Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Reading for the Gifted Student

Has anybody used the books in the Reading for the Gifted Student series? I am in New Zealand, where we don't have Barnes & Noble, so I can't browse the books to choose the appropriate level for my son. There are no sample pages in any of the online bookstores that I've looked at. He is 7 with a reading age of about 13. Any suggestions as to which one to buy? Thanks.

Check out the thread in this forum on books- I never buy a book without checking it : )

I have not seen the series...will google around for it.

Amazon has it listed too, with a couple good reviews, but I only saw first grade, they have math, too, I might have to check that out.

Here's an Amazon search showing results up to grade 6. I'm not sure if any exist beyond that, but if so I haven't seen them.

kiwi, I think it depends on how that reading age of 13 was assessed. If it's something like a quickie assessment tool like the DORA test, he might well get benefit out of something less than the 6th grade one. If your child has all the reading skills of a typical 13 year old, I might just spring for the 6th grade one and hope for the best. In fact that's probably a good idea to start off; they're not very expensive and if it's a little above the optimal range for your son (which might be unlikely, I have no way of knowing) you can keep it on the shelf until he's ready, while you order other ones; if it's beneath his level you can return it and search for something else.

The latest reading age was assessed at school by a PROBE. I think we have different tests here from most of you. This one claims to assess overall fluency through speed, hesitations, omissions, insertions and dependence and reading comprehension through questions that cover literal, inference, vocabulary, evaluation, re-organisation and reaction. That's where I've got 13 from. His reading age was 12.4 on the WIAT-II when he had just turned five. So I figure if I'm aiming for somewhere round thirteen it should be fine.

We already have one of the maths ones. We just had to have a bit of a guess and got third grade because we read somewhere that since the books are aimed at gifted students it was fine just to go for the grade they would be in if they hadn't been accelerated. So we did and it was too easy, but he enjoyed it anyway as a fun activity book.

We have used other books in the gifted student series and really liked them. I have gone one grade up for each of my kids in these books and been just fine. I haven't looked at the reading ones... but I probably should for my 5 yr old since that is his weaker area.

I had no idea this series existed. Thanks! Here's one for math .

Yep, I have a high opinion of the reading and math ones. I saw one of the new vocab ones at Barnes & Noble and was underwhelmed by that one, though.

I went into Barnes & Noble today and looked thru the books. They looked as good as the math looked. I am using math for ds5 a grade up right now and he is whizzing thru it. For reading, I would need it on grade level, and that I didn't find for kinder

Thanks. That's given me an idea of what grade to order anyway. Have any of you looked at the Summer Activties series?

We have the summer activities grade 2 for my daughter. I would say most is quite easy for her. I think she is on a reading comprehension strike and just doesn't care to do those without help:( . She is a strong reader (going into second and reading late third grade early fourth with great comprehension) and she doesn't like the reading passages at all. She is about two thirds thru the workbook. and we have 9 weeks until school restarts. There are a few pages on things she hasn't been exposed to yet. I think that is because she is in a multi grade classroom and she will get that material (social studies) in second grade. Mostly it has to do with maps.. and we will be starting a mapping project next week.

kiwi,

I bought 4th grade reading for GT for my DD7 with the same lexile score range. 3rd grade is too easy. (3rd grade Math was the right fit for her although there are a lot of prealgebra and some questions would give 5th grader headache.) I was even thinking of 5th or 6th but I think it's better starting easy and get her more comfortable.