cover article in Time magazine on gifted education

Sue wrote:
"Donna Metler" wrote in message
My daughter was picking out words on signs before age 2, and is reading
through the easy reader section of the library at 2 1/2. She read 47 books
this summer for the summer reading club, independently, most of them not
to me but to the librarians and volunteers at the library.

I somehow doubt that she's just average.

And she may not be average. All I am saying is that because she is reading
words by sight doesn't mean that she understands the words and that she is
gifted. She may be good in reading, but then be lousy at math or something
else and that won't be gifted.

This is another misperception. Gifted kids are not necessarily
strong across the board in all subjects.

If she was truly gifted, she would have the
social skills down, but she doesn't.

Also completely not true. It is entirely possible for
gifted kids to experience the entire range of social abilities, from
kids who are very sophisticated early on with their social skills
to those with serious limitations due to things like Asperger's.

I think it is way too soon to be
thinking about getting a 3-4 yr old in gifted classes, when you really don't
know what is going to happen 5-10 years down the road.

Why would one delay meeting a child's needs just because
things might be different later? Although, that is vanishingly
unlikely. Giftedness is easily diagnosable by professionals at
this age, and the diagnosis is typically reliable and stable.
Many times it is not *necessary* to have a diagnosis this early,
but it is possible. For the highly+ gifted, sometimes an early
diagnosis is important in order to meet their needs, or even just
figure out how to deal with them.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Sue wrote:
"toto" wrote in message
For front-loaded children perhaps. This is a myth though when it
comes to gifted children. They do NOT even out. Other children may
begin to do better, but the truly gifted child will continue to be
ahead because s/he learns at a faster pace.

But, what I am saying is that because a child picks up a certain skill
early, does not mean they are gifted. The ones that don't even out or are
even ahead should have accommodations made, but from what I have seen in our
gifted and talented program at school, probably only about 3 kids should
really be in there. It's the parents that are pushing these poor kids. I
have overheard the kids talk about all they do is study and they are not
allowed to have fun. It's sad, imo.

Just because there are pushy parents does not mean that
all parents of gifted kids are pushy, or that all parents who
believe they have a gifted kid on their hands are wrong...especially
parents who are reasonably knowledgeable about the subject. In
fact, gifted parents are more likely to *underestimate* how gifted
their kids are because what they think of as "normal" is often
incorrect.

Best wishes,
Ericka

On Aug 20, 9:09 am, Rosalie B. wrote:
Anne Rogers wrote:

My daughter was picking out words on signs before age 2, and is reading
through the easy reader section of the library at 2 1/2. She read 47 books
this summer for the summer reading club, independently, most of them not to
me but to the librarians and volunteers at the library.

I somehow doubt that she's just average.

That's clearly very bright, I've no idea whether it's 1 in 100, 1 in
1000, or what. It will be interesting to see what her interests and
talents are in 5, 10, 15 years time. I suspect she's reading by word
recognition rather than phonics, but I don't really know what later
talents these might map to - I wouldn't be surprised if it was
scientific, rather than, say, English Literature, or languages.

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics. And
I read pretty well.

There has been a fierce debate over the relative importance of whole
language vs. phonics in teaching reading, going back at least to "Why
Johnny Can't Read", by Rudolph Flesch. Jeanne Chall found that some
phonetic instruction helps, on average. I think Deborah Ruf has
written that gifted children are less in need of phonetic instruction.

Regarding the other topic in this sub-thread, I think children (and
adults) tend not to enjoy activities that are meaningless to them. If
a toddler enjoys reading she probably has some understanding of what
she is reading.

Things could vary by region around here, but in this
case, this is a rather affluent area and a ballet studio.
Most of the parents are in fairly high paying jobs (dance
isn't cheap!). It isn't surprising to me that the expectation
is that their kids will go to college and pursue a professional
career (with some exceptions, of course).

yes, that would explain a lot, the place I'm thinking of was a fairly
poor area, there were still several dance school, but the teachers
mostly had day jobs and taught dance in the evening for the love of it,
they barely earned any money, the classes were cheap, any more expensive
and they'd have earned even less due to small numbers.

Cheers
Anne

Rosalie B. wrote:
Anne Rogers wrote:

My daughter was picking out words on signs before age 2, and is reading
through the easy reader section of the library at 2 1/2. She read 47 books
this summer for the summer reading club, independently, most of them not to
me but to the librarians and volunteers at the library.

I somehow doubt that she's just average.
That's clearly very bright, I've no idea whether it's 1 in 100, 1 in
1000, or what. It will be interesting to see what her interests and
talents are in 5, 10, 15 years time. I suspect she's reading by word
recognition rather than phonics, but I don't really know what later
talents these might map to - I wouldn't be surprised if it was
scientific, rather than, say, English Literature, or languages.

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics. And
I read pretty well.

Did I say that, I just said I suspected she was reading one way rather
than the other, purely for interest rather than one being better than
another. The difference I was mainly thinking of is what is the
underlying skill and therefore what talents that might actually lead to
later on.

Anne

Beliavsky wrote:

On Aug 20, 9:09 am, Rosalie B. wrote:
Anne Rogers wrote:

My daughter was picking out words on signs before age 2, and is reading
through the easy reader section of the library at 2 1/2. She read 47 books
this summer for the summer reading club, independently, most of them not to
me but to the librarians and volunteers at the library.

I somehow doubt that she's just average.

That's clearly very bright, I've no idea whether it's 1 in 100, 1 in
1000, or what. It will be interesting to see what her interests and
talents are in 5, 10, 15 years time. I suspect she's reading by word
recognition rather than phonics, but I don't really know what later
talents these might map to - I wouldn't be surprised if it was
scientific, rather than, say, English Literature, or languages.

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics. And
I read pretty well.

There has been a fierce debate over the relative importance of whole
language vs. phonics in teaching reading, going back at least to "Why
Johnny Can't Read", by Rudolph Flesch. Jeanne Chall found that some
phonetic instruction helps, on average. I think Deborah Ruf has
written that gifted children are less in need of phonetic instruction.

Why Johnnie Can't Read was WAAY before my time. I was born in 1937. I
clearly remember the first page of my reading book because I used it
to teach my sister to read. I was 5, she was 2.5. The first page
said "Look, look, look" And I told her to read that page while I went
to the bathroom. When I came back, I figured she'd mastered that page
and went on to the next page which was "See the bus" (IIRC)

There wasn't even any Dr. Seuss then - if all you young people can
imagine that. And no TV, let alone Sesame Street.

Regarding the other topic in this sub-thread, I think children (and
adults) tend not to enjoy activities that are meaningless to them. If
a toddler enjoys reading she probably has some understanding of what
she is reading.

There are some children who memorize books. One of my grandsons could
repeat verbatim the books that he liked and made his parents read to
him, even though they were quite lengthy books and with a lot of text.
He obviously has a good memory and concentrates well.

I remember watching him open his birthday presents when he was about
2, and realizing that he thought the pictures on the wrapping paper
would indicate what was inside the package - very disappointing for
him to unwrap a package with trucks on the paper and find it was a
book and not even a book about trucks.

Anne Rogers wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote:
Anne Rogers wrote:

My daughter was picking out words on signs before age 2, and is reading
through the easy reader section of the library at 2 1/2. She read 47 books
this summer for the summer reading club, independently, most of them not to
me but to the librarians and volunteers at the library.

I somehow doubt that she's just average.
That's clearly very bright, I've no idea whether it's 1 in 100, 1 in
1000, or what. It will be interesting to see what her interests and
talents are in 5, 10, 15 years time. I suspect she's reading by word
recognition rather than phonics, but I don't really know what later
talents these might map to - I wouldn't be surprised if it was
scientific, rather than, say, English Literature, or languages.

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics. And
I read pretty well.

Did I say that, I just said I suspected she was reading one way rather
than the other, purely for interest rather than one being better than
another. The difference I was mainly thinking of is what is the
underlying skill and therefore what talents that might actually lead to
later on.

Anne

In the way you said it "I suspect she's reading by word recognition
rather than by phonics" made it seem like you thought that word
recognition was an inferior method and phonics was a superior method
to learn to read. Some people think that is true - that everyone
should learn to read using phonics. Whereas my feeling is that
different methods should be used, because some people learn better one
way and some people learn better in another way.

Actually word recognition is way faster than sounding something out by
phonics especially if you have a good memory, but it does lead to some
other hazards - Poetry doesn't have much attraction for me because I
don't hear the words in my head. I have to slow down for that. I
can't read Russian novels very well because I get all the characters
that have same initial first names mixed up, and I never learned to
spell very well until I learned to type and actually had to look at
all the letters in a word.

I don't know what you mean by talents that might lead to something
later on.

Rosalie B. wrote:
Anne Rogers wrote:


My daughter was picking out words on signs before age 2, and is
reading through the easy reader section of the library at 2 1/2.
She read 47 books this summer for the summer reading club,
independently, most of them not to me but to the librarians and
volunteers at the library.

I somehow doubt that she's just average.

That's clearly very bright, I've no idea whether it's 1 in 100, 1 in
1000, or what. It will be interesting to see what her interests and
talents are in 5, 10, 15 years time. I suspect she's reading by word
recognition rather than phonics, but I don't really know what later
talents these might map to - I wouldn't be surprised if it was
scientific, rather than, say, English Literature, or languages.

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics.

That's too bad. I love phonics. I think it is without a doubt the BEST way
to teach children to read.

And
I read pretty well.


--
nimue

"Let your freak-flag fly, and if someone doesn't get you, move on."
Drew Barrymore

In the way you said it "I suspect she's reading by word recognition
rather than by phonics" made it seem like you thought that word
recognition was an inferior method and phonics was a superior method
to learn to read.

Does "I suspect his is a sweet potato rather than a yam" imply anything
about sweet potatoes or yams? It merely indicates my thoughts as to what
something is, not what I feel about it and the sentence could be
completed "that's good, sweet potatoes have more vitamins than yams", or
"I wanted you to pick up yams...".

cheers
Anne

nimue wrote:
Rosalie B. wrote:

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics.

That's too bad. I love phonics. I think it is without a doubt the BEST way
to teach children to read.

There is no One True Way that is best for teaching all
children to read. There may be ways that are better for a
population (i.e., lead to a higher percentage of fluent readers),
or something like that, but not that every single child will
learn to read best by one method over another.

Best wishes,
Ericka