I think that was so important that I wanted to bring that out again. Our sense of worth brings fulfillment, which gives us real happiness. When we contribute to our community, it increases our sense of worth, "self-esteem" if you prefer that word. So, our happiness comes when we are concerned about others welfare and happiness. Make happiness our personal goal, and it eludes us.
And as all general observations, it does not hold true for everyone. But I thought that was a good observation that Wren made.

Here's a "yes....sort of."

I was visiting the forum looking for some other info, but Ren's question caught my eye and I decided to toss in my 2 cents worth.

I've known a lot of EG & PG kids and families over the years. The son of a friend completed the K-12 curriculum by age 6, and I think most PG kids I've known were at least intellectually capable of finishing the K-5 curriculum by that age. And, at least in my experience, virtually 100% of PG kids are capable of completing K-12 by age 12 if they want to, and quite a few of them do.

But the question about doing elementary in one year ends up being moot for most of our kids because WE, the parents, are usually so slow to recognize that they are not just gifted but way off the charts. Most of us are still either clueless or in denial at that stage. I know in our case that, when our son was six, the thought of having a 7yo ready for 7th grade would have shocked us and scared us silly!

DW and I thought we were meeting his needs by getting him into a full-time gifted elementary. After many tears were shed over how slow and boring school was, especially math, we enrolled him in Stanford's EPGY math program. He did grades 3-8 in 6 months (@15 min/day) and two years of HS algebra in another 6 months (@ ~30min/day).

This finally clued us in that we weren't just dealing with "normal gifted." Then he asked to skip grades 5-8 and go to high school. I did some pretesting and outlined the preparation he needed. We homeschooled for a year (nominally 5th grade). He did a compressed grade 5-8 curriculum with absurd ease and continued through geometry, some other high school content, and a bit of college-level material.

He was accepted at the local math/science magnet high school at age 11. He did fine the first year, with a 1st place in the science fair, a 2nd in the history fair, and pretty good grades in honors and AP courses, but then he took a college course in Symbolic Logic over the summer, led the class, and decided that high school courses were boring. He stuck it out for one more year because WE weren't prepared for him to be in college, but we caved in and let him start at a local university at 13.

This was a kid who would have had a wide mixture of scores on Ruf's levels at age 5. He was quite early with things like lifting his head, walking, speaking, grammar, and vocabulary, but he didn't read independently or do arithmetic until kindergarten. He NEVER showed the generalized passion for learning that seems to characterize most level 5s and many level 4s. Passion for specific subjects, yes. Unhappiness with "slow" instruction, yes. Relentless pressure to learn everything, definitely not! At that age, he preferred drawing, daydreaming, playing games, or just hanging out with older kids or grownups.

Now, COULD he have done (say) the K-5 curriculum in one year? We'll never know, but - excluding handwriting, and assuming either homeschooling by a very motivated parent or a highly compacted program for PG 6yos (!) - I wouldn't want to bet against him. I strongly suspect that he had the ability to do it, but he might not have had the motivation. More to the point, even if such an accelerated program had been available, it would never have occurred to us to put him in it when he was 6.

Anyway, IMHO, Ruf is about right on how fast level 3s, 4s, and 5s can learn the elementary curriculum, especially if they already have a good headstart on reading and arithmetic. The reason they usually don't is that grownups don't give them the chance to try!

Drake

I agree. Well put!

Thanks for the two-cents, Drake. Hope you'll post again!

Thanks for the post Drake! Very enlightening.



This sounds like my DS in preschool, who's overwhelming us now in 1st grade. He was interested and doing some arithmetic before kindergarten. But wildly passionate - no. A little scary to read.

Drake, thank you for a very informative post. Though, in my opinion, it shows how you couldn't hold him back, despite all efforts and concerns. This child was going to push his way into university at a very young age.

One thing that surprises me is that the gifted elementary school did not accomodate his needs. That is what I am expecting from Hunter, that they will do the things you had to do, because they are the professionals in gifted. Especially when they are the magnet gifted school.

The NYC public magnet gifted school does the pullouts and subject acceleration as needed. They told us of a grade 1 child that goes to grade 8 for math.

Ren

It would be interesting to know what the entry criteria for Drake's particular GT school would be and what kind of audience they were targeting?

Hunter with their cut-off and entry process sounds like they are likely to get "very" PG kids. Although, interestingly Drake's son may not have been choosen because he wasn't lighting the world on fire before kindergarten. Nor mine for that matter. And when you are dealing with kids like that you would think and hope they would need to be extremely accomodating and flexible to truly serve that particular student body.

Our GT magnet is somewhat flexible, but the majority of kids are MG, so I get the feeling that you still needing to do major advocacy if your child is more than MG. And if you accelerate, you are still in a class of MG kids perhaps averaging a full standard deviation or more from yourself.

Hunter had a 98 percentile cutoff on the SB this year (do not know if SB4 or 5). Then they do a 2 hour evaluation with each child, in small groups. I have known children who do not get in despite a 99% score.

Once you get to evaluation, they do not look at the scores and choose on behavior during the evaluation.

The public magnet gifted schools now have a 97% cut off on the OlSAT and they stopped the evaluations. Just because you get in the 97th percentile doesn't mean you get in. They are taking the top scorers and filling the spots in the 3 schools.

Ren