Gifted or Just a Pain-in-the-Butt?

In the Fall, Collin's teacher suggested he be tested for gifted and talented (GT) because of some of his behaviors in class...especially finishing his work early, being bored and then disrupting the class.  In addition, he was doing OK in reading but towards the bottom of his class (I thought this was an odd "sign" too).  His Odyssey of the Mind coach also suggested Collin could be gifted based on her knowledge of what to look for and working with him processing ideas and information during their meetings at a team.  She also suggested he be tested.

I love Collin and knew he was smart but would not have considered him GT mainly because this term had not been used when I was growing up and I was not aware of anyone in the extended family labeled as GT.  I am sure my oldest nephew is but

We did give the school approval for him to be tested and were told it could take several months to get the results back.  The wait was FINALLY over two weeks ago but I am just now getting a chance to research what it means and how we might be able to understand how Collin is performing in school so far.

His CogAT test results were 5B (N+) which means he tested average to above average for most of the abilities and close to gifted/talented in nonverbal spacial reasoning (NSR).  The nonverbal score means he thinks in pictures and has trouble with sequential teaching.  That explains why he has trouble with math word problems but is above average in math.  This also explains why he is far behind his class and grade level for reading.  Not sure how that ties in right now but this is typical for a person with high marks in nonverbal reasoning.  I quickly read it's because of the sequential ordering thing.  He can read the words but is not comprehending them because he has to paint a picture in his mind what he is reading.  He cannot quickly do that to answer the teacher's questions about the book he just read...so his reading score is affected.

Here is a really good summary:  http://dancing-with-dragons.blogspot.com/

I am actually excited to learn this because it will help Dad and I when we work with Collin on his homework.  Maybe knowing that Collin learns and absorbs information differently will help. If we help him "paint a picture" and give him a little more time instead of rushing him, he can improve in some of the subjects, like reading, he is struggling with.  

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After 1 1/2 weeks and applying what we learned from these tests results, homework and reading is SO much better.  Now that we know why Collin gravitates to books with more pictures, we just make sure we give him books with challenging words that do have pictures on a majority of the pages.  These are not easy to find but we have found a few like the Bad Kitty  and George Brown: Class Clown series.  He has done his homework the this week without a fuss....at all!  That is a complete change from the arguing, distracted homework sessions before now.  I hope this is not temporary and we are headed in the right direction.