I know I was harsher on the expectations I had for my daughter, who tested dead average in spelling. Dead average though is apparently MUCH lower than I ever expected,
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This is me too -- DS spells absolutely at dead average for his age, but that's nothing like being able to spell what he writes! Argh! And it isn't exactly his most favorite thing to work on (nor mine...) so we aren't as consistent with it as other things.
One suspicion I have about spelling as a marker for giftedness is that I think it's one of those things that responds to experience/ practice. So you'll get more distinction between a kid who has worked on it than one who hasn't, or between one who has been presented an approach that works for him vs. one that doesn't, rather than strictly based on ability. And then it's likely affected by all kinds of LDs, just to complicate things! So while I'd say early spelling is definitely a "plus" it's not quite diagnostic. If you know that the ability is (relatively) spontaneous then I think it probably is an indicator, but for the purposes of norming tests and making generalizations, they can't really distinguish the gifted speller from the well-trained speller.
