Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Urge to hot-house?!?!?

Anyone else experience this? Hanni (2y10m) pretends to read -- she gets me to name words in books, and she "reads" familiar books from memory. And I catch myself thinking, "Wow, I hope she really is learning to read!" And then I think, "Where did THAT come from?" I have no investment in her being an early reader. Or so I thought.

Here's what I think. If she started reading before 3, the staff at the preschool would finally get it. I love her preschool, but it's clear they don't get her. I told the teacher how Hanni said, "We sleep all in a row. We sleep one night, and then we sleep the next night, and then . . . " The teacher gave me a nice smile, like, what a cute story. Then I added a throw-away comment about how this was her mentally using linear space to represent time. And the teacher stopped, and her whole expression changed. And she said, "Wow. That's . . . really amazing. REALLY amazing." Which made it clear that a) she doesn't notice this stuff about Hanni herself, and b) even when she sees it (or hears the story) she doesn't get it for herself what it means. So I think, "Dang. If Hanni started reading, they'd HAVE to get it."

Anyone else been-there-done-that? Don't get me wrong, I would never pressure her, but even just having the thought ("C'mon kid, you can do it!") kind of shocked me.

If she wants to learn to read and she enjoys the lessons, I don't see you doing anything negative (seems positive to me). Teaching a willing learner is great.

Like it or not, kids who learn faster than >99% of other kids are just really different. They aren't the kinds of kids that teachers see every day or even every few years unless each teacher's class has a hundred kids (?). A teacher may base her view of development on the vast majority without knowing much about the <1%. This is how I try to envision a teacher's perspective.

A child who is ~3 who can read, say, a Bob Book, or do mental arithmetic without being taught is so different from others, a teacher may not have met more than one or two kids like her. And some of the kids here are past this level.

So, I can see that a teacher who hasn't been exposed to highly gifted kids could be skeptical or not understand the child. In a situation like this, I see nothing wrong with proving to her that your child is very bright, especially if you think your daughter needs something she isn't getting at (pre)school.

Please note that I am not advocating for frenzied test prep (FTP) here, nor do I think you are! FTP is not the same as teaching an enthusiastic little kid how to read (or, in the case of my kids, "how to wead.")

Val

I taught my son to read at that age. It seemed like an extension of his learning the names for everything so easily. So I taught him the letter sounds by making a PowerPoint presentation with one really big letter per slide. He would sit on my lap and we would "do letters" as he called it. Once he knew the single letters, I made slides where the letters would appear one at a time to form words. He was able to sound out CVC words before he was 3 and he read Bob Books soon after. I eventually extended this approach to vowel digraphs and so forth.

I wouldn't call what we did hot housing. It's not hot housing if it grows that way naturally.

Agreed-- it isn't "hothousing" if the learner is eager and capable.

Also consider the following:

a) if you DO NOT 'teach' a child who is ready and interested in learning, they will often find a way themselves. It may not be as pedagogically sound, either. (Whole language reading is definitely not as good an idea as phonetic learning, if one has a choice...)

b) kids that learn to read early and with great fluency will never fully relate to same-age peers again until adulthood, and maybe not even then. Think about it. A child that is four and reading Mary Poppins for the first time is experiencing that work VERY differently than a nine-year-old child who is discovering that book. You only get to "discover" a book once, and the mental age at which it happens forever alters your perceptions of the story. My daughter, for example, will forever identify strongly with Anne Frank as "a girl just like me" rather than placing that work primarily in the larger context of Hitler's regime. Reading ahead of your peers changes things. It makes up part of the "gifted" experience of the world.

Neither of those things argues particularly strongly one way or the other.

I will say that I think Val is absolutely correct, though-- most of the people that dealt with my daughter up until she was about four really didn't go "Wow-- she's sure bright." It was more like head scratching and "Hmmm. That's odd."

They simply didn't have a context in which to place their observations. So it was "quirky" or "singular" behavior. Looking back on that, it is clear (now) that it was often that they'd simply never seen another EG/PG child up close.

It wasn't until she started demonstrating traditional academic skills like math and literacy that she started making strangers' eyes bug.

I definitely regret listening to the "professional teachers" in my own family that stridently insisted that teaching my then-eager 2yo to read would be "harming" her in some way. We waited until she was nearly four before formally approaching decoding skills with phonetically controlled material. It's obvious that she was ready well before her second birthday, looking back; we were the ones that weren't ready. LOL.

Methods that I think are entirely appropriate for little ones (<3) include magnetic letters, letter games (Peggy Kaye's Games for Reading is a gem of a book), and of course the Bob books if your child likes them, though mine preferred the slightly more snarky tone and full color illustrations of Now I'm Reading instead. DD would remind me that "those come with stickers." LOL.

Oh, and we used Montessori methods, too-- tracing letters, etc. It was low-pressure and just plain fun.

This is interesting. I've long thought that giftedness is MOST evident before age 6 or so, mostly because differences are so much more obvious at very young ages. A six-year-old reading Bob books? That's expected. Chapter books for the first time? Hey, the kid's bright. But a two or three-year-old doing either? That's very unusual or extremely unusual. Even more telling is that a child who is very young can RETAIN information about how to read and progress. I've overheard a couple conversations about six-year-olds with the parents saying that they'd taught the child to read a year ago, but s/he hadn't progressed. This is normal --- except with HG+ kids.

For this reason, I'm not sure why GATE testing seems to mostly start at the end of 3rd grade, for 4th grade. It makes no sense to me.

Please don't take this the wrong way, because believe me, I have been there - but why is it important for you that the teacher knows she is gifted? Is there something (in terms of accommodation) that you would like for your child? It might be easier to say something like dd3 really likes to put together puzzles with lots of pieces - would it be OK if I donated a few to the classroom?

As the mother of three children who read before three, it has been my experience that having them read at that age will not necessarily translate into the teacher "getting it". I've been down that road with my first one. My middle daughter (now three) can read and it was clear from her "report card" that the teacher has absolutely no idea. The report card noted, "dd3 now knows all her letters!" (uh yah, thanks for joining us a few years late.) I am debating as to whether or not it is necessary to even mention the fact that she can read to the teacher. Sorry - I think I am just a bit jaded from my first.

As far as the hot-housing - I don't see anything wrong with supporting your child to do their best work. Being challenged and accomplishing things (whether it is mastering reading or putting on your jacket) are an important source of self esteem. There is a fine line between pushing and supporting - but it seems like you are being pretty reflective about that.

Oh this is why I love this forum! Where else would this get treated as a normal question?

I guess I've been afraid of turning her off by turning it into "lessons," and I'm just letting her have fun with it. (She went through an earlier phase at <2 when she learned most of the alphabet for fun, and then lost interest.) She is not one of those blatantly ready can't-stop-them early readers. But I might try her on the Powerpoint idea and see if she enjoys it.

As far as I know, that conclusion is based on kids who are average or even behind, and have to be laboriously taught how to read. I'm not sure it applies to early learners. Really expert readers end up using both phonology and whole word recognition, and it probably doesn't matter which they start with.

Exactly! It's like these are some kind of holy grail. We just don't have simple objective ways to measure other manifestations of early intelligence, so they simply get overlooked.

I wouldn't say it's important for them to know that she is "gifted." It's important to me that they get her. That they understand who she is and what is going on in her mind. I think this is because I have an excellent relationship with the staff of this preschool and I really respect their skills and abilities. I love talking to them about what Hanni is doing in the classroom, what progress she's making in social/emotional development, where she's at with potty training, etc. I really feel like they're on my side and I can trust them. That's why it feels so weird that there is this gulf, this aspect of her where they are just not seeing her. I'd like to be able to talk to them about her cognitive development without sounding like the delusional pushy mom.

I may be projecting my experience onto your post, but I think raising a child who is gifted can be a little anxiety provoking. It does feel like a big responsibility. Maybe if those teachers in that little classroom understood what's up with your child, it might feel like they were carrying some of the weight. They might even be able to be on the alert in case your child was "having trouble" socially. It might feel like they were in your corner.

I was lucky to have a couple of preschool/Kindergarten teachers that "got" my child way before I did. They had to give me the "do you realize your child is doing xyz" talks. There is something extremely comforting in knowing that your child's teacher gets her. That's she is in a safe place where she won't be misunderstood, and that she might even get to flourish.

I think training on identifying and understanding gifted children should be part of the requirements for anyone teaching preschoolers.

And there's really nothing I would change about her preschool experience. They have an incredibly enriched and varied environment, with creative and engaged teachers. I've idly thought about asking for her to skip to the pre-K room next year, but honestly, she's so happy and stimulated with her current group that I see no reason to. (It helps that she's the youngest in her group, and I'd say that 6 out of the 10 kids are at least moderately gifted.)

Confessions of a guilty hot-houser:

Mine was "reading" cartoons off the tv guide channel at that age. �At least yours is reading books. �And I think what I'm doing is hothousing because I bought him elementary school software and showed him how to write letters. �And I know I "hothoused seatwork" because that's what I was told I was doing, even though that's not what I called it when I did it. �I sat him down for 15 minutes a day to get him used to sitting down and doing what he's told, or listening to someone teach him something. �He doesn't go to Sunday school, he doesn't go to preschool. �I thought it would make him better disciplined. �I slacked off at the end of my pregnancy and we started recently doing the instructions again. �
When I did slack off he still did his educational software, which is always at his request. �I'm so evil i thought, good. �He wants to learn. �I've got him in the habit of studying. �Mwah-ha-ha. �He's got choices. �He's got the firefox kidzui which is every kid brain candy from nickelodeon, Disney, even YouTube. �Not to mention a room full of toys and a yard to play in and a t.v. �But everytime he finishes an educational software, book, and toy I buy him a new one. �

Is it hothousing if you just raise your kid? �I'm so confused. �Maybe I'm not so confused if I don't care what it's called. :P
If you want to brainwash them with a formal education I'll text you my shopping list. �I think we've been doing pretty good. �I had this argument~I mean conversation last year when I was a total rookie mom, and very vulnerable, and unsure. �Hothousing can't just mean teaching your kid stuff, not if it's a big insult like everyone makes it sound. �It would have to mean something like trying to turn an apple seed into an orange tree (and being disappointed), or, I read a blog link that likened it to a pair of pinetrees on a hill, one of which was deformed from someone trying to bonsai or topiary it into the shape she wanted regardless of it's nature. �That was supposed to be an argument against early formal education, but of course that's not how I read it. �

Eta: I'm not all for those daycares that have two year olds sit still at a desk all day and sit on their hands if they can't sit still. �Yes, they exist. �That's (censored).