Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Some testing questions

Hello. I have a four-year-old who will be five in July, and I would like to get him tested. I want this not so much to see whether he is a good candidate for a Davidson gifted program, but more to find out extra information that would be helpful in his growing and learning process at home, as well as perhaps in the local school system.

Here are some of his traits:

1. He has what I consider to be a high level of artistic ability. He often combines objects and symbols in striking ways. At the age of two he basically discovered the form of Felix the Cat on his own, and his designs often show a great whimsy. He also shows more imagination than I would've thought a four-year-old capable, in terms of imaginative play and storytelling.

2. He has a fantastic verbal linguistic ability. He is constantly whipping out newly learned idioms with relish, and his grammar and syntax are impeccable. I can't estimate how many words and phrases he knows, and I am often amazed that he has been able to learn so many in such a short time.

3. He's reading at about a normal eight-year-old level, as far as I can tell, maybe more. About this, I admit to teaching him to read somewhat (although I dunno if it would qualify as hothousing by your standards here), but he does like to sit and read on his own and can do so for extended periods.

4. He's at least interested in math, although I doubt he is a great math genius. He can write and recognize arbitrarily large numbers (although he doesn't know the names of anything above millions), and is starting algebra. Now again, I have taught him math-- but it was partly to see how fast he could pick it up, and he is doing it very quickly. I basically postponed math teaching until quite recently, focusing on problem-solving skills instead. Until about two months ago, the extent of his math ability was counting to twenty or so, and doing small math in his head (keeping track o scores in simple counting games, etc.).

Right now, with sporadic and quite short ad-hoc lessons, basically whatever I can think of to throw at him at odd times during the week, he has a thorough grasp of the base-ten number system. I taught him the concept of a variable within several minutes one night, the next night built a simple scale with him to help teach the concept of an equation, and the next night he was able to do a simple system of equations (just basic substitution stuff with three variables) within several seconds. I had done this mostly because I wanted to gauge his aptitude at this point, as I had heard that children of this age generally are incapable of understanding abstract concepts such as variables.

He can also do integer math including negative numbers, which I taught him pretty quickly the other night using some Cuisenaire rods and a simple foldover paper widget I made. I am no math genius, but I do think I have a knack for teaching simple concepts-- so I don't know how much of this is considered to be hothousing, or how much of his ability is due just to the teaching. But I feel like the speed with which he learns abstract things must mean something, even if it is due to teaching in part.

5. He has pretty good game playing skills, which I guess are a special set of general reasoning abilities. He can beat his mother at Texas Hold 'Em handily (although she is pretty sucky at that game), and has picked up the mechanics of chess fairly easily recently, although he is not great at it yet. At games of what I would call medium complexity, such as different flavors of Blokus, Carcassonne, Risk, etc., he is capable of beating adults what I would guess is a large portion if not a majority of the time. He can't beat me so often, but does sometimes. We have a closet full of games he enjoys playing, including the ThinkFun solitaire games that he plays up to expert level and some of which he has finished.

6. He has great concentration. I have intentionally developed this as well as his memory, unfortunately for the ability to get a true assessment of genetic potential, perhaps... At the age of two he was able to sit through a feature film with sustained interest, and would often even at that age play with certain toys for hours. In fact some games, especially computer games like Warcraft III or Zoo Tycoon 2, he will play obsessively, to the point that I have to force him to stop. If he is doing something he enjoys, and I don't send him to bed, he will easily stay up until 2 or 3 a.m. until he falls asleep, exhausted.

7. In addition, he has one heck of a reasoning and argumentation ability. He is like a little lawyer, and will often make a compelling argument to get what he wants or to escape a punishment. He's also incredibly manipulative, although not in an evil way.

So...

He has just finished preschool, and we have to decide what to do with him. For financial reasons we will probably be sending him to public school at least for kindergarten. The thing is, in New Hampshire they apparently don't do a bang-up job of detecting bright children or making need-based services available to them; in fact the local educational philosophy seems to be based on "no child left behind", to the point that children are intentionally mixed together so that the bright children are in with the not-so-bright. Then, though they supposedly espouse the "habits of mind" approach, each class is taught to the same lesson plan.

I'm not so worried about this stunting my kid's development, as I can see that he will probably self-develop-- in fact I think I could stop teaching him and he would be fine. Still, I do want to give him the best chance at realizing his potential I can, so I would like to investigate documenting his level of need so I can push the school system to give him a little more in the way of specialized services, whatever might be available. My questions:

1. How likely is it that I am just a proud dad, and/or have hothoused him? (If I have been unintentionally hothousing him, I might not stop what I've been doing, since he has fun with it, but I may back off on thinking of him as having fantastic potential.)

2. Would you test my child, if you had to pay and money was tight? Or would you just let him develop naturally and not worry about it?

3. How do I find out what testing centers are available in Massachusetts and New Hampshire? Do I need to look for local psychologists instead of centers? I found one place in Philadelphia, but it would be inconvenient to travel so far.

Thanks a lot.

I don't think that you are hothousing, you and your son seem to be having fun - a particular family version of fun, but fun nonetheless.

I would get the testing, because having guidance one can trust is a wonderful thing. You are so lucky to be within driving distance of
http://www.davincilearning.org/

Aimee Yermish
30 Carriage Lane
Stow, MA 01775

(978) 461-4815

aimee@davincilearning.org
www.davincilearning.org

I would recommend to call her and say what you said here about your concerns. Also - go observe some Kindy classrooms and 1st grade classrooms.

With gifted kids the academic problem with school can be though about as
1) level
2) pace

So even if you were scrupulous about not introducing 'school topics' with your son and he didn't know how to read one letter, he could still need a gradeskip because the pace might unhinge him. You seem to be intuitively aware of this.

Public schools can be good places for kids of all LOG (levels of giftedness) but that requires someone (often the parents) to do some fancy footwork (advocacy) and be flexible (asking for whatever gradeskips and subject accelerations are needed to keep school fun and satisfying.

I would also ask Aimee for suggestions of social events where your son (and you and DW) would get chances to hang out with 'true peers.' I believe that it is good to have a wide variety of friends, and that variety comes in many flavors, but that finding 'true peers' rather than agemates is an important part of that mix. Depending on where one lives, this can be quite a challenge, and need some careful planning.

funny story about that linguistic ability - my son, now 13 also had that amazing linguistic ability, and lawyer-like mentality. In 2nd grade, one of the staff at his school treated him unfairly. He called her a 'hag.' He claimed that he didn't know what it meant, but that it just slipped out. He was duly punished, and became more thoughtful.

Bottom Line: Develop a poker face, because it was very funny, and I didn't dare laugh.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Welcome!

That doesn't sound like hothousing to me. Remember, that some kids wouldn't pick those things up even if their parents hothoused them so your son is obviously (to me) a very bright boy. I'd get him tested if the money is available. There is a lady in NH named Sandra-Leigh Sprecker Marlow who does gifted testing. Have you talked to your local school district yet?

How did you teach him to read? I ask because my DD4 is reading but it is very hard for me to assess what level she is reading at because she doesn't like reading aloud or to me or being asked about. She shocks me with the words she can read and when she is willing her fluency. I'd actually like to help her develop better fluency since I think she would like that, but am not sure how best to work with her and was wondering how you taught him (I have no probem with someone intentionally teaching their child to read if the child enjoys it so don't worry I will think you are hothousing. I am not so touchy about that issue as some people are).

Good luck.

Many thanks. I've sent an email to Aimee Yarmish and will follow up.

One frustrating thing about New Hampshire is that they have funding problems, but in addition they don't seem to do a good job of detecting giftedness, at least at this age. There is also a strong tendency not to grade-skip for kids entering kindergarten, as they told my wife when she asked about it.

To some degree I understand, especially if IQ assessments are considered to be unreliable at this age, but I see the problem not as my kid being with relatively less talented kids, but rather as not being with kids who are ready to play and learn at the same level. Even one or more grade-skips might not be ideal due to pacing and behavioral differences, but that's still an option that I want to explore. Thanks again.

Thank you for the info and support, TwinkleToes. It is greatly appreciated. So far we've talked to the local school district only at a pre-K information session.

Regarding reading, I used some specific techniques that are a hodgepodge of things I've read and things I thought of on my own, including:

* Sounding-out techniques, including encouraging him to bridge the sounds more and more instead of uttering them discretely, and to notice common letter combinations
* Hunting for small sight words like "and", "the" in pages to improve scanning and comprehension of sentence structure
* Using flash cards (the "Phonics Made Easy" flash cards by School Zone were helpful)
* Using letter tiles to teach different words with the same phonemes together, and playing a word morph game by changing single letters at a time
* Noting with interest oddities of words we were reading, and/or similarities to other words we knew
* Sending him on a scavenger hunt for a specific word, to find it in any book in the house
* Closing a book temporarily and asking him to spell a word for me that is somewhere in the page just read
* Inflection practice
* Doing drills such as speeding through a book just read, to improve recall in general and of context, which increased his confidence in reading the books himself
* Finding small contextual things in the text to remember. For instance, he always looked forward to "Big Dog, Little Dog" for the chance to utter the phrase "Fred got wet butt" (which occurs as "Fred got wet, but" in the text)
* Having him read subtitles on some movies, when they came up
* Whenever he finished a book, I'd get him a new one. This is a bit tricky because he already had a bunch of books, most of which on a particular day would sit on his bookshelves, but I'd take special care to find an especially exciting book for reward purposes.

His book progression has included P.D. Eastman and similar stuff early on, and later on stories such as the Otto and Uncle Tooth books (which I can't recommend enough), and at present he is enjoying a bunch of DK books as well as Tintin, Carl Barks duck comics, etc. He loves a good adventure, and learning about how things work.

I have a high opinion of some of the Step Into Reading types of level readers, but they are hit and miss; some are awful. The good thing is that they are cheap, and sometimes you can find a copy to look at locally before you buy. For early reading they were helpful.

I'm not sure about the best approach with your daughter. If she is touchy about reading, it may be that she is not sure of herself yet and wants to reveal her skill when she is. I just don't know what would cause that in your situation, or if it's just a personality quirk. I would try to make small games out of reading to get her to open up, I guess. Keep it light, playful, and without any possible downsides. When she wants to quit, quit.

Another thing to try is self-teaching tools. I have a low opinion of a lot of LeapFrog toys, but at one point my son used Fridge Phonics. Now, I actually hate some features of those products; for example, in ours they only have two slots for sounds made by a particular letter. But for double-checking things on his own, they were helpful. The only problem is that no self-teaching toy I'm aware of may be good for your daughter's current level. That's too bad, as a correct one would be easy to develop in my opinion.

Incidentally, I think that intellectual courage is one of the most important things to teach and encourage-- right up there with honesty and kindness, or almost. But that is a big topic and I'm not so sure that I can give specific advice about your situation. I just know what has worked with my son.

As a fellow NH mom I feel your pain. We used a private tester in Southern Maine when my son was 4 years 9 months old. I can give you her info if you still need someone.

We saw quite a few of the same characteristics that you posted in our son at that age that prompted us to get him tested. I feel that even though he was young we got a lot of great information about our son from testing. He also qualified for DYS (which was just a bonus).

Have you checked out the Manchester Alliance for the Gifted Yahoo group? We have a pretty good support system with monthly meetings at Barnes and Nobles in Manchester. I am also one of the founding board members of the Scholars' Academy- the first school for gifted children in NH.

My son currently attends public school and we have worked with the principal to make accommodations to meet his needs. It's not perfect but I have found that each school in NH must follow age laws until the child is 6 and after that the placement is at the discretion of the school. We have been trying to focus more on student teacher fit than actual grade placement because right now, to me, that's the most important factor.

Very good point!

Teacher-student fit can make a giant difference.

Other option is to keep child homeschooled until age 6, and try public school then.

((Humor Alert)) - Makes me want to start forging birth certificates.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Exactly! The truth is that many kids do not really need the fit to be custom-taylored, just in the ballpark - otherwise skips wouldn't work at all, and they seem to work well for many little gifties.

Sometimes schools act like 'we never do that' until they meet your child or see the IQ results, and then 'magic amnesia' they do. Perhaps your child could be a kindy on paper, but spend all his time except lunch and gym in various classrooms with subject accelerations to meet his 'readiness level' until he turns 6. A little creativity can go a long way once all the interested parties get on the same page.

Thanks so much for your detailed response. I actually admire parents who take the time to help their children learn to do things, esp. reading if the child enjoys it and there isn't a pressured situation, and am not touchy about hothousing at all. I'm oddly envious in a way because I love teaching (I was a teacher) but my DD4 likes to be in charge and we don't do structured learning yet.

I bought the Leapfrog fridge letters when she was a year and a half, slapped them on the fridge, and she taughter herself all the letter sounds a couple days later and I never touched them. To help her learn to read, I read tons of rhyming books when she was a baby to help with phonemic awareness, and traced my finger on words, and then there was a period when she was two years, maybe two and a half where she would ask me to write words, and so I did, then she started spelling out words so I one day I saw a pack of sight word flashcards for a dollar at Target and she knew every singe word in there and I was utterly shocked, really, shocked and that was the one and only time I tried flashcards. This was before her third birthday. I had no idea she knew all those words so for the most part I feel as though I have been trying to provide the right groundwork for reading--books, rhymes, songs, storytimes--but wasn't involved in the nuts and bolts of how she came to do it so now when I want to help her to go to another level, we haven't established that pattern and she just stubborn about wanting to learn things without "interference."

At this point, she can sound out and read words like constellation/ celebration / Antarctica / impressive / etc. so she really just need to read more to become more confident and fluent. I am just dying to know what goes on in that little head and feel left out of the process. She does read to me sometimes: reads my emails to me over my shoulder, reads things online, reads here and there in books to me, but I guess I am just greedy to hear more and I may have to wait and know she isn't showing me what is in there and I am just curious.

Yesterday we did play some games using stuffed animals and "they" will read and do learning type things. I think she has a perfectionistic streak that can get in her way with this, but in other settings, she is very confident. She doesn't want to do what others want her to do so she may just not do something if someone asked, even if they ask in a nice, playful way. It is strange because I have never pushed her, yet she just wants to do what she wants to do when she wants to do it and so I don't push because I want her to love learning and not feel she has to perform.

Grinity, thanks again for the great input. crisc, thanks for tips, and I will definitely at least look up that Yahoo group, and I am sure we'll meet someday.

Twinkle Toes (I smile every time I type that), your daughter sounds courageous enough, if she's tackling things on her own. She's probably just a bit perfectionist as you say, which wouldn't be out of place for an intelligent child. I was worried that she was suffering from what my own mother did to me when I was a kid. She proudly told everyone I was brilliant, and it got to the point that I was afraid to try when I felt that there would be serious consequences of failure-- that is, if I failed at something large, the perception might be that I wasn't brilliant. Together with some other bad lessons (e.g. laziness, through being rewarded for doing things well last-minute) I had a lot to unlearn as I got older.