Advice for a gifted preschooler?

[squirtymomma]

So, I know everyone who homeschools has a "gifted" oldest child. I'm trying to be as objective here as I can, lol. But, I do think my 3 year old is pretty bright. She has very above average motor skills. She doesn't miss anything. She remembers stuff from a year ago. She beats everyone in the game Memory. She has an incredible sense of direction, and generally, knows where we are in the car, and how to get where we need to go. She asks questions incessantly. When she wants to do something, she figures it out.

 

I really really really don't want to push too much academics on her and push her to do things that are unrealistic for her age. I have just started teaching her to read (using Phonics Pathways). She was aware of and asking about words, what they said, how they're spelled, a year ago. She asks all the time now. I've worked on aural phoenemic awareness games with her... she can pick out rhyming words, beginning sounds, and ending sounds. She recognizes most letters and their sounds. I think she's ready now to learn.

 

I'm letting her do the Kumon tracing, maze and cutting books to work on her fine motor skills. We're doing the HWT pre-k stuff some (mostly the manipulatives, only the coloring in the workbook so far). I try to get her to hold her crayon the right way, to do neat work, and when she's tired or antsy, we're done. She only does these things when she wants to.

 

I try to encourage her to do lots of puzzles, pattern blocks, lacing, lauri-type toys. We play Memory. We count things and I try and read high quality picture books. We spend as much time outside as possible. Even when it's cold and rainy (we're in Seattle), we at least try and go for a walk through the creek across the street and around the block. I have field guides that we use to identify the insects and birds we find. We do some painting... I'm not as good at giving her regular art projects.

 

She does a Musikgarten class once a week (that I teach), and a gymnastics class. She also goes to BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) with my MIL once a week. And even the schoolish stuff we do only happens three mornings a week when we're not out of the house and the baby is napping.

 

I've always been of the formal-academics-can-wait mindset, and now I feel hypocritical, lol! I guess I'm wondering: is it different with a gifted kid? I want to be cautious. I want to do what's best for her, not what's best for my ego, lol. But do gifted kids need more earlier than others do?

[JudoMom]

So, I know everyone who homeschools has a "gifted" oldest child. I'm trying to be as objective here as I can, lol. But, I do think my 3 year old is pretty bright. She has very above average motor skills. She doesn't miss anything. She remembers stuff from a year ago. She beats everyone in the game Memory. She has an incredible sense of direction, and generally, knows where we are in the car, and how to get where we need to go. She asks questions incessantly. When she wants to do something, she figures it out.

 

I really really really don't want to push too much academics on her and push her to do things that are unrealistic for her age. I have just started teaching her to read (using Phonics Pathways). She was aware of and asking about words, what they said, how they're spelled, a year ago. She asks all the time now. I've worked on aural phoenemic awareness games with her... she can pick out rhyming words, beginning sounds, and ending sounds. She recognizes most letters and their sounds. I think she's ready now to learn.

 

I'm letting her do the Kumon tracing, maze and cutting books to work on her fine motor skills. We're doing the HWT pre-k stuff some (mostly the manipulatives, only the coloring in the workbook so far). I try to get her to hold her crayon the right way, to do neat work, and when she's tired or antsy, we're done. She only does these things when she wants to.

 

I try to encourage her to do lots of puzzles, pattern blocks, lacing, lauri-type toys. We play Memory. We count things and I try and read high quality picture books. We spend as much time outside as possible. Even when it's cold and rainy (we're in Seattle), we at least try and go for a walk through the creek across the street and around the block. I have field guides that we use to identify the insects and birds we find. We do some painting... I'm not as good at giving her regular art projects.

 

She does a Musikgarten class once a week (that I teach), and a gymnastics class. She also goes to BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) with my MIL once a week. And even the schoolish stuff we do only happens three mornings a week when we're not out of the house and the baby is napping.

 

I've always been of the formal-academics-can-wait mindset, and now I feel hypocritical, lol! I guess I'm wondering: is it different with a gifted kid? I want to be cautious. I want to do what's best for her, not what's best for my ego, lol. But do gifted kids need more earlier than others do?

 

I would think the same principles would apply whether she's gifted or not. Is she having fun and enjoying the activities? If she wants to do what you're doing, then do it :001_smile:. If she starts resisting, stop. Don't push, but don't hold her back either!

[Mommy22alyns]

Is she having fun and enjoying the activities? If she wants to do what you're doing, then do it :001_smile:. If she starts resisting, stop. Don't push, but don't hold her back either!

 

 

 

:iagree: My small experience with 3 year olds has been that if they don't like something, they have no trouble letting you know! :D

[LisaKinVA]

At 3, all of my younger children wanted to "do" whatever the older children were doing... so the oldest one was the one with which I had the most "fun." I started having to buy workbooks to keep the younger ones happy.

 

What you're doing sounds like it's working great -- you can continue to build those skils with play, my 3yos have really enjoyed memorizing things (chants, poems, etc.) You could always purchase some Twin Sisters or Troxel CDs and sing along with them (not a lot, just a song here or there). If your 3yo hates it, she'll let you know. But, she could want to do more (never know about these things).

 

Right now, my 2yo is enamored with Latin. She just loves those Latin Chants... Ahh, now if my 9yo were that easy!

[JennW in SoCal]

At this point you can not go wrong in following her lead. She is at the sponge stage of development where she will just absorb whatever she is exposed to and will understand it on whatever level she is at.

 

There is no need to rush academics no matter whether a child is gifted or not. I didn't do much more that cover the 3 Rs formally until my kids were in 4th grade, because they just loved to learn about whatever caught their fancy. And we didn't really start on "formal" looking 3 Rs until 1st grade -- and even then we still used lots of games and just learning through living life. If your dd decides she wants to do workbooks, then go for it, but rest assured she is learning so much as it is.

 

I've got 2 teens to use as proof that this early relaxed approach can work. They are both still advanced, even the one with learning disabilities. Relax, follow her lead, and just enjoy this time.

[KinderSafari]

I think you have a great attitude.

 

"Teaching academics" can be a mindset.

If your child likes it - let her learn about it!

 

"School drudgery" is what you need to avoid.

That is when you push academics on her and she has no interest.

 

If she loves playing at a park, playing tag, etc. - are you pushing athletics?

 

It's a balance.

 

OFFER her things, and follow her lead. If she's interested run with it.

 

There will come a time where she doesn't have an option. A time where you're going to say "you're in 2nd grade now, 2nd graders need to learn this. Sorry you don't like it, but we're going to continue to work on it." Or whatever.

 

For now, there are none of those limits or expectations. Just offer things and let her choose what is fun to her.

[The Governess]

Your dd sounds a LOT like my dd4. Like you, I don't know if my dd is "gifted" but she is bright and extremely motivated. And she kills us all in any memory game. :D My dd just turned 3 when we started going through Hooked on Phonics and she finished the whole program (k-2nd) in about 8 months. It does sound like your dd is ready.

 

My belief is that when a child is eager to learn, we should take advantage of it! I agree with the other poster that said not to push her and not to hold her back. And I think all the things you are doing sound great!

 

Another option, if she wants to do more than you're doing right now, would be to introduce a foreign language. My dd is learning Mandarin at a Saturday school and at home we listen to a lot of songs, do some flash cards for vocabulary, and are learning to count, etc. She's learning WAY faster than I am. :glare: It's humbling to be outperformed by a preschooler!

[squirtymomma]

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

 

My small experience with 3 year olds has been that if they don't like something, they have no trouble letting you know! :D

 

I guess my fear is that even though she enjoys it, it's not necessarily the best thing for her. For instance, I've heard that kids who learn to read early tend to be poorer readers further down the road than the ones who learn later. My concern is not that I'm doing too little... it's that I'm doing too much.

[ElizabethB]

I guess my fear is that even though she enjoys it, it's not necessarily the best thing for her. For instance, I've heard that kids who learn to read early tend to be poorer readers further down the road than the ones who learn later. My concern is not that I'm doing too little... it's that I'm doing too much.

 

That's actually not true. I don't remember where I saw the study (I found it before I had a website and a need to keep track of where I found out what information), but I read a statistically valid study (I used to work as a statistician in the Air Force) that found that those who read early continued to be ahead year after year--it was actually beneficial, not harmful.

 

All the information I've seen to the contrary was not backed up by actual research, and was generally pushed by those with a bias towards whole word teaching methods. These are the same people who will tell you it's bad to teach your child phonics at home before coming to school.

 

That being said, while I taught my daughter to read at 3 1/2, I won't be teaching my son to read until he's 4 or 5. There is also motivation and inclination. I have, however, taught my son his letter names and sounds, and he has learned to spell a few words. His sister corrects his pronunciation by dividing words up into syllables (she's a Webster baby!) and saying each syllable slowly. So, he's also learned to divide words up into syllables! It's very funny to hear a 3 year old boy dividing words into syllables. It has helped his pronunciation greatly.

[Jumping In Puddles]

So, I know everyone who homeschools has a "gifted" oldest child. I'm trying to be as objective here as I can, lol. But, I do think my 3 year old is pretty bright.

 

<snip>

 

I guess I'm wondering: is it different with a gifted kid? I want to be cautious. I want to do what's best for her, not what's best for my ego, lol. But do gifted kids need more earlier than others do?

 

I think children, gifted, bright, average or otherwise, should be encouraged to learn to read/write or whatever when they are ready. Children are ready at different ages so it is up to the parent to gauge the child's readiness.

 

I would also be careful labeling her as gifted. Often times children who are truly gifted have taught themselves to read at age 2 or can play piano or paint in a way that they can not be held back. So more likely, you would be coming here pulling your hair out that your kid just read every book on the shelf including your copy of Harry Potter!

 

So I would say, yes, it is different with a gifted child because they are not just "bright" but are so very different that your whole approach may be more in keeping up with the child INSTEAD of wondering if you are doing enough.

 

For a bright child, you may want to challenge them a little more and it sounds like you are already doing that. :)

[squirtymomma]

That being said, while I taught my daughter to read at 3 1/2, I won't be teaching my son to read until he's 4 or 5. There is also motivation and inclination.

 

Is this just because your son is different than your daughter in motivation and inclination, or because you wish you had waited to teach your daughter until she was a bit older?

[LisaKinVA]

So I would say, yes, it is different with a gifted child because they are not just "bright" but are so very different that your whole approach may be more in keeping up with the child INSTEAD of wondering if you are doing enough. :)

 

Not completely disagreeing w/ Puddles -- but tweaking a little -- some of this depends upon the personality you're dealing with. There are lots of Gifted kids who are NOT "get out of my way and let me" types. They may be driven in only one area (which is a frustration of an entirely different sort), or so laid back that they just don't see the point of "doing" until THEY feel its necessary.

 

Each child is different -- but you will definitely know if your dd is a "get out of my way" type, because they aren't easilly satisfied. They keep pushing and doing. Until your child shows that kind of drive and determination (which she may OR may not), just don't worry too much. When she brings you the book and says "I want to read this NOW." It's time to teach her to read, regardless of how you feel about formal academics.

 

For my son, he had absolutely no interest in math facts -- and hated anything to do with anything he felt "babyish" -- but instead spent hours as a 1st grader learning all he could about percentages, fractions, probability, geometry -- when he finally had done everything he could without really "knowing" his math facts, he (at long last) learned them. Incredibly frustrating for me -- but just the personality of my oldest.

 

Now, my 5yo is all about knowing his math facts -- it's his desire to know all of them. So, we put away the math book for a little while and he's singing/chanting addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and having a blast. He's my most "driven" child academically. My dd is the most driven with art (prolific hardly describes her). My 9yo is "theme of the month" driven, and there is no telling what will catch his attention at that moment.

[Mommy22alyns]

I guess my fear is that even though she enjoys it, it's not necessarily the best thing for her. For instance, I've heard that kids who learn to read early tend to be poorer readers further down the road than the ones who learn later. My concern is not that I'm doing too little... it's that I'm doing too much.

 

 

Where did you hear that? I can honestly say I've never heard that. :confused: My amateur guess is that that would have more to do with the environment of reading - was reading pushed on the child, made out to be a drudgery and a chore? Or was the child interested in reading, curious about words and books? Was there a culture of reading in the home - did the parents read themselves for enjoyment, were books meant to be explored?

 

You are following your daughter's lead - she's clearly interested in pursuing learning. At this point, we're merely facilitators. :001_smile:

[The Governess]

I think sometimes very early readers are sight readers, and they might run into problems later because they never learned the phonics rules properly at the beginning. I don't think that a child who learns to read phonetically at an early age (like the OP's dd seems ready to) would have such a problem. Of course there are exceptions to both techniques.

[Nan in Mass]

Teach lots and lots of songs. You can play imitation games with tunes or clapping patterns.

Think about finding some way to expose her to another language, not through grammar and vocab or anything formal.

And something I wish I had done when my first one was three - get and read Hewitt's Conceptual Physics. It is full of the REAL answers to things like how the tides work and what light is and how gravity works. You are probably dealing with some of those questions already. My science background was pretty good, but I still learned a bunch of things when I read it, things that would have allowed me to give better explanations when my children asked questions.

This is a great time to study natural history, too. She can learn to identify her local birds, trees, insects, and plants. We played a game when we took walks where I would point to a leaf or a bug or a bird or something, and my pre-schooler would have to find another one. This was great for teaching awareness, so a leaf isn't a leaf isn't a leaf. You don't need the names for this game, although it is nice if you can say, "That's an oak leaf," or "That's a lady bug."

Stories are good, lots and lots of stories. Retelling a short story is good practice for writing later, too.

And you can do car math. You can say, "If I have two apples, and Jon eats half of one, how many do I have left?" And then you slowly make the problems more complicated. Eventually, you'll have to help keep track of the in-between numbers in more complicated problems.

Books on tape are nice, too, and make doing puzzles and drawing pictures and building with legos more interesting.

None of this is early academics, but maybe some of this would extend the nice list of things you are doing already.

-Nan

[squirtymomma]

Thanks for all of your ideas and encouragement!

[Lovedtodeath]

Just wanted to say... If your DD is trying to learn to read, teaching phonics is absolutely the right thing to do. When they start reading everything before you have gotten to teaching phonics it is hard to deal with. They can get into some dyslexic tendencies because of starting out with whole word.

[squirtymomma]

Just wanted to say... If your DD is trying to learn to read, teaching phonics is absolutely the right thing to do. When they start reading everything before you have gotten to teaching phonics it is hard to deal with. They can get into some dyslexic tendencies because of starting out with whole word.

 

Yes, this is exactly why I decided to start teaching her. Thanks for that affirmation.

[momsquared]

This might sound strange, but being as she is in the sponge stage, my DD always really loved to memorize things. I don't mean lists out of a book, but songs, The Pledge of Allegiance, Bible versus, etc. Her memory for such things amazes me and she loves the challenge of that. And honestly? Most of our memorizing different stuff takes place in the car as entertainment.

[ElizabethB]

Is this just because your son is different than your daughter in motivation and inclination, or because you wish you had waited to teach your daughter until she was a bit older?

 

My son is different than my daughter in motivation and inclination. My daughter has enjoyed being able to read, and it has made all our lives easier, in many ways. I don't have to explain things to her if I'm busy or unable to go to where she is for a minute or two, I can just say "read the package," or other things along those lines. She also likes being able to read and explain things to her brother.

 

He is more engineering and math inclined, my daughter struggles with addition, until we got a Flashmaster, I feared her brother would memorize his addition facts before she did.

 

Also, my daughter was starting to figure out words from me reading aloud to her, but in a guessing, whole word type of manner. I've remediated too many children who have guessing habits, I didn't want to have to do that with her, so I started teaching her correctly as much to prevent bad habits as to encourage her desire.

 

Everyone who has posted about the picking up reading without phonics is exactly right. A child taught early with phonics will do well. A child who learns with sight words/whole words, by whatever method they pick that up, will sometimes have reading problems (some turn out fine, some will have problems.)

Edited January 5, 2009 by ElizabethB

[VanessaS]

For instance, I've heard that kids who learn to read early tend to be poorer readers further down the road than the ones who learn later.

Yeah, I've heard that too. It's a load of bull-honky. A PP said it all.

 

I belong to a gifted board somewhere else. I'm gifted (as in, IQ over 130) and my children obviously are, as well. If you're daughter is gifted you'd KNOW. You'd be chasing after her academically, not worrying if you're being too pushy. My DS will actually hang onto me, crying and begging me to let him work on his math workbooks. And he could do 300-piece puzzles with 2 years old. He's three and he sits for hours around doing Sudoku puzzles and building elaborate constructions with his LEGOs. It's the INTENSITY that sets gifted children apart.

 

But the biggest point is: with homeschooling it doesn't really matter. You just tailor the education to fit the child wherever they are and everybody's happy. Does she seem to be enjoying herself or are you browbeating her? If it's the former, it's fine. It's an easy yardstick. As a PP said, when they're older there will be things that they are just expected to learn, but for now it doesn't really matter.

 

Besides, what's academic? What about board games, Yatze, dominoes, 500+ puzzles, etc.? What about chess? Is writing a letter to Grandma academic?

Edited January 26, 2009 by VanessaS

[VanessaS]

There are lots of Gifted kids who are NOT "get out of my way and let me" types. They may be driven in only one area (which is a frustration of an entirely different sort), or so laid back that they just don't see the point of "doing" until THEY feel its necessary.

I was a laid back one. Still, my parents could see really early on that I was gifted.

 

Totally OT but fascinating:

My amateur guess is that that would have more to do with the environment of reading - was reading pushed on the child, made out to be a drudgery and a chore? Or was the child interested in reading, curious about words and books? Was there a culture of reading in the home - did the parents read themselves for enjoyment, were books meant to be explored?

Freakonomics has an interesting take on it: advanced reading skills are ONLY correlated with the number of books in the house. The number of ADULT books, that is. No correlation between reading to your children and their reading skills, only a correlation with reading to yourself and reading skills. A case of do as I do, not as I say, don't you think? A lot of you will say, "But I read to my children and they're avid readers now." Ah, yes. But did you also read to yourself? There are people out there (and I know some IRL) who make a big show about reading aloud to their children every day but never pick up a book/magazine/newspaper themselves. Rather they sit in front of the TV all evening and complain that their children never read. :001_huh:

I rarely read aloud to my children (one book a day, maybe?) but they sit around with books all of the time, imitating me. And they used to pretend-read the newspaper every morning in imitation of their father. And my oldest is starting to read on his own now.

 

I agree with you on this, BTW. I'm also pushing phonics although he naturally tends toward sight-reading.

Edited January 26, 2009 by VanessaS

[KristenS]

I've seen, and read of, gifted kids of both types ... the intense ones and the ones where it's hard to tell. Sometimes, in the latter case, it's partly perfectionism ... they don't even want to TRY until they know they can get it right. (We've got more than a bit of that in our house, LOL, and I'm not just talking about the kids!)

 

I like hearing that reading yourself improves your kids' reading ... because I'm a total bookaholic. If there's a correlation, my kids are going to be reading geniuses! LOL.

 

Looking back, I'm not sure I ever did see my parents read too much, though I know my mom did read for fun. Just not often where I could observe it... she's more a bedtime reader. But she sure allowed us access to books ... frequent library trips, trips to used bookstores and thrift stores to buy as many as we could carry, things like that. Definitely was encouraged in the right way.

 

And in spite of my obvious obsession with the printed word, I was not an early reader. I think I was taught in first grade. (I can recall being taught and feeling stupid about the whole thing, actually.)