I also just finished up the book (after flipping back and forth through it for the last week), and it was a very interesting read. The thing that was most enlightening was seeing DS4 and DD23mo in some of the upper level kids. I just don't think of them as gifted as DS6 because they didn't have his really early verbal abilities.
I even went back and looked at our home videos and the baby books. It's amazing the things I've forgotten! I remembered that DS6 was saying a couple of simple words at 6 months, I had completely forgotten the video of him at 2.5 months sitting with my mom staring at her mouth and desperately trying to imitate her talking but only managing to get out "ah-goo". That went on for well over half an hour (the video even stops and starts, so his attention span was longer than mine, lol).
I'm still not really clear on exactly which level DS6 fits because while he's now a couple to several years ahead in all academic skills, he only really started talking and reading early (and even the reading wasn't until his 5th birthday). I mostly see him as a 3 with a bit of 4 in him, except that I don't think he did any really precocious math or reading. There was video of him counting the Easter eggs and naming their colors at 26 months, but that's not so unusual I don't think. I also know he had most of his board books memorized by then and I was reading chapter books to him at night, but again, nothing I would really consider so extreme. So, is that the distinction between 1/2 level and 3/4/5 level- that the kids in the upper levels did everything super early or is it that once they picked them up they zoomed ahead?
All in all, I'm glad I had the library get it for me, I think if I owned it I would be tempted to obsess, lol.
