Hi Lovemybaby,
These are excellent questions.
Here's a phrase I think you will like: Asynchronous Development. It's a way of seeing giftedness as a special educational need. A child's development doesn't follow the normal course. It's advanced in some areas and and normal in other areas. A child's strength areas can be seen as a disavantage because when given age-appropriate academic material, the child isn't stimulated to learn the age-appropriate academic skills, such as organisation, studying, time management, and "learning to enjoy the struggle of learning."
I like the Asynchronous Development idea because it fits so well with current American Culture - "I'm a victim. I need help! I have a problem, can you help me solve it?" It feels safer than the mental definition of Gifted I grew up with. I think it's only one side of the coin.
I've developed this Asynchronous Development idea into a perspective of my own. When I look at a gifted child to try to figure out what they need, I mentally organize their abilities into three main areas, listing as many details as I can, seeking to fill in the details more fully in the future. Here goes -
Knowledge - Overall how much does this child know? How does it compare to children older or younger than her? Are there specific areas of tremendously advanced knowledge? What are they?
Skills - If you just saw them do a particulat skill, of hat "age" would they seem typial? Typing, Handwriting, Math facts and procedures, reading level, negotiating teasing and sharing, cooking, using silverware, playing an instrument are some of the "I can do it/I'm still practicing" things in life that may or may not be advanced.
Thinking - These are the little stories of how a child's mind seems to understand things without being taught. How they might leap head of other children in their understanding with a bit of teaching and information. How they ask questions about the meaning of life that most children of their age ask at a much later age. The creativity they use to connect ideas and ask more questions. Has the children hit age-assigned milestones early. How does the child react to the conversation of children who are older?
So Lovemybaby, that's the "big picture" of how to look at a child and figure out - Do they need a full, or multiple, or single subject grade skip? Will they need an individualized homeschool program with writing at age level, but other things years ahead? Should you look for afterschool activities with agemates, older kids, or a mix?
It's a lot of information, but there isn't any rush to fill in the blanks, and you already know a lot about your daughter. You have so much at your fingertips already. And of course, the answers are always changing - when she learns to type you may see that she isn't Asynchronous at all - she may become very typical of a child one or five years older, in many many respects.
LOL - DS10 and I were having a joke last night, about a pill, that if you took it, you magically became "all one age" physically, hormonally, as well as mentally. Like he'd wake up tommorow having forgoted several vocabulary words and his voice having dropped an octave! We had the idea that the pill would somehow "take the average" of one's ages and "even things out." We got a pretty good laught out of that one, and decided not to rush things.
((big smile and hug))
Trinity
