Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Scores / skills don't really match

I am just curious about this and wanted to see what went on with other kids with gifted range scores. I have read some of the Ruf lists and reading really stands out as a skill that most kids like mine would have by 5.
My son is not really a reader. He sort of uses a combo of sight words, phonics, and context to figure out what is being written. He is like a functional illilerate. He memorizes books easily if someone reads them. So maybe he is just being a bit lazy in that it is quicker to ask someone else to read it for him.
I am thinking it might follow the same path as speech with him. He seemed a little ahead in talking but nothing crazy until one day it seemed like he woke up with a adult vocabulary. Anyone have similar experience?

My EG ds12 didn't start reading until somewhere midway through K (I don't know exactly when because he didn't want us to know he could read! So maybe he started earlier and I just don't know it lol - we found out when he accidentally read to an aunt without realizing she might talk to us and we might find out he'd read to her). Once he was reading it just really took off quickly and he was reading way way waaaaaay ahead of grade level by the end of K. Same thing happened when he learned how to talk - he didn't babble, say a word, nothing until he was three. Then he was all of a sudden talking like a college professor, complex sentences, multi-syllable words, deep deep thoughts.

My HG+ dd8 is a math whiz, who also seemed to be ahead of grade level in reading when she was in preschool - she started early, very self-motivated etc. She was ahead of grade level in kindergarten, then she sort of "fell" to grade level. We found out eventually that she has a memory challenge that impacted her ability to learn to read, so even though she's clearly a highly capable student with a gifted intellect, reading does not come easily for her. Our MG dd10 really struggled with learning to read, until we found out she had severe vision issues - once she went through vision therapy she turned into an avid reader reading ahead of grade level almost overnight.

Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily assume that your ds is lazy in that it's quicker to ask someone else to read for him - having someone read to you when you're young is a happy experience - I would keep reading to him and not worry about whether or not he's ready to read on his own yet - he'll get there

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - my ds12 also memorized books when he was little - so he could pull out any of his books, turn to any random page, and make it look like he was "reading" it - but really he was just remembering what it said because someone else had read it to him once. I am always amazed at the things he can remember!

My pet theory on this (where no LD is present) is that these sudden bursts of development are really just an exhibit of perfectionism, because the gifted child is reluctant to display the skill until they are convinced they can do it perfectly.

My DD didn't demonstrate reading new material on her own until she was 5, though we were fairly sure she already had the ability. She already knew her phonics, a number of words by sight, and she was reading signs, the TV screen, etc, so it was not much of a stretch to think she could put it all together for a Berenstain Bears-type book.

I finally challenged her on it by telling her all the ways that she was ahead of me in her development at that age, except one... I was already reading aloud to my mom when I was 4. The week didn't end before she read a new book aloud to her own mom. That success gave her the confidence to show what she could do, and shortly thereafter she was reading aloud to her pre-K class.

My DD was clearly desperate to know how to read at 5, but just as clearly could not read. We even worked on the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book, at her request, and hit a wall relatively early on because she couldn't blend sounds. While I don't disagree that it was a mental block, it was not a mental block that was within DD's conscious ability to remove.

But yeah. One day she couldn't read at all, and the next she could read kindergarten books, and a week later she could read 3rd grade books. One day she couldn't walk, and the next, she walked without falling down (and without ever having crawled or cruised). One day she didn't talk, and the next, she didn't stop talking. One day it took her 45 minutes to do 3 homework problems, and the next she cranked out 3 full worksheets at the end of the school day fast enough to avoid having homework. I rarely see incremental improvement over an extended period of time; she struggles and makes no visible progress until suddenly she wakes up competent. She is the girl who goes in fits and starts, and she's been that way about almost everything, for her entire life, so I think that's just the way she is.

Sometimes, what may seem like a delay in learning for my child may be an observation period that is not so apparent to me. My children have learned some things in spirts. It can be very surpising. My child has listened to music for 12 years before he began to compose, which must have some influence.

Thanks for the input. I noticed after the post that we had kind of a gap in our book collection (ones with squeaky pages for the baby and then ones at the upper elementary level) so I checked out some beginning books from the library this week. He worked through one with a bit of help but did great.

The Ruf estimates have bothered me because they seem to be pretty behavior- and personality-dependent. If you look, for example, at his level two, it says this about level two students:

"These bright children love looking at books and being read to, even turning pages without ripping them, by 15 months."

While I'm sure some gifted/precocious kids were like this, mine sure wasn't. He's nearly four and still turns pages carelessly. At that age, he could barely sit still for a book. He's reading now, and can add, subtract, has an understanding of fractions and inequalities, but at 15 months? Heck no. He was clearly bright back then, but a patient, careful page-turner he was not. We have no clue where he'll fall on the gifted spectrum, but if you looked at Ruf's list and what they're supposed to do during their baby and early toddler years, it doesn't match up.

His lists seem to "reward" a certain personality type and direction of interest, especially at the younger ages. It wouldn't bother me as much if there was some kind of disclaimer about these being examples of common behavior in gifted children.

I didn't keep good records of the early milestones so I gloss over the stuff mentioned about babies. My son was a premmie too so it makes it even harder. I was just happy he was gaining weight and meeting regular milestones.
I am certain he was a page ripper at 15 months. He liked looking at books but wasn't very careful.

I never heard of the Ruf estimates when my DD was that young. She was so active that mostly I was just trying to keep her out of the emergency room. My F-I-L used to say she was one of those children who, in olden times, would have come to a horrible end in the shuffle of old fashioned kitchens and bustling houses with lots of kids in them.

We mostly had board books because she put everything in her mouth! I do remember that when she was about 16 months I had to buy a book to replace a paper-paged library book about butterflies she had ripped, and not because she was careless but because she was so enthusiastic, when she tried to turn the pages she was so excited to get to the next page they tore.

Does that count toward a level of giftedness?! (lol)

I think there might be something getting lost in the translation here. A lot of people have paraphrased the Ruf Estimates, but this appears to be the real thing: http://www.pps.k12.or.us/files/tag/Ruf_Estimates.doc

Note the frequent use of the words "several," "many," "most," and "all." In other words, don't get caught up in whether your child doesn't match with every element. If your kiddo liked being read to but still tore the pages... close enough.

This link creates a whole new question for me, though. Take a look at the table for LoG and IQ scores. 130+ is Exceptionally Gifted? I was under the impression that you need to go another standard deviation to get to EG, and that seems to be the definition DYS is using, too.

Although, I have to say, for my DD7 with a 138 RIAS, this sounds a lot like her, because this almost perfectly describes her school, and they haven't been able to identify another first-grader to put with her in the GT class all year: "A middle class population elementary school with 100 children per grade level will have one or two of these children for every two grade levels, which means the school will probably not have a student this intelligent every year." - Level 4 Gifted Summary.