Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment To test or not to test?

Hello! I'm hoping for a little advice. I'm not sure whether or not to test my son for giftedness. I'm a bit all over the place so please bear with me!

He is 4.5 and in preschool (a play-based preschool). He has given me and those around us reasons to believe he may be gifted. He has deep interests, incredible focus and attention span when he is interested in something, can do puzzles (jigsaw and logic) beyond his normal age (80 piece at 2.5, and at 3 found the game "Rush Hour" at my mom's and could correctly set up the game and get that little red car out for more than half of the level cards). He is extremely creative in his play and problem solving (according to his preschool teachers - He's my first so sometimes I'm not sure what is normal). He is very articulate in his feelings and thoughts, and says things that blow me away sometimes!

He can do quite complex legos on his own and loves building his own designs, quite detailed and usually with cool moving parts. He will listen to books longer than my throat can handle reading, haha! Wind in the Willows, Stuart Little, as well as lots of non-fiction about space (his favorite at the moment). He corrects us if we read the wrong word after reading a picture book once or twice. We also play a game he loves where I say a random, unimportant line from a book and he guesses which book it is from.

He seems to have a great number sense as well - can do basic addition and subtraction in his head, can count to 88 (not sure if he can go higher since he always wants to stop at his "favorite number"). And when introduced to what I think is a new concept for him, he just seems to already know a lot about it.

However, he doesn't have a huge interest in reading by himself, which always seems like the first thing people talk about when mentioning giftedness.

I would normally not do anything until he is tested in school (2nd grade, I believe?), and then go from there. However, we are currently renting and ready to settle down in one of the many towns in the area. The thing is, our state has no mandated gifted program, or funding for gifted programs. Some of the towns near us have private schools that could be good for gifted children (though the cost is a bit nauseating!), and one has a gifted program in their public schools.

However, I feel it's a little extreme to choose a town for a program that I have no idea if my child would even qualify for. It also seems a little premature to have him tested, as the program in that public school doesn't start until 2nd grade.

But sometimes searching for a house is so stressful for me because I have a feeling about him, but just don't know! And I know the future holds a whole lot that we don't know about, but I still feel stressed about it for some reason.

Do you think I need to just pick the regular district and then have our family move if we end up needing to go to the district with gifted services? The regular district is closer to work, and less expensive, so unless we were taking advantage of the gifted services, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for us to live there (though not a crazy commute, and not totally out of our budget).

Sometimes I feel like if we have him tested, and he's an average little boy, I can just relax and get on with life and forget about that stress! And if he did turn out to be gifted, then I would know better how to support him as he goes through school.

That was much longer than expected... so bottom line, is 4.5 too young to be tested?

Thank you, thank you, thank you!