We learned in March that Noodle, who was 6 at the time, is gifted but has a processing delay. His profile makes his educational path a very interesting one. As soon as we had this information, I started reading about twice-exceptional (2e) children (a great book: http://www.amazon.com/Twice-Exceptional-Gifted-Children-Understanding-Counseling-ebook/dp/B0065KVEGS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1406902648&sr=1-1&keywords=beverly+trail), and one major theme kept cropping up: If 2e students are supported for their learning disability/ies but their gifted abilities are ignored, they are at risk for issues with poor self-esteem, depression, and--in extreme cases--suicidal thoughts. It's scary, but it makes sense: Who among us would thrive if the focus were always placed on our shortcomings and never on our talents?
Our public elementary school has a pull-out gifted program in which students are bused to another school building for a few hours of enrichment each week. There are many types of gifted programs, and probably none is perfect, but we were eager to discover if Noodle could participate, even though our district normally doesn't screen for giftedness until the end of second grade. We hit a stumbling block pretty quickly: One of the most important criteria for entrance to the program is that a child have a full-scale IQ of at least 130. Noodle's full-scale IQ doesn't hit that mark because when you average together his scores on the individual measures, his processing delay score drags the combined score below 130. As the child psychologist had forewarned, if you combined all of Noodle's scores, rather than looking at separate scores to see where he excels and where he struggles, he would look on paper like an average kid who was not eligible for support at either end of the educational spectrum.
Mr. Engineer and I had a conference with our school principal to discuss the possibility of Noodle being accepted into the gifted program, and he was supportive but forthrightly skeptical. We put in the letter to request that Noodle be tested by the district psychologist, which was their requirement before allowing a student into the program, to see if their results would come out differently enough to get him over the magic number. Unfortunately, it was late enough in the spring that the school year was going to end before the 60-day window mandated by state law for the district to do the testing was going to end. If they didn't find the time to test him before mid-June, it would have to wait until September. That meant we had to come up with a Plan B--identifying a different educational environment that would challenge Noodle's intellect while supporting his LD.
Our child psychologist suggested that we scout out some of the local private schools to see if what they offered could strike a better balance regarding Noodle's needs. She recommended one in particular, and I visited that one and a few others, all of varying types--parochial, Montessori, Quaker Friends, independent. All of them had fantastic things to offer, but most of them did not offer learning support, which was going to be a must for Noodle if he were going to succeed. I had to take those schools off the list.
Fortunately, one of the parochial schools--the one recommended by the psychologist--has a learning support team and even has at least one other student with the same profile as Noodle but who is in a higher grade. He is succeeding there, and that gave me and Mr. Engineer great hope. It was a relief to discuss Noodle's 2e status with the administrators at the private school and get knowing nods, instead of hemming and hawing.
Now push came to shove: It became clear in early June that our public school was indeed not going to find the time to test Noodle before first grade ended. We knew that if we returned Noodle to that school for second grade, there was a high risk that he was going to struggle again, both because his success is greatly based on the expertise of his individual teacher with 2e students and because it was going to take many months to get the district to finish their testing and decide what, if any, learning support, OT, etc., they would offer him, along with deciding whether to allow him into the gifted program.
Mr. Engineer and I decided to take the leap instead and apply to the private school. Noodle was accepted, and we've started making monthly tuition payments already in preparation for his September start. They don't have a gifted program, but they are able to differentiate instruction to such a great extent that in some cases it is individualized. They should be able to challenge Noodle and stretch his skills that fall within the advanced and gifted parts of his profile, while offering learning support and accommodations for his processing delay. They also have smaller class sizes, which will keep Noodle from getting left behind and frustrated with assignments for which he requires assistance from the teacher or needs some extra time. There is more movement during the school day, such as two recesses on many days and allowing the kids to sprawl out on the floor of the classroom to get work done, and movement is a critical part of keeping Noodle engaged. We're hopeful that the coming year will provide him with a fresh start and the realization that he is able to succeed and that school can be a happy place.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Running on Decaf Returns! Our Exhausting School Year, Part I
Apparently operating on decaf means not finding energy to keep up with your new blog. But I am back---at least for now---and have plenty of stories to share of our family's exploits from the past school year and this summer so far.
Where to begin? So Legoman and Noodle were in the third and first grades, respectively, this year. It was a big year for both of them since Legoman had his first run at the state standardized tests, and Noodle ended up needing some educational testing that revealed some interesting things about him.
On the first point, let me say that I have no idea how Legoman fared on the tests, but I plan to ask for an appointment early in the new school year to find out. It's all very secretive, and you cannot have copies of your child's test scores, but you can peer at them under the watchful eye of a member of the school's front office staff.
Legoman is very good at math but only likes those elements of the language arts that deal with nonfiction, and I'm curious to see whether he ramped up his efforts for the test. He was not at all stressed about it---in fact, the "practicing" went on for so many months that he desired months too early to be allowed to take the damn test just to get it over with---so I am not up in arms in general about his having to take a standardized test, although I don't think what they show is as hugely worthy as the state would like one to believe.
As for Noodle, his first-grade year was everything his kindergarten year was not. This is a happy-go-lucky boy who gets along with everyone and loves to learn. Except that first grade turned him into the exact opposite. He was frustrated and angry much of the time when he came home, and he cried in the mornings, begging not to have to go to school. What on earth had happened to elicit such a 180-degree change from our younger son? we asked ourselves. Parent-teacher conferences brought explanations from the teacher of how he lashed out at classmates, tattled on them for the slightest things, and even spoke disrespectfully to her. None of this computed. We saw none of that type of behavior at home, barring occasional spats with his older sibling. Noodle had by then participated in multiple extracurricular activities and had been in a school-like childcare center since he was three months old, also without any such behaviors.
He was put on a behavior modification program by the school psychologist in which he had a chart with 12 segments of the day down the left-hand side, each with a smiley and frowny face next to it. His teacher circled a face for each task every day, depending on how she perceived his behavior had been, and gave him the paper to take home at night so he and we could see how he'd fared. He was devastated by every frowny face, even though many days he got none and the worst days he got 3 or 4.
Where to begin? So Legoman and Noodle were in the third and first grades, respectively, this year. It was a big year for both of them since Legoman had his first run at the state standardized tests, and Noodle ended up needing some educational testing that revealed some interesting things about him.
On the first point, let me say that I have no idea how Legoman fared on the tests, but I plan to ask for an appointment early in the new school year to find out. It's all very secretive, and you cannot have copies of your child's test scores, but you can peer at them under the watchful eye of a member of the school's front office staff.
Legoman is very good at math but only likes those elements of the language arts that deal with nonfiction, and I'm curious to see whether he ramped up his efforts for the test. He was not at all stressed about it---in fact, the "practicing" went on for so many months that he desired months too early to be allowed to take the damn test just to get it over with---so I am not up in arms in general about his having to take a standardized test, although I don't think what they show is as hugely worthy as the state would like one to believe.
As for Noodle, his first-grade year was everything his kindergarten year was not. This is a happy-go-lucky boy who gets along with everyone and loves to learn. Except that first grade turned him into the exact opposite. He was frustrated and angry much of the time when he came home, and he cried in the mornings, begging not to have to go to school. What on earth had happened to elicit such a 180-degree change from our younger son? we asked ourselves. Parent-teacher conferences brought explanations from the teacher of how he lashed out at classmates, tattled on them for the slightest things, and even spoke disrespectfully to her. None of this computed. We saw none of that type of behavior at home, barring occasional spats with his older sibling. Noodle had by then participated in multiple extracurricular activities and had been in a school-like childcare center since he was three months old, also without any such behaviors.
He was put on a behavior modification program by the school psychologist in which he had a chart with 12 segments of the day down the left-hand side, each with a smiley and frowny face next to it. His teacher circled a face for each task every day, depending on how she perceived his behavior had been, and gave him the paper to take home at night so he and we could see how he'd fared. He was devastated by every frowny face, even though many days he got none and the worst days he got 3 or 4.
Back to the school we went, and we rescinded our permission for the behavior modification program.
By this point we'd started hearing from other parents with students in the same classroom that their kids were stressed and unhappy. Putting multiple pieces together over time, we felt the classroom management style of the teacher was not ever going to jibe with our son's behaviors and needs, and we approached the principal about the possibility of moving him to another classroom for the third trimester of the school year. Absolutely not was the answer, both that time and a month or so later when we asked again.
By this time it was spring, and we were at our wits' end. Any given day could bring an email from the teacher about another outburst from Noodle or how he refused to do his in-class work. We felt this had to end. There had to be some reason he was acting so differently at school than anywhere else, and we elected to have him do educational testing with a child psychologist we paid for out of pocket (more on why we made that decision, rather than having the school do the testing for free will come later). Noodle was identified as being what today's educators call "twice exceptional," that is, gifted but also learning disabled. In the area in which he is gifted, his score could not have been higher, and in all the other measures but one he scored as advanced. But in one measure, that of processing/retrieval, his score was much, much lower than the other measures. The psychologist had rarely seen such a large point spread, in fact. She told us that part of the result of his processing delay is that Noodle is dysgraphic, meaning handwriting is a problem for him because he can't remember how to make the letters and he has motor issues that confound his writing even further.
Well, we had our answers for why first-grade was such a struggle. Now we had to figure out how to change defeat into success. (To be continued....)
By this time it was spring, and we were at our wits' end. Any given day could bring an email from the teacher about another outburst from Noodle or how he refused to do his in-class work. We felt this had to end. There had to be some reason he was acting so differently at school than anywhere else, and we elected to have him do educational testing with a child psychologist we paid for out of pocket (more on why we made that decision, rather than having the school do the testing for free will come later). Noodle was identified as being what today's educators call "twice exceptional," that is, gifted but also learning disabled. In the area in which he is gifted, his score could not have been higher, and in all the other measures but one he scored as advanced. But in one measure, that of processing/retrieval, his score was much, much lower than the other measures. The psychologist had rarely seen such a large point spread, in fact. She told us that part of the result of his processing delay is that Noodle is dysgraphic, meaning handwriting is a problem for him because he can't remember how to make the letters and he has motor issues that confound his writing even further.
Well, we had our answers for why first-grade was such a struggle. Now we had to figure out how to change defeat into success. (To be continued....)
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