Monday March 9, 2009

I didn't have time to post yesterday, so this will be a catch-up post. We went to Mass (learned about St. Frances) at 8am. Connor then worked on his mystery story for Impact, completed his Math pages, did Shepard Software, practiced guitar, read The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, practiced Chinese and at 12p we left to go to the Dr. appointment. The appointment at Encompass Learning Center took from 1p until 4p. Since Connor was exhausted after the testing, we called it a day. The Dr. began the consult with me, after evaluating the results of the tests, by saying, "When I come across kids who test like Connor, I generally begin by asking if there is any way the parents would consider home-schooling the child." Well, that was a shocker, to say the least. Bottom line is that Connor is highly gifted, but also ADHD (no great surprise there). The problem is that sometimes he tests just average on a subject, and then later on similar types of material he scores in the 99.9% . His results were all over the place. He scored 99.9% on reading comprehension at a 10th grade level,only 50% on word comprehension at a 5th grade level, and then 99.99% on spelling. He scored only 60% on mathematical reasoning on one test, and then completed 9th grade algebraic equations and scored 99.9%. The Dr. said his results were just all over the place, depending on his attention at the minute. He fidgeted constantly and often tried to get the test done as quickly as possible (rather than trying to be accurate). Again, no surprise really. Because I would rather not have to homeschool for another two years (I liked my job!) we spoke at great length about what school might be an appropriate fit for Connor. The only school the Dr. thought might work would be Allendale-Columbia (which is $18,000 a year!!!)or maybe Cobblestone (again too expensive). The Dr. said really Connor should be in a self-contained classroom with other highly gifted kids---but NY does not have that as an option of course. So, all in all, it was interesting and the consult confirmed what I suspected. Now, I just have to plod along and do my best.