Have you looked at the sample pages? I think you can view some on the website.

Her IQ was <quite high> in high school; in our state, IQ alone was not sufficient for being identified as gifted (and the cutoff was 130 anyway on that measure). Her ability to accelerate was not hampered by her ability in math; it was hampered by the lack of instruction. When provided with direct classroom instruction, homework, and typical classroom work again, she was able to perform at a far higher level than the typical student-- ie, in senior year, she was able to tackle AP courses (before "everyone did it") that were truly college level that many students attempted and failed-- in those courses, her abilities really did pay off. She handled more coursework than many students and thus advanced farther in several subjects than the average population. She did go farther, faster, by graduation. She just didn't do it in an atypical classroom.

I had a friend in school who kept asking to be tested for the gifted/talented program. She could NOT figure out why she could not get in. She was a nearly straight-A student, and studied VERY hard for all of her grades. The kept telling her (kindly) that she was "just short of the cut-off." They tried very hard to explain to her it was a learning style, not a commentary on her abilities, but she never, ever got it. To this day, she is mad that she never got in :/. I could see she was not G/T despite her high achievements, and would tell her to just focus on her own goals and not worry about it, but that always got a grumpy response (since I had been in "Animal Training" from the beginning). She is now a highly respected lawyer in a large firm, having been highly successful in college and law school. She will still say "See??? I WAS right for that program!!" But, she wasn't. She would have failed miserably. The AT classes were not in her learning style at all. She tried once, to take a math class that was open to all students, not just AT, when the school opened it up to everyone-- it was an option to accelerate math by teaching it to yourself right from the book and take tests when you deemed yourself ready for each quiz and tests. We took the same quizzes and tests as the regular classroom kids. Where I completed the year's geometry course in four weeks, because I just "got it" as soon as I looked at a page, she struggled and struggled. She absolutely THRIVED in a regular classroom atmosphere. She was an expert in a classroom where there were clear expectations, a lecture, regular assignments, homework, assigned readings, set things to study, and incremental goals. In this self-paced math course, her grades started to tank. I finished Algebra II a couple of weeks later, and then started tutoring her, and between us, we got her through algebra I by the end of the year, her GPA intact. What she didn't get was that all of our AT classes were a bit like that. We sat in groups and discussed things. We read books from the library in history, sometimes different books in different subgroups in the class, and used our different perspectives to argue points in history. We combined history and literature together to paint a fuller picture, and might have to stop, drop, and write an essay about what someone else had read and presented the day before. It would have completely crushed her, because relative to her strengths and somewhat linear thinking, it was very unstructured, though our teachers' methodologies were very well-planned-- for us. This was how we, as a gifted group of students, thrived and thought. In the classes we had to take with typical students, we often struggled, found it hard to pay attention, and were not very engaged (and that is what she saw and was comparing herself to-- she would think, "I am a far superior student to these AT kids! They don't even pay attention in class or work very hard! None of them even outlines the book or takes notes!"). She was an accelerated student. A child of immigrant parents, she worked hard, and it has paid off. I feel she has NOTHING to apologize for or be ashamed of. She is highly intelligent-- probably well above average. She has achieved success in life, and met her life goals so far and lives how she has always wanted to live. But her learning style, I think, highlights the difference between accelerated and gifted, and the type of classes we had in our school is the reason why there was a distinction between accelerated and gifted-- there is a difference in how these groups learn. This is also why it can matter to a homeschooler. Even at home, kids learn differently. One kid may move faster through material by being very focused and disciplined and "by the book." Another may need to pull things seemingly from the ether and synthesize things from a wide variety of disparate sources. Not all gifted learners will learn in the same way either-- there is a spectrum of "gifted" and how they function, which is one reason why having a group of gifted kids in contact with one another can be a lot of fun, as they can play off of one another quite a bit, each bringing in something a bit different.

This is a very (as in completely) scripted program-- every word you are to speak spelled out for you in the TM-- designed for families who have had zero science background. The reading level of the materials is very low for the target age groups. The toys are fun, though they can all be purchased elsewhere easily for much less money. If you love open and go, all comes in one box, and lots of handholding, and your kids have not had much in the way of science, this program is very highly organized and logical, and it might be very right for you. Many other science programs will add up in cost once you buy lab supplies, books, and so forth. If you dislike scripted, rigid programs, want more interesting reading materials, and can find box day somewhere else, or your kids have already had exposure to science, you will probably be happier with something else. There are many other open-and-go comes in a box type programs available (check out NOEO) whose materials are more varied and interesting. One big difference between NOEO and NL besides the scripting, though, is that NOEO will be all one topic for the year, whereas NL may have an emphasis for the year but touch on several different disciplines across the year-- that is important to some families. NL tends to be a program people worship or dislike-- I'm in the dislike camp, because our family is not the target audience; my family has a science background, we found the reading materials to be too low-level even though my son has a reading disability, and I found I intensely disliked the scripted nature of the program (it even has a suggested script for the kids' answers) and I found it did not stimulate a lot of creative thinking despite the cool toys included-- we ended up ditching the materials and using the toys (level 1, which is mostly bio) on our own while doing NOEO chemistry. I would agree it is very organized and logical, with sound information and vocabulary; it was just not for us.

Next time you bring it up, if you haven't done so yet, use a number line... It is a very visual means of getting the concept.

He is 10? Keep at it. Mine went through this around then as well. I did switch him to graph paper for math, which helped, but was not a magic bullet (but did help). Patience, consistency, and time should help a lot... It is partly a personality/age thing, I think. At nearly 12, my son has improved greatly in that department. I think you are correct that there isn't any one curriculum that is a magic bullet or all wrong. Just about any set of books can get the message across if presented well.

As promised, here is a small sample of photos taken through the lens of the Brock Magiscope. Please note, this was done very casually-- using a hand-held ipod pointed through the eye piece sitting on the kitchen table, no fancy extra equipment, or even any attempt to hold anything stable, so given the circumstances, not bad :D

I call my MIL and FIL by their first names. I have to laugh, though I should not; it is kind of sad. Until this thread I never gave it any thought-- but I guess my husband doesn't really know what to call my parents. We have been married 20 years, and apparently he has managed to avoid addressing either of them by name. That must really take some effort. I know he feels extremely close to my parents; he was devastated when my Dad died, as he really looked up to him and they were quite close. To me, he just says, "your Mom." My parents called each other's parents "Mom" and "Dad."

Over the course of time, FYI, Fred is loaded with review :). You won't find a section labeled "Review" of course, but every concept covered is continually reused-- over and over and over-- and built into new problems and used in new ways. Fractions are used again and again throughout the Decimals and percents and prealgebra books. Concepts regarding area and volumes and feet and miles work into problems throughout the books. The author does not discard information he has introduced, but reincorporates it all regularly into problems throughout the book and in subsequent books. Essentially, even when introducing new topics, the entire book is also review, because each topic builds upon those already covered and uses them again. Khan Academy can also be a nice supplement/drill accompaniment to Fred if needed.

Before taking the bridges-- You mentioned that the problem with Saxon was getting him to work carefully and really pay attention to the work. Though Fred is self-teaching, make sure that two things are happening: 1. When he reads, he can read the fun story part as fast as he wants, but he needs to slow down when he reads the math. In fact, I have DS keep a separate section of his math notebook just for "notes" that he makes when reading the math sections of Fred-- this a great way of making him slow down when reading the math instead of blasting past it and nodding. I spot check this section of the notebook periodically to make sure he is doing it. In the rare cases when he has trouble, I almost always find a corresponding thin area in his notetaking. 2. When he does "Your Turn to Play," make sure he is writing down the problems and answers fully before even glancing at the answers. If your son isn't good about the discipline of doing that, get creative. Photocopy the problems and hand them to him on separate paper to work on before he gets the book back with the answers. Cover the answer portion until he shows you he has worked the problems through. 3. Make sure he actually sits down and reads the answers to "Your Turn to Play" completely. A lot of teaching takes place in the answer key; it is not just a check-box list of right and wrong, but a lot more explanation goes on there, including some of the why of things. Fred is absolutely a standalone curriculum here; we tried adding in other stuff such as AoPS as a supplement, but there was nothing there that Fred had not completely covered, and we found additional material to be unnecessary (for this particular learner). But I do make sure he is not just blasting right through it and nodding at the story line, or guessing at problems and reading the answer key and thinking, "Oh yeah, I got that." DS struggled with doing some of that when he first started Fred, until he really started to appreciate how working it methodically made such a huge difference in his comprehension and retention of the material. Now he has gone from Fractions all the way to halfway through Beginning Algebra, and he is doing great with it. It COULD be the case that Fred needs help with your particular son. But for a kid who is not loving putting the work into math, before just loading on additional math, I would make sure he is getting the most out of the math he is doing, or the problems could snowball-- a kid who isn't loving math may balk at simply doing "more" instead of doing it better. Good luck at finding a solution that works for you. Yes, Fred can work beautifully as a standalone curriculum, but it clearly does not work well for everyone that way.

Wow. Their address of "Myth #5" is . . . just . . . wow. How not apropos of anything whatsoever. Moving on to "Myth #6" left me 'myth'-tefied. Was that an attempt at sarcasm on their part? Not to mention the snark of explaining that Singapore is a country:001_huh: Moving along to myth#8 . . . geez . . . I know there are all different types of learners in the world, but they seemed like they were bragging about how hard it is for Singaporean kids to drill math through their thick skulls. I wonder what else those kids could learn if their parents and teachers gave them some credit?? Doing these books, PLUS outside tutoring PLUS extra worksheets, for the average and bright kids? We generally have to skip half or more of the problems in order to avoid going mad from overdoing it and doing unnecessary repetition from all the repetition in these books (and we use the US Edition, which from what I hear has less review than the Standards edition). I could keep going, but with the kind of attitude displayed on that website, this is about the last company I am tempted to purchase anything from, ever. They seem to have a very, very condescending attitude at least toward their American customers.

You can get a Brock Magiscope for around $130, depending on which variation you buy. I will try to find time later to post some photos I have taken through the eyepiece of it without any special equipment. I love it because it is easy to use, has great optics, is very durable, and because its genius illumination system does not require batteries or electricity, you can haul it anywhere easily, even to museums. You can use it for transparent or opaque objects. Focusing is a snap. I lve this microscope-- I used to do microscopy professionally as a genetics researcher, and this is not a toy.

The label is not what is important (well, not for most parents; there are always exceptions of course :) ). Understanding how your child learns is what is important. You may or may not need a test to help you understand the distinction between highly accelerated and gifted. There is a difference; simply working well above grade level is not gifted. Gifted is a special needs status; the mind of the gifted learner does not work or process information in the same way that a neurotypical but even accelerated learner does, and methods that work well for an accelerated learner will often not work well for a gifted learner. If your child is accelerated, just go ahead and work at his pace. Slow down when he needs to, and speed up when he needs to. Honestly, that is a piece of working with a gifted child as well, though not all of it. Working with a gifted child will make you 3/4 insane most days-- and being gifted yourself only helps you empathize; it doesn't actually help you predict their needs or where they will go next.

This part is so important it is worth repeating!! I too, got into an early mode where I felt, "Okay, now I want to fix everything!" I wanted to research EVERY needed therapy and test and rush him into all of them right away and ceaselessly and just . . . fix it. That's what Moms do, right???? I too realized I had to slow down. My child wasn't broken, and he didn't need rapid repairs. He was the same child he was the day before his diagnosis, and he was a child, not a diagnosis. For everyone's sanity (my husband, my genotypical child, myself, and my affected child) I had to back off and take a deep breath, and remember his first role in my life was simply as my child. Yes, I needed to deal with things, but not all at once, and not to the point of taking over our life and making his challenges the center of our existence.

Test image: Upload file from Brock Magiscope, photo taken through eyepiece with an ipod.

Thanks!

Some issues from the other side of the ivory tower: *Some (by no means all or a majority) professors are not educated about special needs, and see it as simply a pain in the t*sh, and are therefore recalcitrant about cooperating. Here, the proper place to call would be the campus ADA office. *In some universities, extra time testing is done at a separate testing center, but tests are begun at the same time as the classroom test, and coordinating time is difficult. It can, however, be done. It may require the entire class syllabus to be rearranged a bit, but it can be done. This is why paperwork has to be filled out on time, and generally in advance and last-minute requests are a problem. *If specialty testing equipment is required for a class (a computer with specific software for a subject) the professor may be concerned that the student will not have access to the same technical support at the testing center that the students in class will have. This is actually a concern the professor has for the benefit of the student needing assistance; there are many professors who genuinely care and want their students to succeed and have every chance to do well without roadblocks. *Despite very clear rules spelled out, sometimes SN kids fail to fill out the required paperwork in advance of deadlines, then make appeals to professors directly for make-up tests that fit their specific needs after the regular test has been given. Creating an equivilant make-up test, particularly for advanced classes, is harder than it may sound, and grumpy professors are concerned that they not unintentionally create bias against a SN student by creating a far harder test. When I was in school, the norm was for a make-up test to always be deliberately much harder than the scheduled test. *Parental interference in cases where the adult student is actually competent to handle his own affairs. A special needs student who does not show up for class or do his homework and then fails a test probably deserves his failing grade no matter how many times you call the professor. The parent should probably be calling the student, not the professor, to discuss. *Ultimately, if a student is in college, it is up to the student, not the professor, for the student to pass the course. Parents calling the professor will not change this fact. *Most professors are willing to help any proactive student, special needs or not, to succeed in his studies. Proactive means prepared with good questions, meets deadlines, attends class, notifies ahead of time rather than after the fact about missed deadlines except in extreme emergencies that truly could not have been forseen ahead of time, and who plan ahead and plan their time well so that if they must miss time, they can hand stuff in early rather than late, and who come to office hours with questions when needed and who ask questions in class and hand in homework. When students work hard, professors can tell and are often willing to do a little extra to help them out, because students who care are really exciting and stand out, regardless of whether that student is an A or a B student. *Professors are utterly dependent upon the student ADA office to understand the needs of the special needs student. It is not realistic to approach the professor directly to ask "I need you to do this," because professors are not equipped to evaluate such requests for validity. *Particularly at a research university, teaching is only one of the professor's responsibilities-- he is also juggling committee work, helping to run the university, participating in departmental decisions, may be responsible for running either the undergraduate or graduate program for the department, advising students, organizing talks by international visitors, interviewing new faculty, participating in reviewing graduate applicants, editing journals, writing papers, writing or reviewing new textbooks, participating in review panels, supervising undergraduate activities, working with students who are doing research, traveling to give talks and share new ideas with other researchers, writing grants, and of course, the bulk of his job on which he is evaluated, conducting original, peer-reviewed research. I didn't even ask my husband for a list of what he does in a day . . . those are just things I know he does off the top of my head. Come to think of it, it's pretty amazing he has time to come home for dinner at night . . . LOL. Yet when a student shows up during office hours or sends email with a good question (or even some not-so-good questions) he will make time for them and take their concerns seriously, even if it is a basic question in elementary calculus about what is being accomplished when taking the first derivative, because he wants his students to succeed, and it does not matter whether that student has special needs or not. I don't know if the above has helped anybody or not. It doesn't really directly address the OP's question to parents. However, maybe when dealing with college and their kids, maybe it will help parents see and understand the system a little better "from the other side of the fence." I also have a good friend who heads an ADA office at a different university elsewhere in the country . . . I could, with permission of course, forward the original question to her, and get her response to the question as well to add to the discussion.

How do you post a picture that is just on your hard drive? When I click the photo icon, it only gives me the option to link to a URL . . . so I have to first publish the photo to a web page before I can put it here?

I don't believe that it does, but you can get a very good one for not much money through homesciencetools.com

Vocabulary Workshop and the Royal Fireworks Press options are both quite good, in my experience (I used VW in school myself, and have had my older son use it as a homeschooler, and we are using CE 1 and WWtW for DS9 and DS11 right now). Why vocabulary? My kids are both voracious readers with excellent vocabularies. However, these programs really induce them to think about words very specifically. This will later help them in writing, when a single, powerful, correctly chosen word can make a big difference in the clarity and concision of an essay, letter, or paper. It can make the difference between sort of saying what you meant and saying exactly what you meant. It can also make the difference between sort of understanding what an author you are reading meant and getting exactly what the author meant-- including some pretty subtle jokes. Although along with many homeschoolers I am loathe to think in terms of testing, yes, the SAT's and ACT's are a reality for my college-bound kids, and the Royal Fireworks Press materials directly teach how to approach analogies correctly and decode the answers. Vocabulary Workshop also gives extensive practice with analogies, synonyms, antonyms, and both programs work on shades of meaning (VW does this more explicitly; MCT/RFP does this dependent upon teacher/student interaction) and usage, which can definitely improve test scores. The RFP/MCT materials focus on stems and roots more than VW does, though VW does also highlight them, and this skill can make the difference in subjects such as biology, anatomy, and other sciences which some students find very vocabulary heavy-- if these stems are down pat, the vocabulary is a no-brainer in these subjects, compared to student who has not studied them explicitly. Nothing improves vocabulary better than reading extensively, but given that it doesn't take more than 10 minutes or so per day, I find the benefits of vocabulary study, at least from years 4--8, are well worth the effort.

That particular facility is a very special place-- I used to work there myself, and that doc is very well-loved by his patients and their parents for a good reason. You are in excellent hands. I hope your daughter is feeling on track soon, and that you have some answers heading your way.

I liken it to being on a bungee cord :) Like the PP, we went through years of providers telling us we were nuts, we were helicopter parents and needed to stop worrying, etc (there is a Washington Post article about our odyssey here: http://www.ndcforyoungchildren.com/docs/Wash_Po_08242010.pdf Honestly, I was relieved, primarily. I already *knew* something was up before he was diagnosed. With the diagnosis of his genetic disorder came the knowledge that there was a reason for his challenges, more specific information about the nature of his challenges, his prognosis, and a path of action (and avoidance of interventions that would be unnecessary, annoying, and unhelpful). Now, that said, there is the reality that he has a genetic disorder. It isn't going to kill him, and in his case, with the interventions we put in place, he is going to be fine. He is a very smart kid, and will succeed academically once we deal with his road blocks and figure out how to help him learn to help himself with some lifelong issues he will always have. But it is a genetic disorder, and with that come issues that will be lifelong. And some of the issues he lives with right now are not always easy to live with on a day to day basis. It gets frustrating. It sometimes make me angry and wonder, "Well, what if . . .?" That's the bungee cord. There are up days and down days. You see, his genetic arrangement also makes him who he is. He is more observant, more sensitive, sweet, gentle, and loving. He is caring, attentive, and scary intelligent. Would he be all of that without his genetic arrangement? Who knows? I would hesitate to "fix" anything in him that could change any of these fundamental characteristics of his, well, character, because virtually everyone who meets him seems to just love him. One swimming instructor already moved him to a new instructor, because she liked him too much to be strict enough with him, and she couldn't detach enough from him to make him work when he wanted to sweet talk his way out of it. Boing. Back up. He is fully informed about his challenges, his genetic disorder, and all of its implications for his life. His outlook? "Well, if I have to work harder to do the same stuff as other kids, I guess I better work twice as hard, because I want to do everything other kids do. Maybe harder, because I want to be better at at least one or two things. Maybe when I'm an adult, I'll be really good, because by then I'll just be used to hard work, and a lot of kids don't seem to work hard." I hate the reason why he has to think like that, but I love his attitude. He has never been negative about himself or his self-image (my heart breaks for families who have kids 15, 16 years old who still have not "broken the news" to their boys about this disorder, even though they may have had a prenatal diagnosis, for "fear" that they will accidentally tell a friend or someone who will tease them about it, or discriminate against them for it . . . all these years of missed opportunity for the child to understand his struggles and come to terms with this aspect of who he is!). BOING BOING. Up/down, at the same time. Life with a special child is, for us, life on a bungee cord. We'd never change who he is for even a second. But sometimes the struggles he faces, and that our family sometimes faces, do cause us pain. In the end though, I'll take him and love him exactly as he is.

I have looked at them, I know what they are, and I want nothing to do with them in my teaching. In core skill subjects, we are already way ahead of them-- they set a pretty low bar. In core content subjects, the way we teach is far more logical and builds on itself better than the scattered approach mandated. I get the theory behind the core, and actually parts of it do make sense; unless I am mistaken, it is similar to the idea behind Hirsch's Core Knowledge ideas; if we give all kids everywhere the same base education in the same sequence, we raise a generation of kids who have the same cultural references, the same idea of national identity, and in today's mobile society where there is an outstanding chance that a child will transfer schools at least once, if not multiple times, moving from one core school to another will reduce the chances of introducing gaps in his education. To me, that all makes perfect sense (I don't get as prickly about "Oh, that's indoctrination!" as some folks; I think having an identity is a good thing, but follow me here). The specific sequence suggested though (particularly in science and history), and sometimes the content involved, turns me off. I still think it's a mistake to get too excited and to think that this is a magic bullet that will fix all of the problems in our schools. As we know as homeschoolers, results are not always connected directly to a particular curriculum or choice of textbooks. Results come from a variety of factors, including high standards and expectations for every student (not to be confused with thinking all students are gifted or denying gifted students their services!), consistency, individualized instruction when needed, allowing students some freedom to explore their passions, planning across the course of the education rather than just year to year, mastery of material before moving on, and more. The core sequence addresses some of those issues, and I feel it tanks out on some of the others (the founder specifically does not believe in differentiated services for gifted students, and I feel the history and science sequence is weak, and I am not seeing space for the students to explore things that interest them specifically; other issues are not specific to any educational theory). The rest of the 'indoctrination' issue is of course not addressed here, as it would be O/T; I feel things like telling kids to distrust their parents, to be mindlessly obedient, etc are separate from developing a shared cultural experience through learning a consistent set of facts about music, art, history, science, literature, etc that they can expect everyone to be familiar with so that if they mention someone being a "mocking bird" they don't have to explain Harper Lee's book to the listener before intent is understood.

Object lesson today: normally, yes, I actually do write all that out! We are on vacation this week: no list. I was getting out of bed this morning, and before jumping into the shower, I asked my husband to remind the kids to do everything to get ready so we could leave on time for a doc appointment. The rest of our morning did not go smoothly. Me: DS2, please go put on your shoes right now. DS2: OK Mommy! DS1: Mom, we're going to go sit in the car and read until you are ready! Me: Great! Thanks for getting ready, guys! (I notice DS2's meds are still in his pill minder. Grab cup of water, pills, go to car, drug child) Me: Almost ready guys, I will be right back! (Collect schoolwork, chai, purse, keys, as we just barely have time to go from doc to lunch out grab and go to science museum class) (Halfway to doc office) Me, to DS2: You aren't wearing any shoes, are you? DS2: Oops! Oh and Mom, the cup of water was still on the seat. It spilled, so now it's all over my pants. *sigh* The day actually went DOWN hill from there.... Let's just say we all function much better with lists. (Yes, I use Olly; it is Mac based. They are coming out with an iPad/iPod version, but according to the message boards, they postponed the September release in order to work on a few bug fixes for the main Mac program first. They are very responsive to customer feedback, I find).

Don't fear the note booking pages of NOEO... The assignments are very explicit. It is very much open and go.