Primary aged Gifted and Talented, do you have any experience?
By dorannmwin
@dorannmwin (36392)
United States
October 30, 2009 1:43pm CST
Last night we had our first parent/teacher conference of the school year with our daughter's first grade teacher. She informed us that she was going to be giving a referral to the schools gifted and talented teacher for Kathryn. She said that Kathryn is already operating on the level of the end of second grade to the beginning of third grade.
That said, she is our oldest child so we have no experience with this at all. Ms. Harris said that she would be sending a packet home for us to answer a lot of questions about her and that there would be some sort of testing for it as well.
So, I want to know if anyone has any experience with this. What should we expect. Would you recommend a program like this for our daughter. The teacher said that in the primary grade levels it involves 3 30-minute pull-outs per week and they will be working with other primary students in the gifted and talented program that operate on the same level so she'd be paired with second and third grade students.
2 responses
@much2say (57782)
• Los Angeles, California
30 Oct 09
Your daughter is a little older than mine, so we don't have that kind of school experience just yet. When my little one was a toddler and younger, I used to go to babycenter.com and jumped in on the Early Milestones group. It was a wonderful group of moms - we all shared things about our children who seemed to be advanced for their age. I do know that at the time they had a section for parents with older children who were already deemed as "gifted". Since then, babycenter.com has gone through a major change with their forum layout . . . and I haven't jumped back in for a long time. But looking through their groups just now, it seems they do have several for gifted children. Sign up with babycenter.com (free) and go to "Communities" and do a search for a group for gifted children. I am positive you will find the answers there for your bright daughter rather than on myLot or at least there will be a better concentration of parents who are you in your position. Good luck and thumbs up for Kathryn! 
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
30 Oct 09
I'll have to look back into BabyCenter. I used to be very active there as well and then they went through all the changes and I really have never been able to get into the new format. I also found that with the children that were Kathryn's age there was not a lot of participation, but things might have changed since I was last there.
@much2say (57782)
• Los Angeles, California
30 Oct 09
Yah, I got all confused with the format change . . . and by then I hardly had enough time to deal with it. I know the Early Milestones group was awesome. I think they also had Gifted Preschoolers at one point (though many thought that was a bit strange as preschoolers are generally not tested for giftedness yet). I think you're right . . . at the time there was a gifted group - but for the kids were mainly almost tweens. But surely even those parents would have some insight as they already went through Kathryn's age and stage. It seems like Baby Center has a lot more groups now . . . I need to venture back too. Good luck again!!!
@much2say (57782)
• Los Angeles, California
10 Feb 10
Thanks for the BR, dorannmwin! Did you ever go back to Baby Center to find that group? I'm thinking to go back for other reasons . . . but I wonder if I'll have the time to chat with all the moms again. It's wonderful to talk to other moms who are in the same boat!
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
10 Feb 10
It unfortunately isn't a very active group right now, so I haven't really been able to get a lot of the answers that I was seeking from that. However, Kathryn is now in the gifted and talented pool at her school and she is able to answer some of my questions from her own experiences.
