Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Unnecessary angst over early reading?

I don't think it has anything to do with Ruf. If anything, it's the other way round, Ruf has that reading emphasis because so many in the wider world do.

But, I don't like Ruf at all and I think her LOG are pandering to parents of two year olds trolling the internet looking for signs of genius.

The way I understood it is that early reading is an indication of being gifted, but if they don't read early they can still be gifted. I liked the book, mostly because it gave me a better understanding of what was going on with my kids and it wasn't just in my head that my kids were ahead of the pack... they were gifted and had special needs because of it.

As for early reading and angst, the angst we had was not over why our kid could not read early, but rather why he could.* Ruf's book and the concept of LOG were quite helpful to my family. When my kiddo was in fact reading at a very young age, we as parents had bad memories of being extremely underchallenged in school and worried about what to do with our son, who was reading earlier than either of his parents, among other things. Reading all the stories of what kids were doing at different young ages was very comforting, since we finally discovered that we weren't alone. I also found myself in those stories, and realized for the first time that I was gifted (despite having been in gifted pullouts as a kid), and what that meant for me.

Just wanted to pipe in that although her sample size was very small, and her parameters do not fit all kids, my reading of the book was that not all kids would show the early traits, and that if your kid didn't, it doesn't mean they are not gifted. I took out of it that if your kid shows many of the traits listed, there is a greater likelihood that he will fall into a particular LOG, and that there is a lot of crossover in the LOG. I admit my viewpoint is probably a bit skewed, since it matched our experiences in many ways. Not all the markers fit - DS never liked jigsaw puzzles and still believes in Santa (a little bit anyway).

I think the concept of LOG in itself is extremely important, and we learned this first hand since our son now has 2 years of school under his belt. (I know, not a lot of schooling yet.) There was not GT programming in kindy, but we advocated for more advanced work, and when the school tested our DS on their own tests, they agreed that he was unusual and needed more challenging work. The school then agreed that 1st grade would not be enough, and agreed to a grade skip. Skipping first is one of the recommendations in Ruf's book as well, and for us, it worked out great. Second grade in the local school, with GT pullouts and other differentiation, was still not enough. We finally found a good fit mid-year in a school for HG kids where they work one year ahead and at a faster pace.

I am describing our experience simply because we do fall into the group of people whose experiences match Ruf's advice. Going simply by the early milestone LOG guidelines, our son fell into level 4, and Ruf's description about how it would be difficult to have a level 4 kid's needs met in the regular school system have so far proven true. I know that her advice does not ring true for everyone, but that does not mean that your child is not gifted.

*ETA: I am not intending by this post to brag that "my kid did this," but I'm just responding to give a contrasting viewpoint about Ruf's book and LOGs. Feel free to post your opposing views and to let me know if I'm coming across as bragging. I know that many people have had very different experiences with this topic. If there is one book or concept that is helpful to everyone all the time, that would be wonderful, and I'd love to hear about it! The fact is that there are very slim pickins re: books and research on GT kids and especially HG kids. Hopefully there will be more soon.

"I have a mother who keeps asking me to tutor her five year old in reading skills based on seeing how my girls read. How's that for hothousing? "


I completely understand. When word got out about DS's subject acceleration I had several moms approach and ask how I "taught" my son so much math, and they cannot comprehend that I didn't "teach" him at all (beyond giving him Life of Fred books, talking to him about basic math concepts, and once showing him how to borrow).

How embarassing!
But does this mom know anything you want taught to your daughters? Maybe this is an attempt at building a friendship?
If the mom is willing to teach your 2 something while you sit with the 5 year old for 20 minutes I think that there might be a lot to be gained on all sides.
Wouldn't it be nice to have someone who you feel comfortable leaving your DDs with if you need to drive your DH to the ER for a broken toe in the middle of the night? This could be the start of that.

And I bet you a dollar that if you paid attention to any 5 year old reading for 20 mintues that you could figure out a small suggestion that would be a big help. You are smart and sensitive - it could happen!

My .02!
Grinity

I agree with what you said, Flower. Even when your child is doing multiplication in his head when he is 3 and asking big, deep life questions and has the memory of an elephant, these signs of higher-level thinking are almost always overlooked by teachers. Show a teacher that a child can read several grades above level, however, and the teacher is much more likely to take notice and look for further clues to a child's readiness level. Heck, when I was a kid in K way back in the 70s, the ONLY kids that got tested for the gifted program were those who were in the top reading group. I had an undiagnosed vision problem at that point and so I was not in the highest reading group. It wasn't until I was in 4th grade that I told my parents that I needed to be tested that the teachers thought of me as a "top" student. So, I think in many ways, teachers "label" students -- whether overtly or subconsciously -- as top or average or below-average students based on their reading level. It's not right, but it does happen. So, in some ways, I can see why parents are anxious to have their child read before entering school, perhaps thinking that it will give them a sort of leg-up. And unfortunately, it very well might. IME, I have seen differences in the way my kids were perceived by teachers based on when they read: DS1 at 5.5, DD at 3, and DS2 at 4, all self-taught.

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!

This is something I have been giving a LOT of thought to. There are lots of things I hear parents of gifted kids saying "they taught themselves" where it is clear that they weren't hothoused exactly but they were provided an awful lot more exposure than other kids were. My kids have not been early readers and did not skip count but do tick pretty much all of RUFs other boxes for RUF level 4s. One of them I would say is a level 4, the other has CAPD and we are waiting for a dyslexia and ADHD assessment so I have no real idea what is going on with her.

Skip counting is one I found interesting because I didn't even know what skip counting was myself until I read about it on the RUF site and had to research it. So I certainly didn't do anything remotely like that with my own kids, just not on my radar. They were doing simple addition on their fingers and toes as 2-3 yr olds though, which came from them asking to add things and my telling them to use their fingers and toes.

The LOGs bother me because the actual IQ scores of the kids seem to be all over the map within the same levels. I realize that tests and kids differ, but I don't understand her actual algorithm. It appears to be "If your kid sounds like these kids, that's his/her level," which seems...unscientific.

My DD tested MG, but looks more like a level 3 if you go by Ruf's milestones and so on. I do think the book is interesting, but more in a "Oh, someone is actually talking about kids who are like my kid!" kind of way. It really seems to be just one person's opinion. The whole picture is so much more complex.

It IS that, for sure, and that's quite interesting in the way that reading these boards is addictively interesting. However, I think th "...and this is the level these kids are at, factually" part is opinion.

Her IQ may be an underestimate, true. She took a short test (the RIAS) and did just average on 1 out of the 4 subtests, which brought her score down. However, I think the other subtests are likely to be accurate, and they were a pretty even profile on the high end of MG. She IS, however, a very driven and "schooly" child.