Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Help -- where to start with an independent 5yo?

My 5yo son is starting kindergarten this fall, and I'm trying to figure out a general approach to his education... but am not sure where to start! We think our son is quite bright and possibly gifted, but not extremely off the charts. I suspect that he will be happy but not fully challenged in school, and he is resistant to any semiformal afterschooling at home.

Background: I was treated as gifted back in school, accelerated to graduate 3 years ahead, ended up with a science PhD at an elite school. I never had to "test" for anything -- I was lucky to have supportive and proactive school environments. My husband was a "normal smart kid" in school, did not have much enrichment or direction, but also enjoyed learning and ended up with a science PhD at an elite school.

Not having grown up in the US, I am amazed at all the opportunities available to gifted kids here (CTY, etc.), and would like to take advantage of them if our son qualifies. This seems to involve a lot of initial testing though. My husband, with his slightly different background, would rather not test this early (if at all), and go with the flow. There are no gifted programs in our district, but we have good public schools. Also, I'm not sure how my son would react to formal tests -- he tends to resist stuff like that, or get very silly.

He is bright, verbally precocious, very social and physically active but also capable of sustained periods of concentration by himself (hours of flipping through books, drawing, mapping and ranking imaginary kingdoms, etc.). He loves for me read to him for over an hour a time (we'd keep going but my voice gives out) -- books at a middle-school level, about history, science, etc. His memory is excellent -- since 2yo, he has been able to memorize verbatim books that we've only read to him a couple times, and he is a font of knowledge on subjects he has obsessed on through the years (dinosaurs, white blood cells, greek myths, etc.)

He is very resistant to being "taught" anything by me at home, though he is happy at preschool. I tried to teach him to read (to give my voice a rest!) and he fought me off -- only once we discovered the Letter Factory videos did he jump all over phonics, and now can read basic words (like "shape"), but resists trying to read full pages or books on his own. We tried some math games which he enjoyed (he can count to > 100 by 2s/5s/10s/etc., do simple addition, loves the concept of infinity, and also tricks like knowing when a huge number is divisible by 2 or 3), but again he doesn't want to look at worksheets or manipulatives -- really, he just wants me to read him books, books, and more books! So without testing, there aren't any real objective markers of "oh my son was reading at age 2" or "he's on singapore math level X".

What would you do? Go with the flow, see how school starts, and not bother with any testing (to distinguish between bright & gifted) unless it still seems warranted when he's older and could qualify for actual talent search camps? Or by not testing on our own (I assume our district wouldn't do it since there are no gifted programs, and I'm not even sure how/where we'd get him tested) are we missing out on earlier opportunities that he could really enjoy and learn from? I don't have any particular goals -- even if he qualified for online learning at talent search programs I'm not sure that I could convince him to do it. But but but -- I don't want him to miss out on anything!

Thanks for your advice -- I'm really enjoying discovering these boards and learning from y'all!

yay! so while it's possible he might not have a ton of interest in the more formal stuff right now, he's clearly super-keen on learning - which, speaking as the parent of a kid whose thirst for learning was killed by Pre-K last year (ugh), is the main thing!

going with the flow doesn't sound like such a bad plan - you'll really never know how he responds to school until he's there. so much depends on the environment and his personality. stuff to watch out for might include: a wide gulf between what you see at home and what the teachers see, an uptick in behavioural issues and, sadly, teachers who may think you've been pushing him - even though you haven't been.

best of luck, and welcome! this board is great.

It sounds to me like you are already taking the best approach with your DS. I am of the same opinion as your DH regarding testing. In your particular set of circumstances, you may as well wait until when talent search starts in 2nd grade. In the meanwhile, keep providing the enriched environment and follow your DS' lead as to when to offer more structured learning opportunities like CTY, EPGY, ALEKS, etc.

For what it's worth, all three of my children really enjoyed kindergarten and did not focus on the academics. However, I am not sure but I don't believe any of them were actually "reading" before entering kindergarten. The reason I am not sure is because I did not teach/test them and really focused on promoting other kinds of learning and none of them were enrolled at "academic" pre-schools. For my DYS DS, he was able to read a 1st-2nd grade level book that I handed him a couple of months into kindergarten, but I have no idea at what point he actually learned to read. At that stage, he still prefered that I read to him and explained to me that he did not enjoy it as much when he was doing the reading because the process of reading distracted him from the enjoyment of the book. That may be the issue with your DS so I would follow his preference. DS was at 5th-6th grade level within a year and must have gotten past that distraction/enjoyment issue well before then. Similarly his twin sister (borderline/almost DYS level)did not start reading 1st/2nd grade level books until winter of kindergarten and jumped to 3rd/4th grade level before 1st grade. Even my oldest DS, who only tested MG with 2E issues, learned to read fluently in 1st grade and was reading 3rd/4th grade books in 2nd grade.

Children are such sponges at that age. I truly believe that if they are not focused on formal academics, they are absorbing other knowledge/skills by leaps and bounds. Bottom line, with two PH.D. parents and in the absence of medical issues, it is unlikely that your DS will not be somewhat gifted.

I agree - it sounds as though you're doing everything right already - simply follow your ds' lead, he isn't going to "miss out" on anything. It's great that he loves loves loves to have you read to him - read! read! read! As tired as your voice is now, you may miss these times a few years down the road when he's interested in other things And (jmo) - personally I think in those early years the *love* and warmth and sense of security your child soaks up by sitting with you while you read to him means ultimately much more in terms of who they are going to develop into as an adult than whether or not they do calculus early

Like Quantum, with my EG ds I have no idea when he actually started reading - no one bothered letting me know, including ds. Like your ds, he just wanted us to read read read to him before he started school. He also memorized books but didn't seem to have any interest in learning how to read. The year he was in kindergarten I didn't know he'd already learned how to read until we visited relatives over Christmas break and they told me! By the end of kindergarten he was reading well well weeellll beyond grade level, with no formal instruction from anyone. Later on in his growing up years, I asked him how he learned to read and why he didn't bother telling anyone. He told me he was motivated to get to the highest level of books in his kindy classroom so he just worked through them, and then he was done. He never thought it was all that interesting of a thing to bother telling us about and he also enjoyed just a little bit not letting us know - I think because he thought we might stop reading to him if he *did* know how to read. FWIW, I still read to him when he lets me

Re testing - if you look at CTY and it's something you're interested in, you can (or at least you used to be able to) enroll a young child (I think younger than 2nd grade) without proof of formal testing. Your child still has to sign up to take the SCAT and pass the cut-off bar on that score to be able to enroll in CTY courses (or at least I think you do - there might be courses any student can enroll in.. not sure)... but the SCAT isn't hugely expensive and it's not a long (time) test. My older ds had qualifying scores when he joined CTY but my dd who is now 9 was only 7 when we enrolled her and she hadn't ever had any formal testing at that point.

With our kiddos, we found that just exposing them to a lot of fun, interesting, creative things when they were little (and still willing to go with us to whatever we suggested) was just as intellectually stimulating for them as enrolling them in any kind of course. Trips to the museum, art in the backyard, going on hikes, PBS videos (Nature, Nova etc)... those all spawned lots of great conversations with deep thoughts.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks for all of the encouraging info & advice! I'm not sure what I was looking for exactly, but I feel more confident with the go-with-the-flow approach we've taken so far with our son, and less stressed about missing out on something. Also very glad to have discovered this forum, and to join in the community!