My DD4 is suspected gifted. We'll have her assessed by the G&T program at our school sometime in kindergarten. She's currently in PreK (our state has a universal voluntary PreK program, which is collocated at the local public school).
I just wanted to go ahead and introduce myself in case I come in later and ask questions. We have absolutely no schooling issues at the moment; DD's PreK program is a Reggio Emilia/Montessori mix, and her teacher is very proactive with her and supportive. For example, DD decided without warning that she wanted to learn cursive, and not only did her teacher go to the third grade teacher to grab a workbook for her, but she allows her to work in the book during their "journal time" (when most kids, including DD until last week, drew and doodled in their little notebooks). We ordered a Cursive Logic workbook for her (a company started by a friend of mine - check it out!) and DD took to it very well and today she brought that in to work on instead during journal time.
I doubt she's PG, etc. I'd be really surprised. But I'm about 99.9% sure she's at least moderately gifted. DH is almost assuredly gifted. No G&T program at his school -- his was a Reggio school -- but his mom told me he was assessed as gifted at a young age when they brought him in to a psychologist when worried about his behavior, and he's in Mensa also. Even without that, I can tell he's gifted by the way he thinks. I'm at the very least a "high achiever", no idea if I'm gifted as well. I can see either possibility.
DD taught herself lower and upper case letters by 18 months, had about 100 words at 18 months, was doing 48-60 piece puzzles at 3 and now is on 100 piece puzzles on her own. She's learning basic math -- mostly addition. I suspect she could do subtraction and fractions if she were interested, but she hops from interest to interest so is "off" math right now. She's reading beginner books, although she mostly does either sight words/guessing. We're on the 2nd set of BOB books but she's more into whole language reading as opposed to phonics. She became interested in cursive last week when she out of nowhere started reading cursive words to me, not realizing it was a different type of writing. As a side note, she's left handed and often writes in mirror-image. I like her doing cursive because she's more focused on doing it the "correct" way (I don't correct her mirror writing, except only sometimes pointing it out).
I sometimes read stuff about gifted kids at a young age and am surprised they are gifted traits -- ex: asking questions about life and death, high emotional intelligence, etc. I definitely have the imposter syndrome where I completely question my assessment of DD. The reason I originally even considered she was gifted was not the questions/emotional intelligence or even the early literacy (we just expected that, since DH read at 3 and I read at 4). It was her spatial reasoning and memory, like her directional sense and the fact she was playing the game Memory before she turned 2. Actually, it's my lack of spatial sense and number sense that makes me pooh pooh the idea of my being gifted. I contrast her with my son, DS3, who is certainly bright and inquisitive but doesn't blow our minds regularly, and that's when I know. (I mean, DS could be gifted too -- who knows -- but it's not something that I would've even considered if it weren't for learning more about giftedness because of DD).
Anyway, this is long, but I know I will have tons of questions later about assessments, kinds of gifted programs, differentiated learning, and how to keep DD engaged. Right now, she's just happy being a kid, and is totally extroverted and social, and she loves school.
