Yesterday, Katie Anderson, the applications coordinator with Davidson called to make sure I had received her email. She sounds really nice. As she said in her email, they need other samples of work he is doing at home (since he is homeschooled) in order to determine where he is functioning academically and as I had already mentioned, a writing sample, that I am not even going to try to get until after summer break. She said it was fine to wait a couple of months before sending anything else in.
I was thinking of including videotapes of him reading. Now I am wondering if it is really all that unusual for a nine-year-old gifted boy to be able to read college level textbooks and answer questions over what he had just read. Last night, for example, he read several paragraphs regarding child custody and child support from his sister's college level Introduction to Law and the Legal System textbook to us. His dad, who works in an office that deals with legal issues sometimes talks about his job and my son also likes to watch court tv type shows (I only let him watch if I am right there and can change the channel quickly if a topic comes up that I am not comfortable with). So it is possible that he heard some of the terminology in the book before which might explain why he is able to read and understand this so well. Now I am wondering if this might be normal for even a moderately gifted child and without an IQ score I need to provide proof that he is at a higher level than that to be accepted into the Davidson Young Scholars program.
He is also able to do the same with his sister's Psychology textbook because he finds it interesting. I don't let him read everything in that because there are things I am not comfortable with. He has an aunt that majored in psychology and like her, he finds it very interesting.
At five, his favorite book to read for pleasure was a children's science encyclopedia so science books are easy reading for him.
Historical fiction and biographies are his favorite books to read now. But the strangest thing is that he doesn't sit around reading all the time. There is no reason for him to be able to read at the level he does. He read his first easy reader book at 2 1/2 but he couldn't read more than a paragraph or two without resting his eyes until he was 7 1/2 after he had completed vision therapy. I don't know if this makes any sense, but it looks to me like his reading level increased just by listening to me reading to him and the science and history shows that he used to watch that contained high level vocabulary. I know from having watched him audition with the much older kids (high school age) reading lines that he hadn't seen before that he could read better than they could. The older kids noticed it too and a 16 year old told me that if my son had to go back to school they would have to put him in high school which would never happen. They have seen him read the Psychology textbook and instead of making fun of him, they make positive comments about it and ask him questions. I know that these kids are also gifted, but they are gifted in math. Most of the kids in his musical theatre class are gifted but he is one of the youngest and he seems even more "different" than they do. A new girl in the group who is three years older commented that he was speaking in a "geeky language that she didn't understand" when she heard him talking to a group of older friends about video games. He feels comfortable using higher level language around his friends and he was not talking to her. But people often notice and they make comments. I wish teenagers could fill out the recommendation forms. There are a few kids that have aged out of the musical theater group and are now in college. Maybe I could get them to fill out the recommendation forms. Would this even help? We only asked one person to send in a recommendation and she had not been around him as much as these kids. The kids really get to know each other while doing 4 hour rehearsals.
We are practicing for the Pee Wee spelling bee which is supposed to be for kids up to 4th grade level. One of his friends told me I would be lying to call him a 4th grader, but by age he should be going into 4th grade. I have noticed some of the SAT words that my son likes to study on the Pee Wee list. He wasn't that interested in spelling and we only used a real spelling curriculum for one year and that was when he was six. All of a sudden he can spell at a high level--I think probably at least 8th grade level. He is able to spell words for me while he plays video games because he has this multitasking ability. Should I get a video of this, or is this normal for a lower level gifted child.
Since my son is 2E and hated worksheets and writing, I let him do most of his work orally or online so I don't have much to document his high ability, so I could use more suggestions.
