Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Developmental milestones

In the interests of creating a guide to developmental milestones for gifted/talented kids, here's a quickie survey that may mutate into something bigger. Right now I'll stick to school-type milestones.

This is totally informal and isn't meant to be a diagnostic tool or anything like that. But it could be a useful guide. I've done a survey like this once before and I found that it worked well when it was allowed to morph over time (meaning, I would call people again and ask them new questions to create new categories).

Please fill in the blanks and I'll figure out a way to organize this. My plan right now is to make averages, medians and ranges.

Caveat: This is all self-reported data, and I am definitely estimating some of my responses, so take it with a grain of salt. Also, and naturally, some of these milestones depend on when mom or dad first handed a book or pencil to the child.

So this isn't perfect but if people are interested, it could be a useful (if rough) guide.

Count months only if the full month after the birthdate is complete. So for someone born May 12 2000, May 11 2001 is 11 months and May 13 is 1y0m.

Options: PM the info to me and I'll add it to the list or just add it in here.

Also, try to reply to each successive message. This will cut down on copying and pasting on my part.

If this bombs, I'll drop it. If people don't like the idea, let me know. If you DO like the idea, also let me know!

Val

Age at which your child started sounding out/reading words:

DS8 4y0m, DS6 3y10m, DD3 3y3m

Age at which child starting reading easy beginner books (eg Bob Books Set 1; See Dick Run.)

DS8: 4y2m, DS6: 4y6m, DD3: 3y6m

Age at which child read a Dr. Seuss-type book:

DS8: 4y7m? DS6 5y10m,

Age at which child read chapter books with little or no help:

DS8: 5y9m

Age at which child could count a group up to 10 objects and draw a line to the corresponding digit:

DD3: 3y4m

Age at which your child could do simple addition (sum <5) in his/her head:

DD3: 3y4m

Age at which your child could multiply in his/her head:

DS8: ~5y6m? DS6: 5y10m?


Age at which child started to write letters:

DS8: 2y9m, DS6: 4y9m, DD3: 2y3m


Age at which child started to write words independently, even if very short and/or mispelled:

DS8: 4y2m, DS6: 5y5m, DD3: 3y6m

This is very interesting Val, except in my case I cannot reliably recall that info. I never "schooled" my dd and to be honest one day she just knew how to read. I don't remember these steps of learning to sound words. I don't think she ever did. She just started reading whole words and kept going. She was reading Dr. Seuss books by the age of 3 on her own. Chapter books by maybe 4 1/2 or 5.

She did not start writing until she started school at the age of 6 1/2.

I think I need to start writing things down.

I'll confess I am totally useless at remembering any of this; I was too busy trying not to forget the diaper bag and remembering to do the laundry. I do remember that DS read his first sign, "exit," at 23 months. He became obsessed with signs and read them a lot, but never picked up a book. Then at 5y6m he started reading Narnia books completely on his own. We skipped all the early readers and easy fiction because he never sat still long enough to read a book, and, i suspect, there was not enough plot to capture his attention.

When you say chapter books, does that mean Magic Tree House or Harry Potter? I have always been confused by that term since many pretty easy book and some very hard (like War and Peace) are all chapter books.

I also remember that at 6y2m, he spontaneously figured out how to multiply to find area. Until then, I didn't know he knew how to multiply at all!

As I said, I'm pretty useless.

Val, I pm'ed you my kids' info. This is really interesting but I'm not sure how useful it is since my kids are at different LOGs. Most of it is my guesstimate anyway.

Cathy

I don't think you can really gather any data from this unless you start looking to IQ scores as well. This board leans heavily towards 99.8%+ and it's hardly a good representation of gifted community (it sure is the right place for us).

Not to mention that there are 2e issues and the fact the parents do not remember when the kids did what. I have no idea when the kids counted or wrote letters. I think writing letters is more about fine motor skills than anything else. My older one never sounded out words either, he too just started reading words.

To me Ruff's milestones are not that meaningful and just because child doesn't do anything doesn't mean she/he is not HG. (I think my kids have quite impressive list so it's not about them.)

Davidson application no longer contains list of milestones and my guess would be it's for the reasons I mentioned above.

Yeah, I think also, it's hard to be accurate. I did my best to be accurate, but guessed a little, it's too hard to remember.
Plus, I only remember the things I thought were strange.
Such as: DD8 could count to 10 by two years old, but also started counting backward. She was also sight reading a word or two she had remembered at 1 1/2 I think.
DD5 started humming her lullaby at 8 months, that really freaked me out.

Neato

Hmmm... good list, Val. I'll have to think about it and see if I can remember. Wouldn't it be great if you could put this together as a "real" pamphlet and get it handed out by pedicatricians? I'll get back to you.

Aww man! All that writing I had to do and now you can get in without it? LOL!! Actually I was thinking "I should just go get my copy of our DYS application and copy all the answers here..." I did have quite a bit of it in the baby book, but not all...

We had a further difficulty with recording milestones because DS was very much a "hider" early on. We knew he could read at least some words by the time he was 3y2m because he slipped up a couple times, but mostly he insisted he couldn't. And while I know he can do math in his head, he still generally doesn't if he doesn't have to, even at 8. He's very cautious about his math facts... so if I insist that he just tell me what 6x8 is, he can, but if he's just working on something he'll usually skip-count up to it.

KAR - my DS4 is a hider too, about reading (laughing at your "slipped" comment)! So we don't really know exactly when he met milestones.

Counting - could count to 20 by 2.6; one to one counting, just before 2; simple adding, by at least 3.6

Reading - signs/road signs between 2 and 2.6. Beginner books - since he's a hider, not sure, but at least by 3. Days with Frog and Toad, just before 4th birthday.

By the way, many of you have probably seen this, but SENG does have a pamphlet that they would like pediatricians to hand out:

Seng gifted pamphlet

So I have to tell the story... lol...

We went to Washington, DC, when DS was 3y2m, and while DH was busy with what he had to do there, DS and I went to the zoo and some museums... and ended up at the aquarium in downtown DC (not the big one in MD, this one is tiny and dank and hidden in a basement...)

The first tank we came across said "Lion Fish" and DS pointed at it and said "Long Fish"....

I said (not thinking for a minute), "No honey, it says Lion Fish" and then "Hey, did you just read that?"

He said "No, I saw the fish and knew what it was"

I said "Sillykins, the tank is empty, you couldn't have seen the fish!" (and nevermind that he wouldn't have mispronounced it that way!)

He said "Well it looked like the sort of place they would have had a Lion Fish"

*snort!*

I know that was the same day we "officially" started talking about multiplication, too, because we were sitting outside that building for about an hour at dusk waiting for DH to come pick us up and we were alternating skip counting... so for instance he's say 10 and I'd say 20 and he'd say 30 and I'd say 40, etc. I think we did 5s and 10s but I don't actually remember it too well... I was watching for DH and keeping an eye on the enormous rats that were sneaking around the building...

A year later he was still pretending he couldn't read, but when I tried to claim that a concession stand only had pretzels, he said "But the sign says grilled hot dogs!" And he was six before he slipped up in front of anyone else -- I was starting to wonder if I was entirely off my rocker!!