Yeah, I have to say it's amazing how many kids I know who are already reading at 2. Or perhaps "already reading."
I'm one of the _minority_ with an illiterate 2 yr old in some circles.
If that many of them really *are* reading, somethin' strange isa gonna happen to the statistics... and kindergarden curriculums.
Funny how in the circles where I percieve there to be a lot of smart kids, a higher proportion of the 2 yr olds are illiterate. Usually all of them. Even that kid I saw writing words on the sidewalk half a year ago...
In retrospect, the stuff that made me think DS was smarter than your average bear is not really very... well, I wouldn't find it impressive now. I still think he's pretty smart. But most of the time when he does something really interesting, no-one can even tell he did it. (Today he had a bit of trouble explaining a sand-dome versus sand-as-smoke issue. There was no sand-dome on the train. But there was pretend smoke made of sand. The ECE thought he didn't know what sand was & then started trying to explain that there either was or was not sand. It got... well... funny, really. I successfully swallowed my bad joke about ontology and two year olds. I really like that particular woman, largely becasue she underestimates the kids less often and less badly than most.)
Missing it? Easy. DS is more likly to be pegged as unusually slow than as smart by others, and if I believed all the other moms, I'd be sure they were right. The difference is that we spend a lot of time out in public with other kids, and I actually know a lot of kids his age.
I have a slightly other perspective on the IQ test thing: you _can_ study for an IQ test. Those tests have expected answers, and if the kid over-thinks the answer, they will sometimes fail to get the expected one. I once (I was about 6) took an IQ test where I was expected to put pictures in order. I consiously rejected info provided by a weather vane and priveledged info from atmospheric conditions (which were at odds). The examiner happened to be surprised, and asked me if I thought I had it backwards, and I told her, off-handedly, that I'd been confused by the weather vane at first, but thought I had it right now. I remember because I was so deeply shocked that neither the tester nor the test-designers knew anything about sunrises, and the tester reported to my parents that she couldn't give me the points for that and it had made a big difference. Cultural literacy is also required, and a vocabularly which matches the test (both language/dialect -issues, AND words-for-what-I-think-about issues). I remember a story about a young boy from a non-western farming background who identified that the elephant in the picture shown was missing his testicles, and only confirmed that he had also noticed the missing leg when asked about it specifically. He understood his intelligence was being tested, and felt that the gelding issue must be the target and the leg a distractor.
-Mich
