Are all gifted children early talkers....and other questions - Page 4

[kgianforti]

Originally Posted by minkin03

I agree with this as well. There's a big difference I think in a 3 yo who asks to learn to read or uses a computer/game to learn how to read vs. a parent sitting the child down and requiring them to learn to read.

Ok, may I ask a question about this?? When my big girl turned 3, she asked to learn to read. So I tried teaching her to read with a phonics-like workbook. She resisted. So I stopped and just let her go on websites (like starfall and reading eggs) and just continued to read to her. I think she reads at a K level right now. The websites and me reading to her must have "taught" her to read. What is that considered?

[Tanikit]

Are all early talkers (saying more than 5 words before age 1) gifted?

No

Can late talkers (talking after 18 months) be gifted?

Yes

Are all early walkers (walking before 10 months) gifted?

No

Can late walkers (walking after 15 months) be gifted?

Yes

Are all early readers (before age 4--sounding out words) gifted?

Probably because blending sounds is an advanced concept. Obviously if a child has hyperlexia or the form of autism where they can do one specific thing (eg reading) well then they would not be considered gifted (although the gifted label is sometimes used in these cases)

Can average or late readers (reading after age 4) be gifted?

Yes

Can a child be gifted, but not be able to communicate the knowledge to let others know he/she is gifted?

Yes and in actual fact many gifted children actually hide the fact that they are gifted because they want so much to fit in.

Can a child be great at academics (able to take a test well or retain knowledge) and not be gifted?

Yes, some children work hard and do well at academics purely because of all the work they put into it.

Is there one or two characteristics that separates an average child or an advanced child from a gifted child or is it not as simple as just saying "because my child is x and y they are gifted?"

Its not that simple although using an IQ test will separate these children based on whatever that particular IQ test favours. I think its a lot more than one or two characteristics.
-------
Do you believe your child is gifted in a wide variety of subjects/areas of life or just gifted in one or two areas?

a wide variety

At what age did you first believe your child was gifted and why?

very early on (as a baby) - she spoke early, rolled over early, crawled and walked very early, showed a great deal of imaginative play from very early, was advanced on every single one of the developmental milestones, used advanced vocabulary very young, had good problem solving skills as a very young toddler, linked concepts to discuss new ideas and issues from a very young age and there are more things but I'll limit it to that.

As your child got older and was around more peers, do you still think they are gifted or just more advanced in an area than their peers.

Gifted and more advanced are almost the same thing - I am not sure how you would differentiate them - is it a numerical thing or not?

Do you view their peers as gifted if the peers excel more in an area than your child?

My daughter is too young for me to answer this, but I know already at a very young age that a few of the children my daughter plays with are also gifted for similar reasons to those I have listed.

[quaz]

Originally Posted by kgianforti

Ok, may I ask a question about this?? When my big girl turned 3, she asked to learn to read. So I tried teaching her to read with a phonics-like workbook. She resisted. So I stopped and just let her go on websites (like starfall and reading eggs) and just continued to read to her. I think she reads at a K level right now. The websites and me reading to her must have "taught" her to read. What is that considered?

Well, you didn't sit there and make/require her to read, right?? I would consider it the former, and not later.



Tammy

[kgianforti]

Originally Posted by quaz

Well, you didn't sit there and make/require her to read, right?? I would consider it the former, and not later.



Tammy

Oh heavens no. She learned from the websites and me reading aloud. But I don't know if that is considered "self taught" or not since she learned by those two things and not figuring it out all on her own.

[greenmamapagan]

Originally Posted by kgianforti

Oh heavens no. She learned from the websites and me reading aloud. But I don't know if that is considered "self taught" or not since she learned by those two things and not figuring it out all on her own.

I'm confused by this too. My 3.75 year old is bored of starfall & is playing around on reading eggs whenever it occurs to her (not enough to buy a subscription but I admit to starting a free trial with a new email address if she asks after the last one has run out, if she asked more often we would purchase it) and she loves loves loves to be read to, always has. On the other hand though she is best described as deathly allergic to anything that vaguely resembles instruction and she also loves to pour over books by herself. So is she self-taught or not? She did spend many hours on starfall between 18 months & 3 but really doesn't seem to read phonetically at this point so I wouldn't say she was taught by that website...

Oh & I wanted to echo St Margaret's sentiment (hope I have the right poster) that this thread has been quite useful for me. Thank you.

[moominmamma]

I don't pretend to have the one true answer on the self-taught vs. instructed issue, but I think there are a couple of different issues at play.

First I think the presence performance-based feedback tends to make the learning more "taught" than "self-taught." When a media resource provides response-sensitive feedback (like when a computer game says "great job!" or rings a bell for a correct answer and says "try again" gives a honk for an incorrect one) that this is qualitatively different from sitting down and "self-teaching" with a book about knitting. With the knitting book you are your own critic, your own source of feedback, your own problem-solver.

Secondly, I do think that the issue of child-led vs. adult-led is important. There is a difference between a child learning to read at three because a parent has sat her down with the 100 Easy Lessons book every day, and a child learning to read at three because she's got obsessed with Fridge Phonics and Starfall. I don't think the child is necessarily self-taught in either case, but in the latter the child is demonstrating cognizance of and desire for the skill, internal motivation to do the learning work and the ability to persist. All of which are probably associated with higher IQ.

Miranda

[joensally]

Originally Posted by moominmamma

I agree that the media-based learning tools available these days muddy the distinction. My own feeling is that even if the instruction is unstructured and media-based rather than structured and parent- or teacher-based it still counts as instruction.

Miranda

I agree. How is Starfall not direct instruction?

My guess is that the seeming explosion of early readers is due to the explosion in media-based learning. This really muddies the waters, if we even need to navigate these waters, as these kids are clearly bright and capable but imo it's distinct from those seemingly-by-osmosis kids.

Originally Posted by no5no5

I don't know. If I bought a book about knitting and then, by reading and practicing, taught myself to knit...well, I've already said it: I taught myself to knit. Then again, if it were a learn-to-knit program that told me exactly what to do and when to do it, that might constitute instruction. But I'd still probably say that I'd taught myself.

But you're not making a distinction that you're a gifted knitter . I would also describe both scenarios as self-taught meaning without direct instruction/correction from another person, but I would certainly think it remarkable if an individual sat down with two needles and a ball of yarn and with some trial and error knit a sweater. (and knitting entirely eludes me, so I think anyone who can is pretty spectacular!)

[ChristaN]

Originally Posted by loraxc

To me, this board seems to have a lot of PG kids. I consider DD a very unusual early talker, but she didn't start speaking till 8 months and was not combining words till 13-14 months, which is not nearly as early as some babies here. I notice similar patterns with regard to reading--reading at 4 is talked of as advanced in the Ruf book, but the OP here in fact considered it "normal" and we have many kids here reading at 2, which seems extremely rare in the Ruf books.

It's a bit confusing to me, although I know that opinion seems to be shifting to the belief that there are way more PG kids than previously thought.

Maybe this board is skewed toward parents of PG kids, but my girls are not PG and they were both speaking a few words by 5-6 months. I'm not sure that speech that early definitely means PG. Mine were not reading at two, though.

[Bird Girl]

I think that there is a danger in fetishizing "self-taught" learning over learning with an adult. The choice of tool that the child uses to learn is not necessarily an indicator of higher IQ, but rather is influenced by the degree of introversion or extroversion, and whether the child prefers to learn in a group or partnership or try working alone. After all, for a child who's been read to every day of his or her life, it's obvious that the adult caretaker knows how to read--why not take advantage of that learning and ask, "Will you teach me to read?" Now, the adult can either honor the child's request or put them off, but neither choice is more indicative of the child's IQ.

I wonder whether posters who are asserting that a higher IQ means learning without the parent's help are posters who are themselves more introverted. For an extroverted child, having feedback from a loving family member is extraordinarily beneficial, and does not, to my mind, indicate a future inferior IQ.

[joensally]

Originally Posted by Bird Girl

I think that there is a danger in fetishizing "self-taught" learning over learning with an adult. The choice of tool that the child uses to learn is not necessarily an indicator of higher IQ, but rather is influenced by the degree of introversion or extroversion, and whether the child prefers to learn in a group or partnership or try working alone. After all, for a child who's been read to every day of his or her life, it's obvious that the adult caretaker knows how to read--why not take advantage of that learning and ask, "Will you teach me to read?" Now, the adult can either honor the child's request or put them off, but neither choice is more indicative of the child's IQ.

I wonder whether posters who are asserting that a higher IQ means learning without the parent's help are posters who are themselves more introverted. For an extroverted child, having feedback from a loving family member is extraordinarily beneficial, and does not, to my mind, indicate a future inferior IQ.

Above I said something about if we even want to navigate these waters (parsing self-taught versus adult-scaffolded).

IME, there's a whole lot more to "gifted" than reading (age and method), as evidenced by the many kids who end up testing gifted but who were not early or "self-taught" readers.

My kids are older, and I'm so far away from focussing on their exact journey to reading, although DS's was remarkable for how circuitous it was due to vision issues.

I don't know that anyone's asserting that self-taught readers have higher IQs. EDIT: I know I'm not asserting that self-taught readers have higher IQs, although if one is extrapolating from pre-school/toddler skills that a kid is gifted, I think you're on pretty solid ground if the child is "self-taught."

[Bird Girl]

No, I agree. The idea of self-taught = high IQ is a bit of a straw man. But making a distinction in the first place, especially one that implies the self-taught = somehow better is based more on personal preferences (and perhaps an over reliance on Alfie Kohn ) than evidence.

[no5no5]

Originally Posted by moominmamma

When a media resource provides response-sensitive feedback (like when a computer game says "great job!" or rings a bell for a correct answer and says "try again" gives a honk for an incorrect one) that this is qualitatively different from sitting down and "self-teaching" with a book about knitting. With the knitting book you are your own critic, your own source of feedback, your own problem-solver.

I agree, and that is sort of what I was getting at with my analogy to a knitting book that was dictatorial. I think that these games are particularly insidious for preschoolers. I had to sit down and have a talk with DD to explain that she does not need to do what the games on the computer tell her to do if she doesn't want to after I caught her yelling at the computer to stop telling her what to do. But Starfall isn't that sort of site, or at least the parts of it DD used are not.

Originally Posted by joensally

But you're not making a distinction that you're a gifted knitter . I would also describe both scenarios as self-taught meaning without direct instruction/correction from another person, but I would certainly think it remarkable if an individual sat down with two needles and a ball of yarn and with some trial and error knit a sweater. (and knitting entirely eludes me, so I think anyone who can is pretty spectacular!)

Lest anyone get the wrong impression, I am absolutely not actually a self-taught knitter (or any kind of a knitter).

Originally Posted by joensally

Above I said something about if we even want to navigate these waters (parsing self-taught versus adult-scaffolded).

IME, there's a whole lot more to "gifted" than reading (age and method), as evidenced by the many kids who end up testing gifted but who were not early or "self-taught" readers.

My kids are older, and I'm so far away from focussing on their exact journey to reading, although DS's was remarkable for how circuitous it was due to vision issues.

I don't know that anyone's asserting that self-taught readers have higher IQs. EDIT: I know I'm not asserting that self-taught readers have higher IQs, although if one is extrapolating from pre-school/toddler skills that a kid is gifted, I think you're on pretty solid ground if the child is "self-taught."

ITA. This is why I resort to analogies, because this conversation is so tricky.

Personally, I see very, very little difference between DD asking me to write a word or pointing to a letter or a word and asking me to read it and the sort of thing Starfall did for her (i.e., DD clicked on a letter or word and a voice told her what it was). I don't see one as different from the other in terms of what it means that she was able to learn to read with this and nothing else. It doesn't strike me as less remarkable (or less indicative of giftedness) because the computer read her a few words here and there.

But every mother of a self-taught or minimally-taught or even taught-by-request child wants to distance herself from the mother (real or imaginary) who sits down and forces her young, uninterested child to learn to read. We all want to be able to say that it is not our fault that our kids read early. And we want to discourage those (real or imaginary) mothers who might see our early-reading child and seek to make their own children "gifted" by intensive reading instruction.

Or maybe that's just my issue.

[Bird Girl]

Originally Posted by no5no5

But every mother of a self-taught or minimally-taught or even taught-by-request child wants to distance herself from the mother (real or imaginary) who sits down and forces her young, uninterested child to learn to read. We all want to be able to say that it is not our fault that our kids read early. And we want to discourage those (real or imaginary) mothers who might see our early-reading child and seek to make their own children "gifted" by intensive reading instruction.

Yes, this is exactly what I am getting at. I think that early, self-motivated readers of every stripe are a different kettle of fish than the victims of the teach-your-baby-to-read-write-and-identify-the-Mona-Lisa programs that one occasionally sees. That, to my mind, is the more important difference than the difference between the child who taught himself to read with wooden, hand-made alphabet blocks or the child who learned by watching Sesame Street or Starfall.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by Bird Girl

I think that there is a danger in fetishizing "self-taught" learning over learning with an adult. The choice of tool that the child uses to learn is not necessarily an indicator of higher IQ,

I agree, there's a danger in fetishizing it. But I don't think that's really what has been done here. As I read it, all that's been said is that when estimating giftedness according to Ruf's levels you can only use age of reading if it happens to have been essentially self-taught. If your child was taught to read at age 3 that doesn't mean she isn't gifted, only that this particular milestone can't be used to estimate this particular child's giftedness on this particular scale.

Miranda

[no5no5]

Originally Posted by Bird Girl

Yes, this is exactly what I am getting at. I think that early, self-motivated readers of every stripe are a different kettle of fish than the victims of the teach-your-baby-to-read-write-and-identify-the-Mona-Lisa programs that one occasionally sees. That, to my mind, is the more important difference than the difference between the child who taught himself to read with wooden, hand-made alphabet blocks or the child who learned by watching Sesame Street or Starfall.

Well, I guess that's right. Honestly, DD is the only very early reader I've ever known IRL (oh, gee, excepting myself, I guess ), so it's hard for me to judge what other kinds of early reading might mean. I see a distinction made in the literature, and I know what side of the divide I think DD is on, but it's not really clear to me where the line is or where it should be. Honestly, it's not really clear to me that the child who is successfully forced to learn to read at 2 or 3 but who is not gifted really exists. I just don't know what to think of these children. I've never met one. And if they don't exist, perhaps there is no need for a line at all.

[joensally]

Originally Posted by no5no5

Personally, I see very, very little difference between DD asking me to write a word or pointing to a letter or a word and asking me to read it and the sort of thing Starfall did for her (i.e., DD clicked on a letter or word and a voice told her what it was). I don't see one as different from the other in terms of what it means that she was able to learn to read with this and nothing else. It doesn't strike me as less remarkable (or less indicative of giftedness) because the computer read her a few words here and there.

But every mother of a self-taught or minimally-taught or even taught-by-request child wants to distance herself from the mother (real or imaginary) who sits down and forces her young, uninterested child to learn to read. We all want to be able to say that it is not our fault that our kids read early. And we want to discourage those (real or imaginary) mothers who might see our early-reading child and seek to make their own children "gifted" by intensive reading instruction.

Or maybe that's just my issue.

One distinction I would make between an attentive adult and a computer program is that the child can do it over and over again while a parent would likely limit the repetition, so computer-based learning allows for far greater immersion/repetition potentially.

I think you're right about the distancing piece.

I am LOLing about BirdGirl's remark about Alfie Kohn. I guess it's the the self-directed culture in these parts .

[joensally]

Originally Posted by no5no5

Well, I guess that's right. Honestly, DD is the only very early reader I've ever known IRL (oh, gee, excepting myself, I guess ), so it's hard for me to judge what other kinds of early reading might mean. I see a distinction made in the literature, and I know what side of the divide I think DD is on, but it's not really clear to me where the line is or where it should be. Honestly, it's not really clear to me that the child who is successfully forced to learn to read at 2 or 3 but who is not gifted really exists. I just don't know what to think of these children. I've never met one. And if they don't exist, perhaps there is no need for a line at all.

The other issue is what definition of reading one uses. Is it sounding out CVC words, having a handful of sight words, reading kindie text, reading chapter books?

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by joensally

The other issue is what definition of reading one uses. Is it sounding out CVC words, having a handful of sight words, reading kindie text, reading chapter books?

Yeesh, now yer addin' more muck to da muddy water!

Miranda

[stlmomof2]

My DD, who reads on almost a 2nd grade level, and has an WPPSI score of 140 is not entirely self taught. We're still going through the Teach Your Child to Read (we call it "the big book") and have a number of other easy reader books, Magic Treehouse books, Seuss books, etc. Quite often, she'll say, "Mommy, I'm going to read you a story," but occasionally, if it's been a few days, I'll say, "Why don't you read to me? Do you want to get out your big book?" She's never totally unwilling but there are times when she clearly would rather be read to. At this point, I don't feel bad about pushing her a little. She's really close to being able to read fluently. She probably won't be able to get into the gifted magnet school so we're trying to get her bumped into private kindergarten for the fall in the event that I get a full time job. Even though that would be early entry, I know that kindergarten is still not going to be challenging enough for her. I really want her to be able to read on her own by that time because that will make it much easier for her teachers to differentiate instruction and for her to be independent. I wouldn't sit down and try to teach a 2 year old to read. But a 3 or 4 year old? I think that's fine. Then again, my kid is really easy going. I typically don't have a hard time talking her into doing things that I think are in her best interest. I wouldn't fight with a preschooler to sit down and read with me.

[greenmamapagan]

Originally Posted by no5no5

I agree, and that is sort of what I was getting at with my analogy to a knitting book that was dictatorial. I think that these games are particularly insidious for preschoolers. I had to sit down and have a talk with DD to explain that she does not need to do what the games on the computer tell her to do if she doesn't want to after I caught her yelling at the computer to stop telling her what to do. But Starfall isn't that sort of site, or at least the parts of it DD used are not.

You know I lol'd about moominmama's comment about the feedback-response thing. DD has no concept of conditional approval in that sense (and yes lol about Alfie Kohn), she will repeatedly choose the incorrect answer on purpose if she thinks the sound it achieves is funny nor does care in the slightest about the heirarchical "do this so that you can then do that" format of reading eggs, she will jump ten steps back if she enjoyed that activity

Originally Posted by joensally

One distinction I would make between an attentive adult and a computer program is that the child can do it over and over again while a parent would likely limit the repetition, so computer-based learning allows for far greater immersion/repetition potentially.

my bold and thank the heavens for that there's only so much a mama can take!

While the waters are just getting muddier and muddier, the discussion is however quite interesting