Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion 6 Year old possibly gifted

My son is having trouble in school because he blurts out answers ( they are right answers) here are the examples teacher gave me Friday:

1) They were reading a book in class and at the end the teacher asked what the meaning was, it was a pretty hard question and would require thinking, DS had it already in his head and just told the teacher the moral of the story!!

2) The teacher was teaching the class and right now they are looking at pictures to get the word so the word was DANCER teacher asks what the word is and what sound does the end make, DS blurts out DANCER and the ending sound is ER!

3) DS has subtraction down so he does not need the help of stacking cubes, so he asks what 4-2 is and DS blurts out 2!

That being said he told me that alot of times if DS did not say the answer there would still be a room full of silence with a bunch of eyes on him, he told me that DS was one of the smartest in his class!

He is ready for the accelerated reading program at school but right now not able to go to that because the teacher does not trust him to be able to walk down there without running and I guess not to distrupt the class there, the teacher wants us to work on behavior here at home with his compulsivity, I have no clue what he wants us to do, While in the meeting DS was being talked to by all of us and while I was talking DS was making yaking motions with his hands, after DS left the room teacher said that I should not have even talked to DS while he was doing that!

When asked if he showed signs of having ADD or ADHD I was told that although teacher was not a DR, he would say NO that DS could control ALL his behavior if he chose to!

The teacher says that Ds is showing signs of being gifted although that won't be confirmed until he is 8 or 9!!

What do you guys make of this?

My ds who is about to be 8, blurts out the answers in the co-op school he attends once a week . I think my son is just very eager as well as very smart. I do believe my son will outgrow this as well. In the mean time, I do talk to him about listening to the teacher and giving other kids a chance in a nice way as well as role play with him.

My son was assessed in kindergarten for giftedness, but did not really co-operate. I know this since I was in the other room and could hear his responses. He was just assessed again at almost 8 years of age and this time he co-operated very well.

I don't think they want assess him at this time!! They do however want him to stop blurting out! We are doing the sticker chart right now if he gets 2 stars aday that is one for the morning and one for the afternoon then he gets 2 stickers and after he gets 10 he gets something fun and right now that fun thing is CI-CI's pizza!

I just want him to do the best he can!

What do you all think about him being held back from the accelerated reading program because of all the things listed above? I don't know how I feel about this!! Or how I should be thinking about this!

If he is capable of accelerated reading, then I would insist on it. He is entitled to a free, appropriate education IMHO, I do not think blurting out answers should be an excuse to hold him back.

I would bet his "behavior" will be better in an accelerated environment. Someone from that class could be his "buddy" and come pick him up and walk back to the accelerated classroom, sit next to him, and show him how to behave. It would be a great leadership opportunity for the other child.

Its a lot easier to "control" behavior when your not bored.

I had/have a blurter. When I talked to him about it, he said he just needed to get out what he knew. He didn't want to forget what he had to say. With his teacher's permission, I gave him a pad of large, lined sticky notes for his desk. He could write down whatever he wanted to blurt out, and the teacher would look at it sometime during the day. He got out what he wanted to say, and his teacher acknowledged that he knew the answers, even though it wasn't instantaneous. He only kept up with his sticky notes for a couple of months, but it helped a lot.

Appropriate instruction for gifted kids is a must. Why does their instruction depend on behavour as if it is a treat. Kids on the other end of the spectrum get it as a right. I too am in advocacy mode so I say go for it.

Ditto. If nothing else, it's a reason to get him down there!

How is gifted education in your state? Here they have to test them if we request it. I wonder if it works like that there. Have you talked to the teacher about him possibly having those behaviors because he needs more advanced work? Seems like he really needs to be more challenged and her reasons for not putting him in advanced reading are not good reasons at all.