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I am afraid of him becoming bored and turning off to school, absolutely. It frightens me that he spends his day playing games in his head instead of engaged, learning, and loving it.
My husband and I had actually spoken about moving to Nevada for that school, but we have my husband's work out here and another daughter to consider. We decided that if push comes to shove, we'd move, but we'd prefer to stay out here and try to find something more fitting. PISD simply isn't working even though he's at an excellent school that people rave about. I'm sure it's a stupendous school for most kids.
I'm sure he will drop especially if he stays at PISD and goes bored out his gourd. I just don't think he'll drop so much that he'll fall into normal ranges.
When I went to the mensa website, it said only kids over 14 years old. Am I missing something? Maybe I'm not looking in the right place.
So you think in addition to schooling I should be getting him a math tutor? He already speaks 3 languages. He speaks English, ASL, and Hebrew.
Good times indeed. I wish that there were more things available for the Gifted kids with a capital G. Both sides of the spectrum have special needs that should be met.
Plano IS a very good public school system. Arguably one of the best in this area, if not Texas. However, I have rarely seen ANY public schools that will provide the support your son needs. Usually their answer is to skip a grade. Sometimes, socially and emotionally that just isnt appropriate and you just have to weigh what's best for your particular child. I also don't think just supplementing out of school is the answer as it doesn't solve the boredom in school. Is it feasible to look at some of the private schools in the area? If cost is an issue I wonder if scholarships are available for such a gifted child.
We had a similar situation at hand. If you choose to stay at PISD definitely look into grade acceleration and Math Rocks. Also, do not hesitate to talk to his teachers/principal etc. There are things they can do. For example they have access to numerous online tools etc. that your child can use to get above level instruction/practice instead of following the regular curriculum. But of course these require extra effort on the teacher's side and most teachers won't provide extra unless the parents REALLY ask for it.
Above level Math classes outside of school made a huge difference in our case. Once challenged properly, my daughter turned into a much happier person. But still, spending all day at school not doing much learning and then running from activity to activity for enrichment after school takes a toll on the whole family. We switched this year to private school at 5th grade but it is still too early to say something about the level of instruction that will be provided at her level. Good luck.
I think you would be remiss if you did not at least scheduling a meeting with St. Marks and Greenhill and get their thoughts/suggestions, etc. They have more experience with extremely gift children than almost anyone you could name.
I am afraid of him becoming bored and turning off to school, absolutely. It frightens me that he spends his day playing games in his head instead of engaged, learning, and loving it.
My husband and I had actually spoken about moving to Nevada for that school, but we have my husband's work out here and another daughter to consider. We decided that if push comes to shove, we'd move, but we'd prefer to stay out here and try to find something more fitting. PISD simply isn't working even though he's at an excellent school that people rave about. I'm sure it's a stupendous school for most kids.
I'm sure he will drop especially if he stays at PISD and goes bored out his gourd. I just don't think he'll drop so much that he'll fall into normal ranges.
When I went to the mensa website, it said only kids over 14 years old. Am I missing something? Maybe I'm not looking in the right place.
So you think in addition to schooling I should be getting him a math tutor? He already speaks 3 languages. He speaks English, ASL, and Hebrew.
Good times indeed. I wish that there were more things available for the Gifted kids with a capital G. Both sides of the spectrum have special needs that should be met.
Thanks for your private message. I've responded.
Lerd,
Ramblings:
The boredom factor can be a real problem. As mentioned by others maybe press his school for more voluminous and more challenging works while at school. Surely that may be accomplished without placing an onerous burden on his teacher(s).
I agree fully with some of the other comments in this thread. It's ironic and sad and maybe a bit irrational that we spend millions and millions per year locally devising special strategies and deploying manpower in order to teach special needs kids but well behaved very smart kids are allowed to fishtail.
It is a bit galling that within public school settings most times very bright kids have to be challenged at home instead of at school.
Make sure, bored or not, that he maintains very good grades. Going forward into middle school and beyond he needs to carry a 4.0 no excuses.
Ask him to experiment with mental math. My boy used to cypher simultaneous equations and derivatives in his head. With some time your boy could get into fractals and manifolds etc. For these kids that kind of thing can be relaxing - sort of self therapy.
A strong math tutor, in my opinion, was the best thing we ever arranged for our boy. I'd advise it unreservedly.
So far as his IQ drifting downwards it most likely will but I'd bet a tidy sum that his IQ will settle between 145-150 (leaning towards the higher portion of that range). It's very unlikely his IQ will drift as low as 140 unless you all let him drift over the next few years. Alternatively, if he works hard and maintains focus his IQ might hold or increase a bit.
We had a similar situation at hand. If you choose to stay at PISD definitely look into grade acceleration and Math Rocks. Also, do not hesitate to talk to his teachers/principal etc. There are things they can do. For example they have access to numerous online tools etc. that your child can use to get above level instruction/practice instead of following the regular curriculum. But of course these require extra effort on the teacher's side and most teachers won't provide extra unless the parents REALLY ask for it.
Above level Math classes outside of school made a huge difference in our case. Once challenged properly, my daughter turned into a much happier person. But still, spending all day at school not doing much learning and then running from activity to activity for enrichment after school takes a toll on the whole family. We switched this year to private school at 5th grade but it is still too early to say something about the level of instruction that will be provided at her level. Good luck.
Your second paragraph speaks to me. With a baby, it's hard to do all that running around. Plus, after school activities don't do much in the way of helping during the school day to keep him engaged. I would love it if you report back about how private school is going for you guys. I'm interested in what it's like to make the switch from public to private.
Keribeth818, we are absolutely considering private schools. Our front runners at the moment are St. Marks, Greenhill, and Lamplighter.
Hockdad, thank you. Will do. Both are toward the top of our list.
EDS, I'll bring up the workload at conferences on the 20th. It is so very tough that the brightest of the bright are pretty well left to their own devices. He's in kindergarten currently, so I'm not worried about grades. He said the class learned the letter P yesterday with a laugh. Honestly not at all concerned. My son does work on math. His current obsession is money. We bought him a cash register, and he plays shop. He charges us, gives us coupons, calculates totals all in his head. He only uses the cash register to swipe our "credit card."
Wow, 152 is awesome. If I remember correctly, an IQ of 130 qualifies a student into the gifted program. No wonder he's bored. The gifted program in my district is a pull-out program. Your son needs more than that.
Might need to know more than just IQ. What grade is your child in? What other scores have they been receiving (Lexile, NNAT, CogAT, etc.)?
That type of info might help any folks here who have children with similar background, or who have professional experience, to guide you on which program or school might be best fitting.
IQ is only one factor in your decision making, and, as mentioned by another poster, it has its limitations.
The other thing is what are you willing to spend, or are you willing/able to move? Suggestions for programs that don't fit your constraints, won't help.
Also, if you have not explored this already, the following link has several resources to check out...you might find some part of what you are looking for there. http://txgifted.org/web-resources-parents/
Last edited by Transplanted99; 10-17-2014 at 02:08 PM..
Wow, 152 is awesome. If I remember correctly, an IQ of 130 qualifies a student into the gifted program. No wonder he's bored. The gifted program in my district is a pull-out program. Your son needs more than that.
Not sure they measure it as IQ nowadays. Each district runs its own tests... they all seem to pick from a small group of standardized tests that measure various skills/abilities, such as reading/comprehension, math, logic, etc., where each portion is scored and an overall score is given with a percentile. Each has a percentile range that they will accept a student into their GT program. Ranges seem to be from the top 5% to the top 2% - probably based roughly on demand vs space available.
1. How old is he? At less than about 6th grade a kid's IQ performance can fluctuate greatly. Lots of kids who were coached up by their parents as little kids, taught to read and fiddle with math etc. early, tend to drift back towards the mean over time.
Not really. IQ tests,properly administered one-on-one by a psychologist, tend to be accurate after age 6. There is very little fluctuation after that point. IQ tests don’t test for knowledge (reading skills, math skills, etc.) but for quickness of thinking, so coaching in math and reading can’t possibly prepare you for one.
However, the criteria many school districts in north Texas use for admission to gifted elementary school programs do not include an individual IQ test of this nature. Instead, criteria typically includes a combination of teacher recommendations and observation, reading and math achievement tests (for which astudent most certainly can be coached) and group cognitive ability tests (which are a type of IQ test but somewhat less accurate than individual IQ tests and even occasionally negatively correlated at the high IQ extremes). It is quite possible many of the students in these gifted programs are simply of above average IQ (115-128 range), high achievers, and teacher pleasers, and that some gifted children (with IQs of 140+) are overlooked and never referred for testing as they day dream out the window all school day or annoy the teacher by talking back to her and correcting her when she’s wrong.
If a student is truly profoundly gifted (which would mean a full scale IQ of at least 152 on the WISC), I would strongly recommend a private gifted school or home school. No offense against schools that serve average children well, but I do not think any of the public elementary or middle schools in north Texas can provide a sufficient education to a profoundly gifted student. Even as a parent of non-gifted but above-average students, I have been disappointed that the education is nowhere as near "top-notch" as I had been led to believe. In elementary school, it is very much an "every kid on the same page of the same book every day" system. Kids are not really tracked and grouped according to level in elementary school, as they were where I used to live.
Last edited by Ralyks; 10-19-2014 at 03:56 PM..
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