Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment gifted non-reader?

I am in a very similar place with my child. It fits her style though. Has to know exactly how to do it before she will really give it a go. Has to intellectualize it before she can do it.
I know as an educator and was told by the DR who tested her that there is no strong data that links giftedness and early reading.
All kids do things when they are ready, and not before.
That's what makes me angry about some of the achievement tests that they are giving to determine who should be admitted to the gifted programs. If she's not reading in K does she not get in!!?!

My brother, the 5th of 6 kids, was the only one of us that wasn't reading before 1st grade (no pre-school attendance). But when he was two, he took apart the toaster and put it back together again, correctly, because he was curious. When he was 5 my grandfather took him out to the garage with him to work on the cars. We have all known all along that he was the most profoundly gifted (we didn't use those words back then) of us all. I think he was too busy figuring out the world to be interested in reading. I was a lit major and we still have great discussions about great books, so he is a lifelong reader, he just didn't do it when he was 5.