BellaOnline Forums Education Gifted Education at a crossroads with my gifted son

My dd brought home her class schedule with teachers. Oh my, here we go again. I love summer. Are any of you familiar with AR, the accelerated reading program, or the new senior project?

I only know about AR from others -- but what I've heard isn't pretty. I know a boy that was given such a high AR goal, that he didn't pick out books based on what would be interesting, but based on points, so he could get that ridiculous goal set for him.

I think every school that has that program should have the powers that be read Punished By Rewards. Those sort of programs -- including reading incentives -- killed my son's reading for a long time.

I just wanted to share an update. I am now homeschooling zoren. he loves it! i haven't seen that zeal since before i sent him to school. i got my kid back. i expect that we will hit our bumps, our obstinate mornings, our days off for mommy burnout. A week in, it's working for us. You're right, Lorel. It was a weight off to just make the decision, roll with it, and stop fighting for what he needs and provide it.

before we decided for certain, he attended a trial week at their K-2 summer program so that the potential teachers could become familiar with him. after a week, they had already seen the brain and the boredom. he sat with the 2nd grade kids by choice (he turned 5 today), and socially fit, but was bored out of his mind by the work). They met with me, the principal, curriculum coordinator for the district, and the educational services director. they offered grade skips, but admitted that in class acceleration or differentiation would be very limited. he's not going to slow down the rate at which he learns. so, instead of eventually having him in with kids significantly older than him (i didn't like the idea of social exposure), we decided the only viable and local option for him is homeschool.

so, here we go!

We've done a few things and ds is only 6 years old. At his tender age, he's already a preschool and a kindergarten "drop out." A few months into preschool, which he absolutely pleaded and begged to attend with one of his friends who also has a fall b-day, the novelty wore off and he didn't want to go back. We made him stick out on more month just to see if it was phase and to see if we could advocate for an adaptations, we pulled him out.

We happened to be homeschooling that year because we had just brought home our newest son, who was 6 at the time, and our oldest would have been the only child leaving for school each day. We also did not think she would do well in 1st Grade with all the upheaval in our home that year. So... we just homeschooled him at that K/1st level.

DH really wanted to give public school a try so we put everyone in school last fall. The older two did fine, but K was devastated by the 3rd day when he realized that kindergarten was simply a repeat of preschool. He tried to shine - and the regular teacher may have noticed - but there was a student teacher that year. When our 2nd grader brought home her homework, K snatched it up and did it himself. When we tried to bring this to the attention of the regular kindy teacher, she was too stressed to listen.

By the end of week two, K was experiencing health problems due to the stress and coming home in tears. He's a stoic kid, though, and would put on a happy face for his teacher because he had been taught by us to behave and respect your elders (unless safety is a concern). We brought it up again... this time to the principal. Assessments were done, a meet was had, and they finally agreed to part time 1st grade while still attending afternoon kindergarten.

We decided to play it their way as far as we and our son could stand it. At the 6th meeting we all but demanded grade acceleration. Our little guy was stressed out, depressed, begging & pleading to homeschool and ready to give up on life. After winter break, he was full-time in 1st grade. Once he settled in and trusted he was there to stay, he thrived.

Now 2nd grade starts next week and I'm nervous about how things will go. Just because last year was finally successful... to a point... there's no reason to believe this year will be.

Zandes,

I am SO happy to hear that homeschooling is working for you! Hurrah! Have you been able to meet with other homeschooling families yet?

Rebecca,

You highlight a very important point. Kids who don't get any challenge in school often become depressed or angry, and eventually may "tune out" altogether. People often perceive pro grade skip parents as "pushing" their child, when in fact the child is the one chomping at the bit. I hope that your son's school will continue to monitor him and make accommodations as neccessary.

i saw the tune out in prek, which improved some when she moved him to the k class for most of the day. the teachers at our trial noticed he was much happier working with the 2nd graders on their work. i didn't know when the acceleration would be enough to challenge him, and wasn't sure he'd still get to be 5 years old.

hs is how we think it's going to work out best for him.
however, we're still struggling to find our community.
any suggestions on how to dig out secular, gifted, unschoolers?

Zandes-

I'm going to start a new thread on this topic.

YES

I feel the pain.

Update... We're unfortunately experiencing some unexpected difficulties this year. We ended up having to place the DS (age 8) in our local public school as the magnate school bumped his placement to make space for a local student. When we enrolled him in the public school, the sending school provided all of their notes, test scores, grades, etc. The receiving school didn't look at any of it, instead insisted on putting him into an age appropriate class room. Several conferences later (and its only week three for him) they finally realized the behavior problems they're seeing ARE resulting because he's bored. He needs to be challenged. So they're moving him into an accelerated reading program. Oi... if they'd just read the notes from the prior school and followed through on the suggestions made by the teachers and counselors that had worked with him previously... Ugh...

And now I have to work with this same school to try to get speech pathology set up for my DD when she turns 3 and no longer qualifies for early childhood intervention.

Lynn-

Have you made any progress at the school? It really is a new battle every year, as the kids change schools or teachers. I hope that you can get your son squared away sooner rather than later this year. It sounded as though you put a lot fo thought into selecting the new school. It would be a terrible shame if it wasn't much different after all.

Please keep us posted!