I really appreciate all the comments and anecdotes and I am getting a clearer idea of how my child learns, and I am picking up Ruf's book from the library today.

The head of admissions from the gifted elementary had a conversation last fall. I was puzzled from some "amazing" things coming from my child and wasn't sure if that could mean PG. I left a message, she called back asked me several questions, I related anecdotes back. She wants to meet DD this spring after she is finished with admissions.

This is a prominent gifted elementary and skipping is not an issue. They deal with the brightest over the years. They also run a high school with relationships with the colleges in NYC so that kids can take courses.

With the type of learner your child is, what has suited them in terms of skipping, when and in retrospect would you do anything differently?

Appreciate any of the feedback.

Ren

Hi Ren,

Both our kids strongly favor holistic and visually presented material over linear and auditory information. However, they are not so right-brained that they cannot function in less than optimal (for their learning style) classroom.

Our daughter has had extensive diagnostic testing which confirms that she has highly significantly impaired auditory discrimination abilities by any standard, but especially as compared to her cognitive and achievement levels. I have always “seen” this in her profile, yet no teacher has ever noticed the issue. As a perfectionist, she probably expends more mental energy to compensate for this relative weakness.

Our son has not had the same diagnostic testing, but his profile is very similar with the exception that every teacher he has ever had, complains that he seems not to hear directions. They all consider it a character flaw and dismiss our suggestion that it is probably an LD and at the least a very strong learning style preference and could easily be rectified by giving out written directions in addition to oral directions.

Just another reason we are shopping for a different school.

BTW, they are both very strong (A average, one year advanced) students with terrible spelling skills. We don't regret their placements in the least other than wish our son had been advanced an additional year early in the process.

((pout)) This is so sad. I'm sad for your daughter to have to work SO hard, but sadder for your son to be in an environment where he is assumed to have a character defect in the very area he probably works the hardest. ((tear)) Yeah, we've BTDT. I think one of the key indicators of a child having a reasonable and positive self image is that the child NOT spend time huge amounts of time with adults who think that they are 'just being difficult.' Ouch!