It is true that some gifted kids pass many of the traditional milestones early but sometimes they don't or sometimes the clues are not so obvious as walking/talking etc. I think problem solving issues such as using objects to reach things, early learning of object permanence etc. are not as obvious to parents. Also I find that a sense of humor can be very telling as well. Humor requires advance knowledge in order to see the twist or comic "wrongness" of things.
As for reading...my brightest of children was not even reading as he started Kindergarten. However, in October we went on a trip and I brought some very early readers (The dog is big.) and by the end of three weeks he was reading Magic Treehouse Books and by December, Harry Potter. It was wild. I have four kids and all are very bright but that experience blew me away.
Kids don't necessarily progress in a straight line. I also find that the really bright ones get into a topic or area of development and really progress and then out of nowhere drop that area and pick up another. And THIS is why I don't understand how they can say these kids are fine in traditional classrooms where you spend 25 minutes a day on each subject. But that is a rant for another post. ;-)
I think so and it might explain alot about my oldest. I don't specifically remember the milestones, but there are somethings that I can even see carrying to her current school issues. I don't remember when she actually started to talk, since she is just quieter in general, but well before 1 year, she would put her hands out in front of her, like in a pushing away gesture and say, what sounded like "monkey shoes". DH and I both noticed, then realized it was her way of saying she was done with something so we accepted it...eventually, her ability caught up with her intellect and we realized she had been saying "No thank you". She also put herself to bed on a vacation when she was maybe 22 mo. She just came in, announced that she was going to bed and off she went. She didn't really crawl (we do have hardwood floors)but went straight to walking and her favorite color has been black since she was two.
I guess part of my point is that I am suspecting she is one of those kids that has little patience for steps or really "discovering" but would like you to give her the whole thing all at once, kwim? It's like she goes straight to the end...
