<p><a href=“http://www.nysun.com/article/42066?page_no=1[/url]”>http://www.nysun.com/article/42066?page_no=1</a></p>
<p>Stop the Madness!</p>
<p>Oh yeah, Gifted and Talented Kindergarten. Makes my day. Never too soon to let a few four year olds know that they don’t quite make the grade.</p>
<p>…and 13 years later, these same parents will be asking how their kids should prepare for the SAT tests. The only differenece is that most kids will be completely potty trained when taking the SAT test! :)</p>
<p>That is just depressing.</p>
<p>Actually, now that I think about it, it is depressing and discriminatory: a way for the public schools to justify early segregation of mostly white middle and upper income children into different tracks than mostly black / hispanic / recent immigrant children right from the outset. I doubt that there is any scientific validity at all to “IQ” testing of 4 year old’s other than as a developmental landmark, but I’ll bet that those tests have a clear cultural bias and discriminate heavily against underprivileged kids, kids whose parents do not speak English, or kids whose parents do not have books in the home or read to them.</p>
<p>*most kids will be completely potty trained *</p>
<p>most kids ;)</p>
<p>My daughter actually did attend an elementary school that required IQ test for admittance- however- she already had been given IQ tests as part of a followup study for children who had been seen in the neonatal intensive care unit
I seriously doubt if I would have had her tested otherwise-and I don’t think you can prep for an IQ test-</p>
<p>She did have one when she was 4- the Stanford Binet I think and one of the Wisc-weschler tests when she was 6 & up</p>
<p>It was part of her health care- the ins paid for it & as young parents of a child who had been very premature( 10 weeks)- it was very helpful to us, to feel like we were both helping doctors better help kids & also it helped to talk to medical staff about how she was doing, since at 4, most people expected her to be 100% caught up- but she still had areas where she had difficulty.( like gross motor skills & size , she wasn’t even on the chart for weight for years)</p>
<p>But she didn’t even study for the SAT- while I understand the philosophy of studying for tests- and I certainly helped her practice for math and spelling tests in school & I do everything I can to help her sister study for tests- including stocking up with gum and dark chocolate-really one of her middle school teachers swore by it</p>
<p>a program for preschoolers is either appropriate or it isn’t.</p>
<p>If a kid is coached to pass a test that they aren’t ready for to gain admittance to a program that their parents want him to be in because it is “prestigious”, it could seriously backfire.</p>
<p>Learning isn’t about pressure to perform
4 year olds learn every minute they are awake without us quizzing them with flashcards</p>
<p>Yes my daughter did teach herself to read- but she taught * herself*
The interest was there- all I did was supply the books- and read to her.
I got her books on tape from the library to give me some time to do something else!
If it was up to both of us- I think we would have prefered a little more gross motor skills, and a little less reading ability at that age, because for little kids- gross motor skills are more desirable. ( I did actively try and help her with those though- in a “fun” way- she was not interested at all in team sports and those were frustrating- but she had dance classes and swimming lessons- summers)</p>
<p>“Gifted” education is something that I get a bee in my bonnet about</p>
<p>She attended private school- for several reasons
one was that our district didn’t have “gifted” education in K- although they do have several alternative programs that I thought would have worked great- unfortunately- they were oversubscribed.</p>
<p>( not that I was looking for “gifted”- I thought the alternative programs were much more appealling than the gifted programs- alternative was more experiential- gifted was just slightly accelerated- still very linear)</p>
<p>Another was that- our neighborhood kindergarten teacher flat out told me, her class wouldn’t be appropriate for her- hence my finding the 5s’ program to give me another year to find something that was appropriate</p>
<p>But anyway
we also have the problem in our district also of a socioeconomic group who does everything to get their kid in a “gifted” program- and the fact is ignored that a group test IMO is not an accurate way to determine if a student could benefit from the program</p>
<p>(D didn’t even qualify using district testing even though her IQ test indicated her IQ was 160-
I didn’t submit the IQ test, because by that point, I was appalled by what they called gifted- and didn’t think that was the way to teach children let alone children who learned quickly-
so I know that lots of other kids who also dont’ have parents who know how/or want to work the system arent in the gifted programs…
unfortunately- it seems to attract a disproportinate amount of money , as well as the strongest teachers)</p>
<p>Boy I * do* really get a bee in my bonnet about this dont I?
:)</p>
<p>Calmom,
"a way for the public schools to justify early segregation of mostly white middle and upper income children into different tracks than mostly black / hispanic / recent immigrant children right from the outset. "</p>
<p>– maybe not. Admission to the HGT program in our school district is based primarily on a test which is in part an IQ test. And you know what? That program is far more ethnically and economically diverse than the “high achievement” programs, which are overwhelmingly white, middle/upper-middle class. I think that at such a young age, the tests tend to skew more toward natural abilities than ‘achievement/skills’ which favor those in the upper economic echelons.</p>
<p>Well, I think you and I feel the same way. “IQ” testing for young children is grossly misunderstood. It makes sense for assessing developmental progress when there is a valid reason for concern – usually for parents or physicians who are legitimately concerned about a significant developmental lag in some area. But kids just don’t develop at the same rate. My “gifted” daughter was an early, self-taught reader; my “gifted” son was a delayed reader. The same child who read early was a very late talker – late enough that well-meaning relatives were urging me to have her evaluated. (I didn’t, because I remembered my mom telling me that I was very late to talk – though unfortunately my mom was no longer alive to be consulted at the time I was rearing my own children – and also the receptive language seemed to be strong; she clearly understood and responded to speech appropriately.) She was also rather late with the potty training, too. </p>
<p>In “Miseducation”, David Elkind wrote that young gifted kids do best in unstructured educational settings where there is a lot of room for free exploration, even beyond the age when less capable kids need a more structured setting in order to learn the basics. Since my son had been in a good Montessori school as a preschooler, that made a lot of sense to me – so I kept my early-reading daughter in the same public school where I had placed my son, which sounds like the alternative schools you would have liked for your daughter – very hands on and experiential. It was “gifted kindergarten” for every kid. As long as my d. had teachers who were willing to allow her free rein I felt she was better off than in a structured classroom.</p>
<p>"My “gifted” daughter was an early, self-taught reader; my “gifted” son was a delayed reader. "</p>
<p>Since IQ test for four year olds don’t test their reading abilities there’s a good chance both would have tested as gifted.</p>
<p>I’m a big believer in non-academic kindergarten, so I don’t see the need for gifted placement, but I do think that self-contained gifted classrooms work better for gifted kids than most of the other easily available alternatives except perhaps for the one room schoolhouse. </p>
<p>I do think it’s critical that gifted programs not become a way to achieve segregation. Our school had a lot of gateways into the gifted program that ensured its demographics pretty much echoed those of our town. I think prepping for IQ tests is appalling and unethical.</p>
<p>Actually, it is very hard to get an accurate IQ on a preschooler, and scores at this age do not correlate well to later scores. They are, at best, “a range”.</p>
<p>It is best not to administer IQ tests for kids until they are over seven.</p>
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<p>Yes, but my son, who turned out to be dyslexic - had great difficulties with learning to read. Both large small motor skills were also delayed – he could barely draw a stick figure when he started kindergarten; he couldn’t tie his own shoes or ride a bike until at least age 10. He would not have been served well by being accellerated early on – he had self-esteem issues as it was. He did fine in a developmental, experiential kindergarten classroom – he loved it there – but as soon as he hit the more structured, academic first grade classroom he began to flounder. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the other kids caught on to reading faster that he did – and everything came crashing down. </p>
<p>It is highly unlikely that a “gifted” label would have put him in line for an education appropriate to his needs, as very few schools have programs for kids who fit the “twice gifted” profile (gifted + LD). My son was in mixed grade classrooms due to the small size of the school, and one of the best decisions I made early on was to ask that he stay with 3/4 teacher for a 2nd year, in 4th grade, rather than moving to the more “advanced” 4/5 classroom. </p>
<p>What would have happened with early IQ testing is that he would have been mislabeled. If he had been tested at age 6 or 7, then the discrepencies in sub scores might have been useful to identify a learning disability, but beause he was a highly verbal child, this would not have shown up in oral testing as a pre-schooler. </p>
<p>It makes a lot more sense simply to observe where the kid is both in terms of development and personality, than to try to rely on standardized testing.</p>
<p>Come on folks give schools system a break. Parents complain when their gifted child is not challenged enough, and they complain when the schools try to screen out the less talented kids.</p>
<p>There always seemed to be a very small window of ideal time for IQ test taking. Though most of the people I know who had their kids tested later had similar results except when their little ones refused to cooperate. As I recall they also used to say before 9 for kids who might top out. (Though that may have changed since both WISC and Stanford-Binet have come out with new versions.) I never got my oldest tested since school recognized that he was precocious, the second son was tested at 9 looking for LDs.</p>
<p>I also want to add in my defense 
that although I did think it was a little odd to require an IQ test to apply to 1st grade -but that was explained to me as a remnant of when ( the school) was part of a Harvard funded study for gifted preschoolers
( I don’t know what testing they used for preschool, she entered in 1st gd and now I don’t think they have testing at all- they do have an “interview” though which was really she played there for a couple hours with other applicants while the teachers observed- )</p>
<p>I had gone from not even thinking about private school ( it took the psychologist suggesting it to us- and me slowly realizing that you didn’t have to be Catholic to go to private school), to willing to spend lots of time reading and visiting schools to find the “perfect” place.</p>
<p>Still, disappointed about the Waldorf schools in our area- I was more of a Joseph Chilton Pearce kind of parent, rather than a Doman-Delacato adherent & I really could see us going the beeswax crayons and hand dyed and spun wool route- the materials were so beautiful- and I liked the teaching through storytelling- but I almost thought they were going to call children’s protective services when they discovered she was already reading & I know I don’t have the only kid who would walk down the aisle at the grocery store reading a book- I see people walking home from the bus stop reading all the time!</p>
<p>(I guess I think of verbal as “reading” - It was explained to me that was why she scored so high because the S-B weights verbal questions more than others?
I know that the psychologist was really excited when one of the questions was a calendar without Sundays and D correctly identified what was missing- so some of the questions must have involved some sort of reading)
http:// <a href=“http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/tests.htm[/url]”>www.hoagiesgifted.org/tests.htm</a>
also the way I understood the way the test was given was that (and I realize this is probably over simplistic), you just start somewhere that seems appropriate and keep going until the percentage of missed questions goes up?
Then the scoring would be where the age of testee came into it-the way the results read- say one section her answers were similar to an 8 year old-or similar to a 4 year old- if she were six then her score would go up or down depending on what the age appropriate response would be?</p>
<p>The followup study was a full day of testing every other year or so till she was eight, or 9. The physical tests came first, with the head pediatrician and “residents,” and I remember OT/PT testing also, especially when she exhibited some gross motor delay- then lunch and then back for the psych testing-
(Dr Robinson might have taken a special interest in her- she was always the one to administer the tests- she along with her husband worked with gifted kids through the univ of wa ( http:// <a href=“http://www.depts.washington.edu/cscy/[/url]-”>www.depts.washington.edu/cscy/-</a> she also recommended her elementary school)</p>
<p>I remember feeling very strange while sitting in the waiting room with my husband-she obviously was doing well, even if she had difficulty riding a bicycle- and watching all the other kids who were there for the study, some with shunts or using walkers, made me wonder why she had been singled out to be so healthy</p>
<p>The scores were handy to have later - because they did show learning disabilities, though they weren’t really a huge problem in her elementary schoolwork-
She was also tested later so that she could qualify for extended time on the SATs , and she was again tested this past winter so she can use extended time on the GREs.
The tests all seem similar in that her great strengths and great difficulties are in the same areas as when she was 8.</p>
<p>While others might have a different experience- it seems that my kids anyway aren’t linear learners- they seem to learn in big chunks of interconnected material- so classrooms that slowly go through material a little bit at a time- wasn’t as engaging as classrooms where “teaching across the curriculum” was encouraged-
I have heard this from other parents- especially those who have kids who are “gifted with LDs”- they will go along for a time- not making a lot of progress at all- and then make a huge leap forward- its like they are laying down extra synapses or something and then it all gets plugged in-</p>
<p>Simba-
Tests that have only one way to answer a question aren’t as accurate, when students can see relationships in other ways- so I can see many intelligent kids- who don’t get a chance to explain * why * they answered it * that * way, getting lower marks, than students who answer more conventionally. Students can learn to “test” however, I remember taking tests where it was fairly easy to tell the answer you were “supposed” to pick, even if I didn’t think it was the “best” one.</p>
<p>It is definitely crazy. But it grows out of the educational options available in NYC - do you want to send your 5 year old to a $27,000+ kindergarten? The gifted and talented programs in the NYC public school system have an excellent reputation and are a very good alternative for those who can’t afford or don’t want to go the private school route (or for that matter, for those who don’t get one of the very limited spots available in private schools).</p>
<p>emeraldkity, I sure hope my gifted with LD kid makes a big leap forward in Latin sometime soon. It plays to all his weaknesses unfortunately. He hated his 504 plan so he’s operating without any extra time now. I don’t know if he’ll be able to get it back if he needs it.</p>
<p>Gifted with LDs is a problem - but I think that you just have to accept that if your kid gets accepted into a gifted K and it’s a problem further down the line it’s something you can deal with then. I do know for younger son the IQ test made it pretty clear what things were likely to be weaknesses and what were likely to be strengths. In most subects it balances out enough that he does pretty well in school.</p>
<p>
Why wouldn’t whatever is being offered to “gifted and talented” kindergartners be offered to all kindergartners in the NYC public school system?</p>
<p>that would be my point jmmom
what are they doing that is so different?
In our district we have schools that have lots of support ( and money) from parents- they raise money for materials, they write grants for special programs they even raise money to hire more teachers- teachers want to go to these schools and I can’t blame them, because they know that the families are involved and will try and support at home what they are doing in the classroom
The schools that have a harder time attracting students ( and teachers) have parents who aren’t able to be as involved- who have more on their plate & aren’t able to come to a PTA meeting let alone raise money for the school.</p>
<p>Unfortunately IMO, these are the kids who can most benefit from really excellent teaching- but with senority determining school assignment- it is just the luck of the draw if the poorer schools have decent teachers</p>