I don't think LOG is causing necessarily the angst, but their does seem to be huge emphasis on early litercy lately. When I sent my oldest to K, I had no idea he was GT until he scored very high on a group screener and things started to fall into place. I actually thought he was behind because I was not at all academically minded at home with my kids as preschoolers. And many of these kids went to very academic, all day preschools. I just followed my kid's interests.
I do think the Ruf's LOG lists are interesting. My kids are HG+ by every indication now at age 7 and 10. But would have never been IDed by Ruf's lists at ages 2 or 3. Neither were very early readers, but jumped many grade levels within months of being told now they were going to learn to read. My son I worried about at the beginning of K was the most advanced reader in his class by the end of the year by far and the writing was on the wall.
I think someone like Ruf tends to see families who have parent's IDed as GT and these parents introduce their kids to things that someone like me wouldn't have thought too. Her sample size is small and quite homogeneous. On the other hand, both my kids had deep knowledge and problem solving skills as preschoolers. But very little of that knowledge show up on Ruf's lists. I know a number of kids locally that were early readers but had hours of exposure daily, and have now really leveled as 3-5th graders. I know a child with Down's in an early literacy program that gets those kids as early readers before K. I don't think these lists account for exposure and they didn't work well for my kids.
And I don't blame parents for pushing for early literacy at all. I totally agree that it's something you can point to with a teacher that's black and white.
Edited to say - totally agree with mnmom's post!
Last edited by kimck; 08/03/11 11:58 AM.
