Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advanced Verbal Ability - catch all questions...

Sorry, this is going to be long -

I had some questions about my dd4�s very advanced verbal ability and I am hopeful someone on this site can give me some advice. My daughter taught herself to read when she was two, and by three she had read the entire little house series - independently (and yes, she understood it too). Now, at four, she has moved on to Harry Potter and CS Lewis. She seems to read just as well, if not better, than I can. I was told by her preschool teacher that she was tested - and she can read, decode, and comprehend at roughly a 4th grade level. Her writing and language arts skills are in line with her reading. She is currently enjoying the EPGY 4th grade language arts and doing a great job of it. (Shh don�t tell the EPGY people she is only 4 � I think you need to be 6 to register). I can say with confidence that her spelling is, at times, better than my own.

(Personally, I think this is an underestimate of her ability � the teacher told me she thought it was �ridiculous� to think a four year old could answer the questions at the 5th grade level, so she stopped the test. But when I looked at the 5th grade questions, I think she could have gotten about half of them correct).

So here we are. Sometimes I am amazed and proud � sometimes I am just scared for her. My questions are as follows:

a) My estimate is that she has been moving 2 grade levels per year with her reading (pre-K and K at 2, grades 1 and 2 at 3, grades 3 and 4 at 4� Will her progress slow down at some point? Will she begin to level off? Should I anticipate her getting through grades 5 and 6 next year? If so, what does this mean for her academic trajectory? What happens to these kids? Does anyone else have a kid like this? Would love feedback from someone who has a kid a few years older who can give me some advice about what kinds of things I might anticipate moving forward.
b) She does not seem to be particularly advanced in her math ability � she uses her fingers to add and subtract. She can do some borrowing and carrying (although at times this may involve sock removal)� but no multiplication and division yet. It seems as though to be really good at math she would need to be flashcard-ed or something of the sort to learn her math facts. Will she eventually just figure out how to do math (i.e. teach herself) the way she learned how to read � or is math a different animal? Or is it possible to be amazing at reading and just so-so in math. Should you teach math facts to a 4 year old or is that too much? (She has not asked to learn them but is generally pretty happy to learn anything you are interested in teaching her � but math facts are pretty boring to teach, so�).

c) What does this mean for her ability to find friends? Should I anticipate social difficulties? How can I help her connect with kids that might be like her?

d) Would you share this information with your pediatrician? In some ways, they seem to be the �go to� person for all things in the �help, my kid is doing something really abnormal� genre� but I�m not sure about this when it comes to things academic.

Thanks all.

(oh, before someone asks - we did have her tested because we were interested in early K. Her verbal ability is >99.9 but some of the other subscales were just in the >95 or >97 percentiles).. (I know, *just* HA!) - we were advised to wait to start K until 5 because she was shy and physically small (5th percentile).

Yes - I hear you... I wanted to find ways to support her learning at home since we decided *not* to send her to K this year. They do "letter of the week" at her preschool, and it bothered me that she would not be learning anything much in the way of academics this year. Since I felt that she was ready for academics, we opted to let her do EPGY. She really likes it, and, I must confess, it keeps her out of my hair while I make dinner. (She has two younger siblings). She has learned a lot and it helps her with her writing. Since she loves to write stories, it is really has been a good thing.



Thanks, I think that is what I was really looking to hear

I'll bite, though my own DD is only just 4.

a) My DD's reading progress has been much more up & down than your DD's. She began reading at 2, but didn't progress to sounding out unfamiliar words until about the time she turned 3. Then, she went up a grade level about every two months until she hit 4th grade (about the time she turned 3 1/2). That was pretty shocking. She's a big reader, but still not into chapter books--the interest just isn't there. I say that her progress has slowed, but the truth is that it's not her ability that now limits her; I'm sure she can decode on at least a 6th grade level. So...my answer would be who knows? But really, once a child is a fluent reader, education becomes much more about content than about the actual reading. I wouldn't expect hugely-above-level reading ability to _necessarily_ translate into a need for hugely-above-level curriculum.

b) DD is also similar here. She does basic addition and subtraction, but she has a few strategies besides finger counting (and can do some simple math in her head). I don't plan on doing a curriculum. She's taught herself to count forwards & backwards, etc., and has great number sense, so I am very confident that she'll figure it out on her own.

c) DD has no trouble making friends thus far. Does your DD? FWIW, I was HG+ as a kid, and I didn't have any trouble making friends. I don't think it's inevitable. As far as connecting her with other kids at her ability level is concerned...well, it's not super likely to happen. We hope that DD will be able to join DYS when she's older for that reason. If not, we'll just sign her up for gifted programs and hope she can meet a few peers.

d) Nope. I've ranted plenty about this elsewhere, but IMO giftedness is not one of the areas of a pediatrician's expertise. So if they give you advice it is not more likely to be correct than the advice of any other reasonably intelligent, but ignorant, person.

Wow, that's really interesting...(and wow, very impressive) my daughter also likes to read at all levels - she certainly has been known to be found with a few board books tucked in her bed at night - so it is not that she is *always* reading some above level great work of literature (although it seems that she is *always* reading : ).

I like the idea that she may not need a "hugely above level curriculum". That would certainly make life a lot easier (and less scary).

Maybe? Wolf is 5 1/2 right now and by the end of the year will have gone through 1st grade phonics and 3rd grade phoncs (we skipped 2nd). However he is a really mathy kid but hasn't done more than about a year of math, which is a change from previous years. I wouldn't be surprised if he is taking college courses online by his early teens if not before and on campus courses not much later than that. However I also know of a kid who sort of skipped the college thing and went straight to working for a high end company doing programming in his teens, so who knows?


Wolf seems to learn the most through osmosis. I have no idea how he does it. That is how both he and Bear learned most of their basic math, although Wolf loved workbooks for a good stretch of time so that probably helped. It is very possible to be amazing at math and no so much at reading and vice versa. If she is interested in learning go right ahead and teach her, but don't make it work. If it stops being fun it needs to stop altogether in my opinion.


Wolf is a social butterfly and gets along with everyone. There might be some issues when she starts to realize she is different from the other kids, but a lot of that depends on how the other kids deal with it. If they tease that's not ok, but Wolf has had nothing but support from the kids he knows.

I wish I knew how to connect with kids like him. That's one of the main reasons we applied to Davidson. We're really hoping that they can help him make connections.


Yes. But then I'm somewhat close with our pediatrician and we've been with her since the oldest was born. It would have been impossible to hide what they could do from her without lying! LOL I don't expect "expert" advice from her, but she does give suggestions and support that has proven useful.

First, I would say the ability to to borrow and carry over is very advanced at 4! At school, full mastery is not expected till grade 2- age 7


I would say not to do flash cards or memorizing the math facts with a 4yo, unless you have one of those kids who loves flashcards!
Instead I would work on incorporating math into your normal routine. Once a child learns to work with math in everyday life, mastery of the facts just comes.
~We like to play with our food! If You have 6 and I give you 2 more how many will you have in all. If you have 2 groups of 3 how many would you have.
Patterns, time, and measurement are also math concepts which can be fun to explore.

Sounds like you have a very precocious lil kiddie. Good luck and enjoy the ride.

My DD learned multiplication/division by skip counting, which she loved to learn. There are many different skip counting songs. You may want to look around and see if you find some that your DD enjoys.