I have always felt my 4.5 year old daughter is smart, but I recently read an article about gifted children, and that article made me start to wonder if she is gifted. I came across the article randomly. This is not something I have thought about. I did some research, and I noticed she has a lot of the characteristics of gifted children.
To give you a little background, my daughter was born 15 weeks premature (25 weeks gestation). We have always had to be concerned about developmental delays due to her extreme prematurity. When she turned 1 adjusted (which would be about 16 months actual), I was concerned that she wasn't really talking much. I took her to a speech therapist, and she qualified based on her actual age, but not her adjusted age. After only a few weeks of therapy her vocabulary exploded. About this same time I also purchased the "Your Baby Can Read" DVDs/Books/Cards. I thought it might help her. She went throught them much faster than "normal." She obviously new the words (even if she couldn't say them). So by the time she was 2 years old she could read anything. I'm not talking memorizing words. She could read words she had never seen, even long/complex words that I can hardly pronounce! I don't remember an exact age, but before she was 3 she knew her colors, shapes, counting, alphabe. (recognized the letters and knew their sound, she knows what sound certain combinations of letters make as well). Before turning 4 she was able to spell small words. I noticed because she would put her magnetic letters together to spell words, then tell me what they said. If I just asked her to spell something, she could spell 3 or 4 letter words easily. Now that she is 4.5, she can spell longer words. Her counting has also improved. She can count actual objects well (like the other day she counted 12 rolls of toilet paper). She knows a lot about many things from reading books and asking questions about things. She asks tons of questions. She remembers things very well, even things that happened a couple of years ago (like telling me details about things we did on a beach vacation when she was 2).
Some of her behavior and other issues I attributed to her prematurity can also be common characteristics of gifted children, based on what I've read. Her fine motor skills are lacking, for a while she wouldn't even want to try to color or trace because she said she was not good at it. She is VERY active. She is also very sensitive. She is also very unique, and interacts better with adults and older children. All of these are things I read as characteristics of gifted children.
She is a strong-willed child. I do not know if that is common of gifted children. She likes things to be the way she wants them. If things do not go like she thinks they are going to, she gets upset.
I put her in K3 in the fall. I felt it would help with her fine motor and social skills. Her teacher obviously feels her fine motor skills are weak, but she has made improvements. For a while I felt a little guilty about putting her in K3 and not just trying at home, because she decided she hated coloring/tracing and she was not good at it. But she actually seems to enjoy it a little more now that the school year is coming to an end. She will ask for something to trace or cut.
As I said, gifted is not really something I have thought about before. I've spent so much time worrying she would be delayed, and now I see her so advanced in some areas, but delayed in others (mostly fine motor skills). She is my first born (I now have a 7 month old), so I don't have a lot to compare to as far as development. When people finally realize she can read (they don't believe me if I just tell them), they are impressed and tell me she is so smart. But I know reading alont does not make her gifted. Sorry for the long, rambling post, but any help would be greatly appreciated!
