Gifted/Very Bright Children and School

amother

Chocolate

Thu, May 04 2017, 3:12 pm

My 4 year old son is very bright, a quick learner, and has taught himself already much of the first and second grade curriculum. We were told that he may be gifted, though we declined the testing.

We will have to apply for school in a few months and I am beginning to worry about what will happen in school. I know most schools have limited resources and they prioritize helping kids who are lagging behind or who have behavioral issues.

Parents with very bright children - what do you do to keep your child engaged and learning? Do the schools make any special accommodations for you? What should I look for when selecting a school?

EDIT: Just to give you an idea: Without any specific encouragement on our part, he was able to count to over 1000 at age 2, at age 3 taught himself basic addition, multiplication, and subtraction, and is now beginning to read both Hebrew and English. He is not particularly mature and is receiving extra help for social skills. What do parents with kids like this do?

amother

Chocolate

Thu, May 04 2017, 3:46 pm

DrMom wrote:

IMO, schools are more likely to devote resources to those who test as gifted -- as opppsed to those who are bright but bored. Why don't you want to have him tested?

I don't see any benefit in the testing. We would send to a Jewish school regardless of the results. Gifted schools are not really relevant here.
I also don't see any benefit in him being labeled and going through life knowing he is gifted. We would want him to be treated the same whether he is gifted or just very bright.
(As an aside, he is too young to test now. We would have to wait a year or two)

amother

Floralwhite

Thu, May 04 2017, 4:52 pm

He will be bored regardless. But if his social skills are behind, then skipping a grade is a bad option.

I am gifted (yes, I was actually tested around middle school). I was always bright, not a genius, but very bright and a quick learner. I basically just died of boredom throughout school. My school had enrichment programs for some subjects - these were held during lunch, so they didn't help with classroom boredom, but they did help with at least giving me something interesting to do. They also had accelerated classes for some subjects, in which very gifted kids were pulled out and taught by a separate teacher. I spent most of my school years daydreaming, honestly. When I wanted to learn something, I went to the library and taught it to myself. Don't get me wrong, I learned things in school too, but it only went so far.

Look for schools with enrichment programs and/or accelerated classes.

Look for a school that is willing to give him material to work on in class in grade school while everyone does something else - not all schools are willing to do this.

amother

Natural

Thu, May 04 2017, 5:45 pm

Depends what your schooling options are. If one school focuses more on differentiated learning, that's obviously a plus. Same for a school that incorporates social skills into the classroom curriculum in a structured way.

A child who is struggling socially will really have to remain with a peer group on his social level, regardless of academics. Unless you're open to homeschooling, in which case things are more flexible. Or a Montessori program, which is obviously going to be differentiated and will provide social exposure to a wider age range. But it seems like your local options are more traditional.

You will need to assess with the teachers at each stage what is working and what isn't. If they aren't able to provide appropriate independent work for him, you may have to do the legwork. Focus on special interests vs standard classroom curriculum.

Zehava

Thu, May 04 2017, 6:06 pm

What a blessing!
As a gifted person I want to say most of all your child needs your love and support. The world can be a confusing and frustrating place when most of your peers don't speak your language. That may be why you think he lacks social skills.
Don't turn him into a celebrity. Don't show him off to the world and don't hyperfocus on his giftedness.
Teach him at every opportunity. Just tell him about the world. Whatever you encounter, be it plants, animals, seasons, people, cultures, machinery etc. If he seems interested tell him what you know.
It's great that he's learning to read. He can learn so much on his own through books on various subjects.
I get that school worries you, and no it won't be easy for him, but ultimately your support is what matters.

amother

Amethyst

Thu, May 04 2017, 6:57 pm

There are a lot of early readers and a few math whizzes in my immediate and extended family, and this is what I have learned:

If you are still looking for preschools, look for a "developmental" rather than "academic" preschool, offering a rich, stimulating environment in which students progress at their own pace in a developmentally-appropriate setting. There will probably still be "letter of the week" at circle time, but little-to-no phonics, worksheets or homework, which young children don't need. As one teacher put it, "we teach 'zebraness,' not 'z-is-for-zebra.'"

Kindergarten and first grade are strongly focused on reading instruction, so ask the principal, the teachers and other parents how early readers are accommodated. Be aware that many educators are not comfortable with gifted or academically advanced children. They seem to assume that the parents are either pushy or deluded. Look for teachers and administrators who accept the reality that some children are academically advanced and that they should be accommodated in class. Ideally, there will be reading groups at several levels in each class.

The advanced math student does not stand out as much in the early grades compared to the advanced reader. Ask what the school usually does in such cases and see what they say. Some schools and teachers are bettter at providing differentiated instruction than others (to be fair, it's hard to do). My own public schools were far more successful at implementing differentiated math instruction throughout elementary and high school (often using team-teaching so the teachers could help each other) than any of the mainstream yeshiva day schools that I know of - something to think about if you live in a good school district. If need be, classroom math can be supplemented by or substituted with online learning in later grades if the school/teacher can't keep up. Also keep in mind that learning is rarely linear, and by the time the class starts learning multiplication, your son might still be doing multiplication, not advanced calculus.

Some kids benefit in various ways from pull-out enrichment programs which usually start around 3rd-4th grade, but IMO one hour a week of enrichment doesn't take the place of having appropriate classroom activities the rest of the time.

If a Montessori school is available to you, have an open mind and look into it, even if you are generally very conservative in your approach. The Montessori method is based on differentiation - it's what the teachers do for the whole class, not just the outliers. The students are expected to learn naturally, and are not held back based on the progress of others. I have a lot more to say about Montessori and why it's great for gifted kids, but this is getting long.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

amother

Royalblue

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:26 pm

I don't think I'm gifted but I was definitely dead bored in elementary school and tested top percentile in the state Iowa tests.

My mother had a system witj one teacher, whenever I was bored I would take out a workbook (prob at least 6th grade level, I was then in 4th) and do work and each page was worth a certain amount of points, at the end I got a prize

I definitely acted out in elementary, I was in a small school (less than 10 kids a class) not the brightest kids and not the best teachers. She was pretty understanding of us when school used to call her about chutzpah issues

amother

Gold

Thu, May 04 2017, 8:43 pm

Op ... You better make sure they are challenged at home and school
My older son was reading English and Hebrew at 4
My younger one was reading science journals and computer mags at 6

In elementary school they went to the most academic schools in Lakewood
And still one of them kept starting fights and making trouble

HS they went out of town. But at 16 both of them took specialized exams behind my back and got into top Ivy League type public schools for the top 2% of kids
Children from china asia and Saudi Arabia go there

Bh they are still frum but they want nothing to do with yeshivish ppl

amother

Ginger

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:59 pm

I would just keep a close eye on things and go with the flow.
I have a child who was also extremely bright at that age, I did not have her tested for giftedness but she did get an educational evaluation as part of requesting services - also for social skills mainly and scored something like 2nd grade math when she was in pre-k. Right now she's doing fine in school. In the early grades there's a lot of fun and experiences in learning. There's also a lot of information that she doesn't necessarily get on her own no matter how smart she may be - like stories, she is very interested in the stories the teachers tell. She's pretty much breezing through the academics and could do the math in her sleep (and could have a year ago just as easily) but right now she doesn't seem to mind and the teachers have no complaints.

I'm assuming as she gets into older grades either one of two things is going to happen: She might just become more average while other kids "catch up" so to speak. This could happen, because just because someone's exceptional as a toddler doesn't mean they'll necessarily continue to advance at the same speed. Or she will get more bored. Or something in between. So I'm just keeping my eyes and ears open so that if she starts getting bored we can start working on strategies to help with that.

Basically what I'm saying is that I really don't think there's any point in worrying at 4 years old. Enjoy your little genius, it really is fun. And let him have fun in pre-k. He will. And let him have fun in kindergarten too. He will. And then just keep on watching to make sure he's getting what he needs.

iluvy

Thu, May 04 2017, 10:04 pm

From my experience (I was reading chapter books in kindergarten; my kids are BH also very bright and ahead of their peers but nothing extreme)

Early reading is not a big problem. In kindergarten, pre-1A, and 1st grade they are not drilling the kids, they are presenting it in fun and exciting ways. My 4 year old has learned the aleph bais every year since she was one, but she still glows with excitement when she shows me her notebook. My first grader is reading The Great Brain and the Little House books on her own, but she loves telling me the stories her teacher tells them as mnemonics for the different vowel blends.

Math is a bigger problem, because the drilling and dittoing starts earlier on. Luckily there are always fun things for a bright kid to do with math. Once they've finished an exercise sheet, they can play around with the numbers on it -- add together all the sums they've just calculated to get the sum of all the numbers on the page, write down the two biggest numbers they can think of and add them together, calculate how old they are in months, days, hours, minutes, calculate as many numbers as they can of the Fibonacci sequence, powers of two, digits of pi, think of a math rule and try to think of examples that disprove it.....

My husband strongly disagrees with me on this, but I really think the most important thing is not to validate their feelings of boredom. The one line I heard the most from my parents was "An intelligent person is never bored." I didn't appreciate hearing it then, and I don't think it's true, but I really did absorb the message that being bored does not make me special, and that I am my own best resource. I feel that sometimes parents are so proud that their kids are bored in class, which really reinforces any resulting bad behavior, instead of conveying to their kid that a really smart person can always find something to think about.

amother

Gold

Thu, May 04 2017, 10:34 pm

amother wrote:

Or 3 when she reaches shidduch age she'll dumb down.
A lot of shadchanim told me I know you are smart, you know you're smart
But don't let the boys know because it will scare them away
Bh my husband is on same level as me

iluvy

Fri, May 05 2017, 12:26 am

amother wrote:

Iluvy, you have given my much food for thought. Thank you for your comments.
One question - how do assure that your child acquires a good work ethic? I'm afraid that if he's used to everything being so easy then he will become lazy and won't learn how to work hard and properly apply himself to his task at hand. A teacher also mentioned to me that she sees bright students who stop thinking because they are not challenged enough at school.
How do you get around that? Is enrichment at home enough?

From my own childhood: my parents always bought me tons of workbooks. I was always desperate for books and when I was in 3rd-4th grade they got me Jane Eyre, the complete works of Dickens, and the complete works of Shakespeare. I read it all and was extremely confused Smile

. They got me a computer and taught me how to put it together myself and write programs. They got me a sewing machine and handed me the manual and told me to figure out how to use it. I always had opportunities to try things that challenged me.

From being a parent: caveat -- my kids are little: they know that I don't get excited about them learning things quickly or whatever inflated grades they are giving on spelling tests these days. I get excited when they ask good questions, or when they are excited about what they are learning, and I am thrilled to talk about it with them. I tell them all the time that I am the most excited when they start off not being able to do something and try and try until they can do it, whether it's reading a chapter book or hula-hooping. I am not a parenting expert, but they say your kids will always know what you value, and if it's grit and character rather than easy success, they won't become too self-satisfied with their own intelligence.

DrMom

Fri, May 05 2017, 4:24 am

amother wrote:

If he's 1/4 as bright as you describe, he'll probably figure out on his own that he's really really smart.

And if you want him treated the same as everybody else, why do want the school to accommodate his unique talents? I am confused about what sort of solutions you are seeking.

And are all "Jewish schools" unable to address the needs of gifted students? You don't necessarily need a "gifted school," but perhaps schools have pull-out programs, etc.

amother

Floralwhite

Fri, May 05 2017, 6:38 am

amother wrote:

Here's how my parents allowed me to develop a good work ethic - they let me fail. Although I am gifted and extremely bright, that doesn't mean I knew everything. In first grade, we had a test and I refused to study. Instead of forcing me or bribing me, my parents just stepped back and said, ok, we'll let you decide. I actually failed the test. From then on, I realized that I had to work too, because if I didn't know something or learn it, then it didn't matter how smart I was. I got straight A's for the rest of elementary school. As I got older in elementary school (and beyond), there were tests that I didn't study for much, but that was at a point where I was able to gauge for myself what I did and did not know, and learned how to assess my own knowledge and skills and adjust my work accordingly.

As far as encouraging thinking and learning, if I ever expressed an interest in something, my parents would take me straight to the library and help me pick out books on the subject. They encouraged any interest I had, from rocks, to dinosaurs, to astronomy, etc. And I switched topics quickly, and they never interfered. We also had an encyclopedia and dictionary within reach and they encouraged me to look things up my self when I had questions and then come to them to discuss it afterwards. Whenever I expressed interest in a hobby, they signed me up for lessons. Most importantly, they never forced me to take classes or forced me to continue lessons or forced me to learn things on my own or forced me to do workbooks if I was bored or didn't want or wanted to do something else. Being forced or pressured to learn something is the best way to turn off your kids to learning. Seeing as how I was forced in school, they let me use the rest of the time to do what I wanted - they didn't interfere when I switched from one instrument to another and another and another and then dropped them all to do art classes or dance classes, etc. They really fostered my curiosity well. We have already started our preschooler on the encyclopedias, though she can't read yet, but she asks on her own for us to take them out and teach her something. We always take the time to answer any and all kids' questions, and the more time we give, the more questions are asked - showing your kids that you take their intellectual explorations seriously will encourage them to continue.

amother

Puce

Fri, May 05 2017, 7:46 am

amother wrote:

This is something I struggle with still as an adult nearly 40.

Elementary school was ridiculous to me and I wasn't motivated to work for the things I didn't know because who cared?

Once I got to high school, life was harder because you can't know something you've never read and skirted by doing the absolute minimum to get a B. The work wasn't that hard for me, but getting more than that required listening, reading and completing assignments. I read a lot but not often what my teachers wanted me to.

I got through school reading books under my desk.

I'm not sure what could have been different in school. I think a more challenging school that actually required me to do work would have been the best.

I'm not crazy smart (my IQ is only 142) but I was definitely way ahead of most of my peers early on and I developed a lot of bad habits.