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While the idea that Thomas Edison’s mother hid the fact that a schoolteacher had called him “addled” so that he could reach his full potential is inspirational — it’s also false.
First, Thomas Edison was dyslexic, which would have made it difficult for him to succeed in an 1800s classroom. Research on dyslexia didn’t begin until the early 1900s, decades after Edison had left public schools, so little was known about it at the time.
Schools need to have gifted programs where those students are grouped and taught together. Grouping them in the regular class and just giving them more work to do is a copout.
I agree with this.
Does your district have someone who can test her for being gifted? To see if a child qualifies for the gifted program in our school district a portfolio of the child's work, a questionnaire filled out by the teacher the parent and the child's pediatrician, and an assessment by a psychologist are required.
I also do not think changing schools is necessarily a bad idea if your child is gifted. If you can find a school with a good gifted program now is a good time to change schools. It only gets harder to do later if you find you aren't satisfied with the school she is in now. Being the smartest kid in the class isn't always a good thing, kids can feel out of place and find themselves struggling to connect with their classmates if they don't relate on the same level.
Research any gifted programs though, busy work or doing the same work at an accelerated pace isn't the same as a good gifted program.
good place to start for parents new to the idea of possibly having a gifted child > http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/gifted_101.htm
Unfortunately, I do not have any good advice for the OP. But I do agree with posters who advise against skipping a grade. That can cause severe social problems later on. Nobody wants to be the only high school senior who is too young to drive, or a college freshman who is still a minor, or a the only college senior who is too young to drink.
Being able to drive is irrelevant for some students. If you don't have a car, what does it matter whether you can or can't drive? And too young to drink? You're assuming everyone wants to party and drink, which isn't the case. There's such a tremendous variety of personalities in HS and in college, that people find their own type. If you don't fit in with one group, you find a group you do fit into, or create your own. Or hang out with one good friend. These may be issues for some students, but not for all. It's not a justification for holding a student back if they're capable of advancing more quickly.
Schools need to have gifted programs where those students are grouped and taught together. Grouping them in the regular class and just giving them more work to do is a copout.
Of course, but we're not debating that. The OP said her daughter's school only begins the gifted programs in the later years of elementary, so she has to figure out how to keep her challenged and interested until the program begins. The child may get turned off to schooling if a solution isn't found for the first 3 years.
Hi, I'm hoping to get some advice on how to best support our daughter in school, and also a bit about what to expect. She's in first grade. We just got her NWEA MAP assessment results, 99th percentile in both reading and math. I'm not too surprised, since she loves to read and seems to pick up math easily. In kindergarten, she was ahead and I thought she might just be "early" in developing some abilities, but I'm coming around to the idea that she may be blessed with a high capacity to learn.
I'm not looking to make a bragging post about this, and I hope it doesn't come across like that.
I am wondering what to ask her teacher at our parent conference next week, and what is reasonable to expect her school to be able to do to help keep her challenged? I'm a big believer in teachers and parents being partners, and I fully understand that her teacher has a full classroom of children to teach. Her teacher seems very nice. I think our school district's gifted/talented program starts at 3rd or 4th grade, so I'm not sure if there really is anything to "do" at this point? We're in a small school district.
My daughter is complaining of being bored at school She complained toward the end of kindergarten, also. But, she also complains about having to follow rules like being quiet and lining up a lot, which are frankly just part of school and things that she has to get used to...
I'm feeling unsure about what I ought to be doing to help her have a positive experience with school.I was also scoring in high percentiles on standardized tests by the end of high school, but I was a later bloomer and I don't recall feeling bored in elementary school. My husband was a bit like her and acted out a lot in the later grades.
Should we be looking to switch to a school district with certain resources available? Skip a grade?
At home, she has access to a lot of books, fiction and nonfiction. She does a couple sports, girl scouts, and takes a Spanish class once a week. She isn't interested in a musical instrument, at least not yet. She also gets plenty of time just hanging out outside, etc.
I think that discussing what you wanted to with the teacher is prudent. Personally I wouldn't move her to a special school if she has access to advanced classes at the grade school she is now registered.
Involve your child in discussions and decisions about her schooling. She might have been bored in Kindergarten but grade school is highly different not only because of many rules and regulations but also because the environment is more regimented, strict, and organized.
Waiting in line can be a good way to train patience which is an advanced social skill.
We meet with her teacher on Thursday, so I'll report back later in the week.
Our school district is small (around 180 kids total in her grade), so I think it will be a question of what her teacher can do with her, and if there are some other kids her age who are at a similar stage in math & reading. Or, if I should just do a bit more with her in a more structured way at home.
Mostly we just let her read when she wants to and talk about the books together. My husband and I have shown her some extra math (e.g., basic multiplication) as something fun to try. And she just picks it up. We're not teachers, and she's our oldest child, so I feel unsure sometimes. I don't want to push her too much academically, I want to follow her lead so the motivation is her own.
Most public school don't have the resources to address the advanced kids (especially at lower grade level). Some school district will have GAP or similar programs to pull out kids that are more advanced. My experience with those are that it could be good and bad. My kids are in big school district so by 5th grade, advanced kids are pulled into the accelerated or compact track.
There are programs such as CTY but they are very expensive. There are financial aid available for those who qualify. I went through some similar when my kids started public school. I ended up by supplementing other activities into their education. Pretty soon, they learn to adjust to understanding what's expected in school and continue to be part of the class without being bored or disruptive.
I also have a gifted child (she has been assessed by a psychologist) so I can tell you what we're doing, which seems to be working well.
When my daughter was in preschool, she had an excellent teacher who told me she thought my child might turn out to be gifted, and suggested that I work with her after school. So I did. I've been working with her since the age of 3 (she is now 7 and in 2nd grade), and my daughter tells me that she isn't bored in school, because it is easy, relaxing, and fun, and then in the evenings when she gets home and works with me is when she actually gets to learn things. So basically I keep her from getting bored at school because she knows that she will get to learn new things at home.
One thing I did do is enroll her in a private school that does not do the endless barrage of testing and "teaching to the test". This school does multiple recesses, art class, music class, science lab, foreign language, PE, etc. They have a very well stocked library and have an open door policy where kids (as young as Kindergarten) are allowed to go to the library and get a book whenever they have finished their work. They have a light homework policy in elementary, and their homework every night generally consists of "read, and study your spelling words". I really wanted her in a school where she wouldn't spend six and a half hours sitting at a desk just to come home and sit and work some more, so this works out really well. By the time she gets home, she's had fun all day and is ready to do a bit of work.
After school, what I do, is I purchase homeschooling materials that are geared to gifted students. There's plenty out there. My daughter really likes math, so I buy her the Singapore Math curriculum two years ahead plus the extra challenge workbooks. I also buy the Homeschooler's manual and either buy or make the teaching materials, and I do literally sit down and teach her the math lessons every night. The lesson itself usually only takes about 10 minutes, and then there's about 20 minutes of practice. Then on the weekends we work on the extra challenge workbooks which applies the math she just learned to out of the box critical thinking type problems. We also work in Vocabulary Workshop workbooks (2 grades ahead), and of course we read a lot. She also takes piano lessons and Tae Kwon Do.
You don't have to do math if that's not your child's passion. The key is to find her passions, and the areas where she yearns to be stretched, and then fill that need. Unfortunately, it is very hard to have that need filled at school unless you are lucky enough to live where there are exclusively gifted schools (like in Chicago) and your child passes the VERY competitive entrance tests. For all the rest of us, the best option is to fill the need at home. From anecdotal experience, it seems that homeschool curriculums at about 2 grades ahead is usually a very good place to start.
If you don't feel like you can teach at a gifted level, you can also outsource it. It was mentioned earlier that there are several Saturday and summer programs for gifted children, like CTY. We are planning on sending our daughter to Vanderbilt's SAVY program and John's Hopkins CTY program this summer. There are also online courses your child can take during the year, for example Stanford University runs an online program over at GiftedandTalented.com. I'm not using their program at the moment because it's essentially the same as what I'm doing at home, but if for whatever reason I find I cannot do it anymore, or I start to get in over my head, I will probably use it. CTY also has some online classes we're looking at, the Mandarin Chinese sequence looks especially interesting.
We meet with her teacher on Thursday, so I'll report back later in the week.
Our school district is small (around 180 kids total in her grade), so I think it will be a question of what her teacher can do with her, and if there are some other kids her age who are at a similar stage in math & reading. Or, if I should just do a bit more with her in a more structured way at home.
Mostly we just let her read when she wants to and talk about the books together. My husband and I have shown her some extra math (e.g., basic multiplication) as something fun to try. And she just picks it up. We're not teachers, and she's our oldest child, so I feel unsure sometimes. I don't want to push her too much academically, I want to follow her lead so the motivation is her own.
Even in a small district they can do things such as have advanced children go to a higher grade classroom for reading and/or math. In my district sometimes children even go up two grade levels, such as 2nd grader joining a 4th grade class for reading or math. In some ways it can be the best of both worlds. The child is with their age peers for social activities, recess, lunch, specials and things like science & social studies but are challenged in the key academic areas. When they need to go to MS or HS for the advanced classes the district works it out in various ways, such as having the 5th grader start their day at the MS for 6th or 7th grade math and/or reading and then join their peers at the elementary school after those classes, or sometimes they have a staff member drive them to the MS for classes during the day. It just depends on the child.
There are plenty of things that a child can do independently, without a lot of teacher support, such as research topics of interest and do independent projects or write papers. While it is a little more difficult to do at the lower grades, it is not impossible. IMHO, most truly gifted children are self-starters and can easily find productive ways to build their skills.
Of course, things like piano or violin lessons, learning a foreign language, team sports and creative things like art, music or drama can also be very important to help a gifted child be well rounded.
Good luck.
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She complained toward the end of kindergarten, also. But, she also complains about having to follow rules like being quiet and lining up a lot, which are frankly just part of school and things that she has to get used to... 
