Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Advice? Gifted or Talented?

Hi Everyone!

My son has just turned 7 years old. He is a sociable, talented, and precocious child. He has never taken to early development of skills as he seems to need to perfect his abilities before he will willingly display them.

He was raised by two parents who majored in philosophy in university, and as such, has been raised with logic, reason, and bluntness. He never experienced baby-talk nor a dumbing down of topics. I've protected him from extreme violence, sex, and horrible news items, but not much else.

He is a fan of "pretending to be stupid" as we adult privately refer to the behavior. Recently, he was tested for the gifted program and barely missed the cutoff. He has an extensive vocabulary, knowledge of science, and ability to construct historically accurate structures with his blocks since age 3.

However, he has an intense love of video games. (He has grown up in a household of "geeks" and "nerds")

My son could tell you at age 4-5 how plants manufacture their food, how computers use binary code to operate, how a prism works, how solar power works and how to manage the power accumulated in a day, and anything about local wildlife and domestic animals. He understands the inner working of cells, the current impossibility of traveling at the speed of light, the theory of evolution, the cycle of life and death, the chain of infection and infection control, how a heart-bypass machine works (without explanation, but only through the text and pictures in my nursing textbook.) He currently wants to and is trying to learn the biological process that leads to the building of a scab.

At the same time, he adores video games and his life revolves around them. He owns an iPhone that was gifted to him, and old, broken PS3 with limitations he has learned to bypass to make it fully functional, and he plays and "beats" games that other adults find extremely difficult to defeat. His favorite games are: Plants vs. Zombies; Age of Empires; Age of Mythology; and MineCraft. He loves chess, photography, earth science, physics, astrology, math, drawing, singing, nature, video games, archery, medicine, and snorkeling.

His vocabulary is impressive, however, his reading skills are on an average level. He does not want to put the effort into reading, although he desires to be able to read and crows with pride whenever he *can* read something.

He is naturally able in math skills, however, he is not exposed to advanced math skills and he is not particularly inclined to learn mathematical skills at this time.

His first grade teacher was wholly impressed by him and he was given preliminary gifted testing, for which he did not quite qualify.

My question is this: I believe my son is quite gifted, but that he has not been exposed to *academic* excess. I believe that his mind is simply more capable and that his school work does not challenge him enough. He has earned about a 99% average for the entire school year despite the temperament issues I've already addressed.

I do not want to push my son in a direction that he should not be headed for, but I see a brilliance in him that I want to pinpoint and foster.

Any help and/or advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Welcome! The thing that jumps out at me is that you're saying your DS is not challenged, but you're also saying he doesn't want to work at reading or maths. This must present a problem for his teachers - challenging a child does take the child's cooperation, and until a child can read and do basic maths most teachers are going to see that as the major area in which to challenge, I think. Do they do project work, e.g. does he get to research a topic and write about it? That's an important part of challenge for my own DS7 (who is similarly very knowledgeable about many things, and loves finding out more, but still finds writing quite hard). If not, maybe encouraging him to do something like this at home might be an idea?

Do you feel there's actually a problem right now, e.g. is he unhappy or bored, or do you think there might be a 2e issue he needs help with (dyslexia?) or is it just that you're looking for positive ideas of useful things to do with him?

I also notice that I'm a bit confused about where is he in reading and maths. You describe him as average in reading, but you also make it sound as though he can't really read - IME, 7yos generally "can read" (even if they need help with some words, and might fail to comprehend complex sentences). That's why my mind turned to dyslexia, although of course it's not only dyslexic children who sometimes get into reading later than you might expect from their other abilities! You also say that he loves math, but then you also say that he isn't interested in learning mathematical skills - so what do you mean when you say he loves math? Maybe that he's interested in maths stories, but not interested in drilling his times tables? If it's that we can certainly make suggestions...

Thank you very much for the reply. My son does the work required of him and breezes through it at school, but once he comes home is near tears at having to do work "I already know how to do it, Mommy!!"

He has had no interest in working on his schoolwork until I bought him an advanced curriculum (this past week) to do "for fun." He goes through 15 pages of it a night on his on volition.

Teacher suspected he was gifted and has been sending gifted level work home with him for the past 9 weeks (we thought it was standard work for grade one.)

However, he was tested last week and did not quite make the cutoff for further testing for giftedness.

I am not certain if this is a good or bad development.

As for your specific questions:

They do not do "project work" although they are exposed to many field trips, science lab, etc. It is, for the American public school system, and rather well fleshed out curriculum.

(We, at home, DO engage him in a lot of extra activities. Two days ago he went to a festival to learn about the history of farming and life in the "pioneer" days.)

We discuss his daily activities in depth with him, ask him questions, and lead him to fill in the knowledge gaps that resulted from the experience. He loves to learn, but is only insatiable in the realms of science and nature.

My DS7 is a leftie and I feel that his difficulty in penmanship is causing him a large degree of ambivalence towards writing and reading. Funnily enough, video games are the only thing that has whetted his appetite for reading until this past few weeks. We are reading "The Hobbit" to him, a chapter a night, and he has finally regained his love of books.

As far as the reading confusion, please remember that his father and I had read entire encyclopedias before kindergarten. I am ill-equipped to handle a seven year old who is struggling to read at his grade level.

DS7 is simply extremely able to master any mathematical skill that has been presented to him.

The problem is that his father became ill and abandoned him two years ago while i was in nursing school. For one year, DS did not have enough of my guidance while he was in school. The second year, I was more inclined to allow him a happy, normal life than to feed that desperate mind of his.

DS is a practical and scientific child. He has no interest in learning for the sake of learning. He only cares about aquiring skills once they become valuable to him as tools for understanding the world around him.

I hope this helps you to understand my scientifically minded little boy.

Thank you very much for the reply.

I apologize.

I absolutely only want to do what is best for my son. I in no way need nor want for him to be extraordinary.

I anticipated that he would be and am actually more concerned that I may simply have an average, normal, healthy child when I had planned for the responsibility of raising a gifted one.

I in no way ever meant to imply that my son's mental capabilities would upset me, either way.

ETA: I worry that I had assumed too much of him and that I may be largely at fault for even being concerned. After all that he has gone through, I only want for him to be happy, healthy, and well-adjusted. If he needs something more, then I want to be able to provide it.

Don't apologise; I think what you're going through is well known to many parents here, and you've certainly come to the right place. (I myself have an academically very straightforward DS who self-taught reading at 2 etc., much as you might have been expecting, so I may not be the best person to advise, but I seem to be the one who is awake right now :-) Others will be along.)

I think the first thing I'd do would be to have a heart to heart with his teacher, if you haven't already. Tell her what you told us about his being upset because the work is too easy. It's great that she already sees him as gifted, but if he's very well-behaved and compliant in school she may simply not realise the extent to which he's not getting what he needs.

Do you know what the testing was? Given what you say, especially about his complaining that he already knows the work, and the fact that your DS's teacher thinks he's gifted, it does seem surprising that he missed the cutoff. One option for you might be to pursue further testing independently, although that can get costly. In deciding whether that's sensible (if it's possible) you'd have various factors to consider, including what the possible effects might be of a high score.

I'm sure you've thought of this, but can you use books about subjects your DS wants to know more about as a way to entice him into reading? I remember my DS puzzling out the text (small amounts it, but very hard to read) in a Venomous Animals book, just because he needed to know what it said and I didn't have time to read to him right then. [By the way, for all the importance of reading to our children, don't forget the importance of not reading to them sometimes too! In the first week of school, children in my DS's class - most of whom could not read, of course - were asked why they'd like to. My DS contributed "Being able to read is good because when you want a story and nobody wants to read it to you you can read it to yourself". I felt guilty at the time, but also, I'm sure my busy-ness contributed to his early reading!]

I could go on with other things to do (lens, microscope, weather station...) but actually it sounds as though you're doing a great job already finding things for your DS to do at home, so it's probably beside the point.

Winter -
It is hard to know what is going on. I would send a thank you note to the teacher thanking her for sending home homework that is more appropriate. I would also ask what test was used for the gifted program - the group intelligence tests, for example, start to fall apart with gifted kids. I know of course that this makes no sense, but in many schools this is they system in place.

So - number 1 - write the thankyou note.
2) Find out what test was used. Let us know.
3) If there is a Gifted Coordinator, ask her what the program is like, how often it meets and what the content of the program is like. Let us know.
4) Find out if there are any alternative routes into the gifted program, such as private testing.

Keep going with the advanced curriculum at home, and say more about his 'reading difficulties' - is he reading the Hobbit? Has he tried reading Earagon or the Harry Potter books?

If you want to 'pinpoint and foster' the qualities you see in him - either keep doing it at home which works well for some kids, or hire a private tester - one who gets gifted kids, and see if there are 2E issues at play. So much depends on the child's personality!

When you say what - exactly - are you referring to?

It sounds like your family has been through a lot the last few years, and I want to send some love to you for doing the best you could during those trying times. It isn't easy.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

ColinsMum,

Thank you for taking the time to write such a thorough reply. My son has been pampered to an extreme degree during the past two years. His father (my ex-husband) had extreme psychological issues that have resulted in a lot of protecting and coddling. DS has spent a lot of time with his great-grandmother, and honestly was not interested in reading. (Why do the work, when all the adults are completely willing to do it for you?) He is having to learn, only now, the value of developing these skills for himself.

He loves video games. The catalyst for his learning to appreciate the ability to read was actually because of my gaming habit. I was playing an old game that had loads of text dialogue and I refused (as you suggested!) to read it to him.

Fortunately, he has an excellent resource for his love of science. My housemate's parents own a self-sufficient farm that is also a wildlife conservation area, and housemate's father is a marine biologist. We visit every weekend and DS is always engaged in projects and educational experiences.

The child LOVES science.

My housemate is in his final year of college to become an Exceptional Student Teacher (ESE.) This semester, all of his observational hours have been done at DS's school. We have been able to thank his teacher in person, and have an ongoing rapport with her.


The person who tested DS is out this week and next week is spring break. I won't have an answer for you for a while. I know that multiplication word problems were a large portion of the test. It seems that it was more of an academic testing than the sort of testing one would get from a private test.

I will say that the testing was done on St. Patrick's day, when DS was dressed up and had a party to look forward to. I don't think the testing time was ideal at all.


again, this will take at least two weeks. The coordinator is out this week.



I completely agree. I am currently looking into private testing. I was advised that it is an acceptable alternative.

He is not reading chapter books independently. Housemate is reading to him nightly in order to show him what exists in "real" books vs. books with easily memorized text and pictures. I also allow 30 minutes nightly for him to watch me play the video game with all of the text in it. He mentally *fights* to read during that time as he is desperate to know the plot.

He almost always makes 100% on his tests. However, he has issues with self-control in class. He usually finishes his seatwork so soon, that he has a chance to draw extremely detailed pictures on the back of his work by the time his classmates have finished. This, according to his teacher, usually results in wandering and talking at inappropriate times. He also has small meltdowns when faced with "busy work." I've tried to explain to him that he should view such work as character building experience, as public school is at the least as much about learning to function in society as it is about education. That seemed to help a bit.


Thank you. Yes, we have been through hell and high water and are only now finally settling back into a normal life. I think this is another reason for some of DS's problems.

Love and More Love,
Grinity [/quote]

Well,
It looks like waiting for 2 weeks is the name of the game. I'm hoping you find lots of fun things to do over the week's vacation.

I was thinking that you could send 'chess puzzles' in for your son to work on after he finishes his work. They don't require a lot of reading, but there are books filled with them. The directions say things like 'Find White's move to Fork Black' and there is a little picture of a Chess bored with pictures of the pieces.

I'd love to stear you away from the electronic world, but if a fork is an eating utensil, try chessKIDs academy. See if you can interest your son in memorising the chessboard.

In a way chess 'literature' is like reading because it depends on processing visual inputs.

Oh yeah, have you had his vision checked?
Love and More Love,
Grinity

Grinity, I LOVE that idea! He was given a handmade wooden chess table and chairs for Christmas this year, and we bought glass pieces for him to use with it. His father used to play chess with him and he would LOVE to get back into it.

Will ask housemate (my resident gaming nerd) to look into your suggestion right now.

I'm a classical pianist and have considered trying to teach him to read music as well.

Yes, his vision and hearing are both excellent. He is screened both at school and by his pediatrician.

Thank you.