Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums What to do with 34 month old?

Everyone tells me that my daughter is advanced she started speaking between 6 and 9 months and everyone she will talk to says wow she speaks really well how old is she. She knew all of her letters upper and lower case by 18 months and could also count to 30. She has always sat and listened to books and ever since she could she will just sit and what she calls read books (this is totally by herself) flipping the pages one at a time. She gave up naps by age 2 and only sleeps 8 or so hours a night at the most. She could walk by 9 1/2 months, she learned to swim when she was one and now swims all over the pool diving in and everything. She is fascinated by the moon and has to check the calendar and go out each night to see what type is out. She loves to work on the computer and can go to many different web sites by her self and play the different activities, we have to watch her closely because we caught her on the SONY web site because she saw it on the DVD player. She has started to pick out words she knows in her books and wants to know what different words are. I feel like I am holding her back from learning to read because I don't know what to do to help her, any ideas or suggestions? What do kids who know their ABC's and such do in Pre K and Kindergarten? Right now she stays with her grandmothers while we work. I spoke to a Kindergarten teacher in a store last year when she was reading letters off a sign and she said their practice was to let the 1 or 2 kids like this go to the library and check out books to read. I don't want her to just sit there I want her to be learning.

The only problems we have with her is she is extremely hard headed and she will not eat but a few things. She will not even try new foods she just tells you she does not like it.

I'm pretty sure from what I read that she is gifted but don't know what to do now, any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Hello.

I would suggest Magic School Bus DVDs. My kids developed a strong interest in science from watching them at a young age.

I�m not certain from your post if your daughter is receiving swim instruction yet, but given her talent I would definitely pursue lessons a couple times per week.

Just continue to read to her and answer all of her �what does that say?� questions to develop her reading ability.

Computer games for older children might be a safer alternative to surfing the web.

You may want to start looking into early entrance to K now. Next year might be best for her development, but the following year may be a more attainable goal. It does seem that schools are less rigid now than before, at least from our recent experiences in this area.

Glad you found this forum.

Welcome to the board! Your daughter sounds like a wonderful gt girl. Enjoy!

Answer her question and teach her what she wants to know. Teach her how to read, if that's what she is interested in. It's hard to hold them back and there is really no good reason to do so. Try starfall.com, that's where my younger one learned how to read.

What will she do in PreK? That may not be such a big problem as what to do in K. You may want to look into play based preschools. In my own experience they work better. The kids go there to have fun and not to spend most of their time "learning" something they already know. As for K I really haven't figured out that one out. Is she close to the age cutoff. You may want to try for early entry to K, but it will still not be enough. We tried Montessori last year and this year my "1st grader" is homeschooled. DS4 is in PreK. We haven't decided what to do about next year yet, but chances are he will stay home as well.

Both reply's mention getting her in school early, we live in Florida and pre K is funded by the state can anyone tell me the best way to go about getting her in school early? Are there certain requirements? She will be 3 at the end of November and the age cut off for pre K is the child has to be 4 by September 2.

You could move to California (just kidding ), our entry cutoff date is December 2. The entry dates seem so arbitrary to me...

Well, here's a different take: we didn't early-entry our son into school. Our HG+ DS7 spent two years (3yo and 4yo) in pre-K and did well in both programs. He made friends and built things and had fun. Most of his academic enterprises we managed at home, and it was generally a very good system. Things were not always perfect, but there were no significant behavior issues, and he seemed pretty happy. He liked school. He learned things. It worked.

At age 5, he went on to half-day public K and did great there with a teacher who "got" him and differentiated for him beautifully. Again, no problems. She IDd him as GT and had him tested. It was a happy year for him.

It wasn't until 1st grade that we ran into trouble. He started in public school, but it was a DISASTER for him. His behavior tanked, he was miserable, and he was learning nothing except how to misbehave and think badly of himself. We weren't sure we wanted to grade-skip at the time because he likes to participate in sports, but he's no star at them. We didn't want to limit his options with a grade-skip. (This is the only part of our decision that I second-guess, BTW.) Instead we decided to pull him out to homeschool him. It was a temporary choice, but we chose to homeschool again this year. Will we do it again next year? Ask me in April! I'm taking it one day at a time!

Could we have avoided the homeschooling with early entrance? Mmm, maybe, but I'm not at all persuaded that things would have worked out that way. I think he was going to have trouble in the "learn to read" year--which is 1st grade around here--no matter when he got to it. And making an active child sit still for a full school day a year ahead of schedule doesn't always work well either. (Sometimes, but not always.) Boredom + the immaturity of a younger-than-average child doesn't always = a good school experience.

I think it *must* be a case-by-case decision. In our case, I sometimes wonder if we did the right thing, but I don't regret our choice. Homeschooling has been very good for DS7. Better, I suspect, than early entry and grade skipping would have been in his particular case. But early entry/grade-skipping has worked fabulously well for many of the kids here, so I certainly think that's a valid and useful option to have available. <shrug>

I guess what I'm saying is that just because 2 people early-entranced their kids doesn't necessarily mean that *your* only/best choice for your child is early entrance. There are other options. Play-based pre-K programs and plenty of time at home to read and work on academic projects can be a good option, too.

I'm with Kriston in that we decided not to early entrance our HG+ DS4. He's been in part-time play-based preschool (this is his second year). If we had half-day kindergarten around here, i might have started him early, but he is definitely not a teacher-pleaser and not one who likes to sit still. While we have this "off" year, a charter school materialized that sounds like it will be great for DS, so options sometimes do pop up while you're waiting and wondering.

And we didn't early entrance our DS either for lots of reasons. He was almost 6 when he started K. I think the extra year of play and maturity helped him in K. It also meant that when he walked into K, he had already made the leap to books like "Charolotte's Web." I assumed that this would cause problems, but, in retrospect, I actually think it made his abilities so obvious that his teacher went out of her way to accomadate him. And because of the maturity, he was able to advocate for himself from the get go. We definitely lucked out with the teacher, too. Anyway, he is in middle school now, has never been skipped, and is still quite happy.

I guess my point is that there really isn't one right answer for everyone. You need to follow your own child's lead and look at the options that are viable in your area then make the choice that seems like the best fit. Early entrance can work but there are other routes as well.

I would defiantely say it depends on the child as well as the school district. We started my daughter in K at 4 on the advice of many. She did not do well and as she puts it "didn't learn anything" other than how to get in trouble and get around doing things she already knew how to do. She spent the majority of the year in the principals office because her teacher came right out and said she didn't know what to do with her. We were blessed with a first grade teacher who was wonderful but still limited within the confines of a narrow minded district. Things just went down hill from there until my daughter begged to be homeschooled this year and we ended up keeping our three school aged children at home, rather than admitting our twins to K. We haven't completely given up on the district but aren't holding out hope either.

All my girls loved the local co-op preschool and the hands on learning they did there and my oldest did o.k. in a year of Montessori pre-K but the school district just isn't able to accomodate them. My oldest is 2E, my older twin is definately GT and maybe 2E and my youngest twin is gifted in math, a very artistic child who is a visual learner. I don't think we will send my now 3yr old to anything other than the local co-cp preschool because of the track record with the district.

Early entrance can and does work for many but you have to take into account your child and your district and make a determination from there. I have vowed that my youngest children won't endure what my oldest did. She is just now beginning to show her love of learning again.

dlktally, I just wanted to say I feel your pain about a stubborn, heard-headed, picky-eating toddler. I am going through the same thing as you right now with my DD2.5 who I recently figured out was GT. It's nice to find someone else in my situation right now. The people on this forum have been through a lot and have a lot of good advice, too.

BTW: to anyone who cares, my DD started doing basic subtraction in her head about how many cars would be left in the garage if daddy went to work -- my husband and I were stunned and proud!