I completely forgot about toastmasters, too! Thank you!

I was thinking the same thing. What about ADD? What about vision (again, not just a regular eye exam)? Sounds like she's not being challenged if she doesn't want to do the easy stuff.

I'm not familiar with the way the tests are given, but is it possible she did better on the visual part than the listening part? Have you had her ears tested? We were told that a hearing problem may have brought my kids' scores down (different tests than yours). Turns out... they were right. Both of my kids have (unrelated) hearing issues.

Look at some of the stuff Barefoot Books does. They have some that are from all over the world and some that are just traditional. I don't think they have any reps in Africa, but you could order online through Amazon third parties or something.

I don't know if you're religious, but boys at my church are allowed to make short presentations to small groups and on rare occasions, to the entire congregation. Girls are allowed to present to women-only groups as well.

The first one might depend on speed. That one could be thrown out if you know he reads high frequency words well (which I assume he does, based on the other levels). If he's reading a lot faster than he's clicking, the results will be skewed. The word recognition score means he's able to figure out what you're wanting. If you say, "bring me the box that has ______ on the label", even if he doesn't know those words, his decoding skill is good enough that he can figure out which one you want. The phonics test means that he knows all of the rules. Now he needs to focus on reading words that break the rules. Spelling is age-appropriate, which is often true for early readers. That's where you need to put your focus for the upcoming school year. Vocab & comprehension are also well above normal. My suggestion is that you drop any sort of phonics/reading instruction next year. Spend your time on high quality literature with rich vocabulary, and spend your time on spelling.

We like Sequential Spelling, but there are a lot of great programs out there. I'd go through ETC 8 and then concentrate on spelling (and perhaps reading for comprehension).

We stopped phonics after about 3 or 4 years old and moved on to Sequential Spelling. We did it orally, because neither of my boys were writing well enough at 4 or 5 to write spelling words, either. I think it's important to go ahead and start working on spelling, but it's not important to stress over writing until physical ability matures.

My 2E verbal kids keep themselves challenged with books ... always have! When a child learns to read, the whole world suddenly becomes an open door.

Yes, we use Fred as our primary curriculum now. We've used a bazillion other things in the past. I'll plan on getting through all 5 books next year, then (K, L, M and the F&D books). Thanks for your insight!

I have a gifted & accelerated child whose strength is not in math (he's accelerated in math too, but not by very much). We hopped around from one thing to another before completely starting over with LoF elementary. He loves it, he gets it, he craves it, and he flew through the first several books, only slowing down a little bit (to 2 lessons per day) when he got to I & J. He hasn't had any trouble at all memorizing facts, either. I've heard that there isn't enough repetition in these books, but I don't agree. He's doing great, and suddenly, he actually WANTS to do math first each day. So, I'm thinking about next year. If you're familiar with the new intermediate books K, L, & M and/or the Fractions & Decimals books, can you tell me approximately how long they should take? I'm guess-timating here when I think that K, L, and M can be the first semester and then Fractions would be second semester, but I don't know. Would Fractions & Decimals typically go into the same semester, or are they meant to be year-long courses? I will (obviously) allow him to work as slowly or quickly as he feels is necessary, but I'm asking this from a budgeting standpoint. I'm not sure how many books we'll be going through next year.

My younger son is over-the-top creative, got his first few imaginary friends just before he turned 2 (still has them, believe it or not!), and is making up stories all. the. time. My older son didn't do this, and in fact, didn't start "pretending" (actually just imitating) until his little brother started doing it. My older is autistic, but my younger is not. Like the others here, we didn't know that was one of the signs. Not pretending as a toddler/preschooler set him apart socially, but now that he's older, it's hindering him academically. He's so many times incapable of coming up with his own thoughts for writing assignments, problem solving, etc. Things that seem obvious to me are not at all obvious to him. He can "put 2 and 2 together" to come up with a good solution to a problem, but if there is a piece of the puzzle missing, he's not able to figure out what's missing so that he can solve the problem. I'm not saying you need to jump to an autism conclusion or run out and find your nearest psych, but you should keep an eye on this.

My oldest did VT (twice, actually). He was really struggling when he started chapter books, which of course was partially due to his young age and lack of eye development. He was skipping lines, repeating lines, and when reading any book (not just chapter books), he'd read the long words fine, but skip the tiny words entirely as if they weren't there. We switched to large print chapter books at first, which helped a lot, and he did 8 months of VT, which also helped a lot. The only reason we quit is that VT is soooooooo expensive!! After about a year and a half, he started to decline in reading again, so we did 6 more months, and after that, he was doing GREAT!!! We saw a huge improvement after the first few weeks both times, but by the end of the second course of treatment, he was reading way better than developmentally appropriate for his visual age. (By the way... the GDC also recommends finding a therapist who understands giftedness and is willing to push a child beyond the visual norm to keep up with their higher-than-normal reading levels. This has helped my son with endurance and speed, for sure!)

I like Reading Comprehension from Varied Subject Matter by EPS. It's just reading comp, though... not a full LA curriculum. I'm not sure about a supplement for the others, except perhaps Spectrum workbooks. Spectrum is certainly not advanced or a full curriculum or anything, but it's a nice way to brush up on skills or keep learning over the summer. My kids think they're kinda fun sometimes.

Sounds like my kids at that age. One started reading at 22 mos, and the other started reading at 17 mos. Read, read, read!!! You don't need to worry about curriculum. Dr. Seuss books are wonderful (start simple like "Hop on Pop", and soon she'll be reading ones like "There's a Map on My Lap" all by herself, learning geography, science, history, math, etc.). Ask lots of questions (to encourage problem solving and critical thinking) and answer lots of questions (as best you can in an age-appropriate manner). It's normal to get way, way, WAY ahead early on when dealing with a gifted child. You can always slow down later by digging deeper into subject matter that interests her or teaching the same concept in several different ways. The most important skill, however, is reading. Once she's able to read absolutely anything (age 4-5, perhaps), she won't be quite so demanding of your energy. She'll be able to soak in a whole lot on her own, and she'll still have that passion for learning ... perhaps more so than now, even. There's nothing wrong with teaching reading and math right now through books and everyday activities (helping to bake cookies involves both reading and math!). Just go with the flow and let her direct your path for a few years. :)

I'm going to vote the opposite way. We're heavy on Latin and Greek (not at the same time, but starting at age 4) and don't plan to do any modern languages until the last couple of years of high school. If you're already fluent in both Latin & Greek, it will help with vocabulary ... from SAT to on-the-job training ... and it will help with any of the Western languages. Spanish is the major "other" language in my area, so although we have a French teacher in the family, we'll probably go with Spanish when the time comes. Oh, and we use Classical Academic Press for all of our Latin & Greek, and at some point in the (distant) future, we’ll also do the Machen New Testament Greek for Beginners.

The first time we used it (it was called DOMA back then, but it's the same test), we had the same problem - the scores in math were all over the place! We used mastery-based curriculum and supplements (Miquon & IXL.com) to catch up the oddball spots that were lacking, and we used drill-n-kill online games to work on getting the facts faster. After that, the test results were much more accurate the following year. We also noticed that there were things on the checklist that he KNEW, but that weren't tested, because the test assumed if you didn't already know X, you couldn't have known Y or Z, either. ... the test was mistaken! ;) I caught on the 3rd time through the test, and I answered a couple of them for him to make sure the test would continue past that point. LOL

Keep going! As others have said, you can repeat books if necessary, or if you find that you just have a mathy kid, you can keep going. There is way more math in the Fred series than any high schooler will ever need, so it's not like you'll run out of material or anything.

I stumbled onto this today and I'm intrigued by the poetry one. I'm thinking about taking a year off from English to focus on poetry with my older son. I don't know. What are your thoughts? His strength is in verbal subjects, but he's really getting burned out lately. (Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you like it. LOL) I want to mix things up a bit and keep it fun. Oh... and how does this compare with CAP's Art of Poetry? We like CAP for Latin.

I have a radically accelerated math phobe & writing phobe. The math phobia (99%) disappeared when we started Life of Fred. I haven't found a way around the writing phobia yet. LOL! He abbreviates EVERYTHING, and although it annoys me that he tries to get out of doing math stuff, I have to admit that it has tremendously helped his mental math skills. ;)

You can schedule an open house visit (either when other parents are there, or preferably when you just call and say "hey, I'd like to spend a day with you tomorrow") so you can REALLY get a feel for a group. Observing and having your kids in classes one day is free, and you can do it at multiple campuses if you have them. Trying it for yourself is better than asking around, because people who chose to do it will defend their choice, and those who chose not to will defend theirs. The answers will always be biased.

We have friends who have raved about it, so my kids tried out a group. We hated it. It was soooooo far behind their levels, and the CC group was not at all willing to compromise on placement. Age only - no if's, and's, or but's, because "all children learn the same way, and all parents think their kid is smarter than the rest." Bologna. The "science" was a joke (they glued rocks to a page that was supposed to be something about a rock cycle, but no one ever once mentioned what a rock cycle is or why the kids were gluing the rocks there). The "music" was from YouTube, and they "reviewed" things that the group had apparently been working on for weeks but couldn't answer (my kids could answer all the questions, and we haven't really done much music ... their kids had elaborate lapbooks that were nearing completion, but still couldn't remember anything they'd "learned" from making them). The "Latin" was rote memorization of 4th declension endings. The "art" was one of those pages you get from the dollar store where you use a wet q-tip to dip into the dry ink at the top of the page and paint the picture. They require you to engage in their prayers and songs, even if they teach something contrary to your belief (a different flavor of Christian, I mean). The Essentials math was just flash cards... playing a speed matching game against an opponent (opponents who are clearly mis-matched to each other in ability... I suppose in an effort to encourage the younger, but it would frustrate my perfectionist kids to lose every.single.time.) Yes, the kids were all well-mannered, and the parents were all way too friendly, and some of the kids recited excessively long passages of scripture in front of the group, but eh... we decided it wasn't worth as much money as they were asking and as much time as would be necessary to complete the "optional" assignments and not make my kids outcasts for not doing the homework (kids who do the homework are rewarded with fake money to buy prizes and stuff).

We haven't found anyone in our area who is my son's age. There are plenty of YS in the state, but they're scattered in distance and age. I was hoping there would be more.

I was hoping to use the free access to various types of counselors to answer my questions. I haven't gotten answers, though. I've gotten email responses that are almost as if written by a machine, directing me to articles or books that I've either already read or don't answer my questions. We also won't be traveling to NV, and because we homeschool, we don't need any sort of advocacy. I thought perhaps the forums would be great, but they're completely dead. I'm bummed about the whole experience and have no plans to go through the qualification process with my younger son. I'm still hopeful that I'll get some great information in the future as we plan for early college options...

Regarding DYS: First, I'd also heard that 2E kids are often turned down and/or asked to reapply. That didn't happen to us. My oldest was accepted on the first try, and he has a long list of documented 2E issues. We submitted psych reports, therapy reports, neurologist reports, etc. We haven't applied for my younger yet. So far, I haven't really gotten much from the DYS program, so I don't really see a point. Maybe I'll change my mind in a few years. I don't know. My younger is also 2E (to a lesser degree), but I don't think he'd have any problem getting accepted on the first try, either. Second, our recommendation was done by a woman at church who has known my son since he was born and has periodically taught him in religious settings. Third, we used a combination of WISC, WJ, and portfolio, because I'd heard it might be more difficult for a 2E child to get accepted (he had qualifying scores, but they were all over the place due to disabilities and asynchrony ... one subtest was extremely low). Because most of what he'd done was either oral or typed, we used videos to show what he knew and what he could do. They had no problem with that or the scores. I don't know if it's because the portfolio was well made or if it's because they simply took the scores without question. They didn't say.