never been tested but she is certainly advanced. She is reading things like James & the Giant Peach, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Charlotte's Web & the Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. She is also advanced in math. We have not done any advocating. We picked the half-day program which is 2.5 hours & includes recess everyday & gym, art & music once a week. Her teacher stated that she believes in learning through play & the room is all center-based (DD loves the writing center).

So count us a nonadvocators thus far.

My daughter had behavioral issues at home, but was a peach at school. Well...because she didn't speak at all at school. She was selectively mute. But also gifted. Because of the selective mutism, we didn't rush to accommodate for that because if she couldn't speak in school, there would be no use in pushing her forward academically.

We focused instead on the mutism and the anxiety at school. She actually has an IEP for that. I worked on emotion coaching her at home using social stories.

But, we prepared her so well for this year, that she's made a huge breakthrough and spoke on the first day of classes and actually made some friends.

She did so well that when it came time to do initial reading assessments for her last week in kindergarten, she tested at a second grade reading level. She will be placed in a higher reading group and given challenging books to read for her take home books.

They differentiate the reading instruction, and sometime they will also differentiate the math instruction too (it's in the testing phases).

The wait and see approach has turned out better than I'd hoped it would.

Hi Sciencemama, that's a great story, glad to hear your dd is coming out of her shell and starting to be able to show folks more of her ability.

For some, us as well, it truly is the best thing! Glad everything worked out for y'all as well!