Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school I'm Totally Bragging!

This a bit of a brag. I just had to tell someone and I know everyone here will understand. My 24 month old son just left me speechless. I found some dollar store flash cards I had bought a long time ago. He had never seen them before. They were the kind with a picture and a word on the bottom. I cut the words off and decided to show him 4 at a time. He matched the correct word to the correct picture. I was amazed. I gave him 4 more and he did it again! These are words I have not taught him. He matched boat, sun, frog, cup, duck, star, apple and cow. Woah. He's known the sounds of all the letters for about 6 months now, but I guess I just wasn't expecting him to put it all together and READ words. What in the world am I going to do with this child when he's 5! Our school district teaches letters and letter sounds in kindergarten and reading in first grade. I guess I have plenty of time to before I have to worry about that.
Anyways.... Thank goodness I found this forum! There's nowhere else I can tell these stories and not be accused of not letting him have a childhood, lying or hot housing.

Welcome! Yup, it's an odd mixture of amazing and scary when that kind of thing happens... I think most people, and certainly I, will advise following your son's lead with reading from now on - don't feel you have to teach him, but also don't feel you have to avoid helping him if he obviously wants you to. Most likely, he'll be reading fluently before he starts school, although nothing is certain. TBH, my theory is that that's easier than if you have a child who is part of the way there - if you're going to have a child who needs special differentiation in school, it can make life easier if they OBVIOUSLY need it! It wouldn't hurt to be starting to find out about what your school options are and keeping your ears open for stories about them, of course.

Hi Elizabeth S
That's awesome - and wonderful that you see it for how unusual it is. We did not realize how out there DS was till later. I just watch a video of him "reading" to his bear at 2.5 the little engine that could - that's what I thought at the time. We thought he memorized the story. Now watching the video he was reading good chunks of it and filling in the rest with memory. It's stunning and we totally missed it. Same thing with his speech - looking at video him "talking" and our responses and we missed so much of what he was saying because it was a little garbled and we weren't expecting what he was actually saying.

And you probably will continue to hear any of the accusation - a ten year old was overheard telling her mom, a friend of mine, tha we are trying to hard to make him a geek! That stung for awhile until I remembered how happy he was doing the geeky thing we were doing at the time.

DeHe

Awesome job momma!

It seems like bragging but I understand where you are coming from. I wish our children could meet because my son is doing the exact same thing. He is 2 1/2 and says his ABC's forwards and backwards, knows the sounds, spells up to 8 letter words and is reading at a Kindergarten level. He also does the ABC's in Spanish and sign language. He counts to 100 in English and 69 in Spanish. I don't push him at all. This is his thing. He goes over numbers and letters all day obsessively and has interest in little else. I don't know what I'm going to do with him either. It's exciting that he's probaby gifted but also I'm so worried he's going to be bored in school. I wish you the best of luck with your son. I'm here to find out what I'm going to do with mine.

It's really hard not to brag. It's so amazing to see a child to these extraordinary things and not able to share it with anyone. If a child is a great athlete; makes a touchdown, or a great play at a baseball game, everyone talks about it. However, to tell other people that your 2 year old can read makes people uncomfortable. I feel the same way about my 2 1/2 year old (actually 2 3/4 yr old). Everywhere he goes he reads. He'll read people's shirts, signs at the grocery store, anywhere there are words he is determined to blurt them out. I often feel embarrassed when he's around other children his age and he does this. I should be proud, not embarrassed. Mine started reading at around 15 months old. He can probably read at a 2nd grade level. His spelling is unbelievable. He can write and type as well. He taught himself the states and capitals over a weekend of reading one of his books. The only thing I had to help him with we're some of the states that didn't sound out as they were spelled. Such as the silent s at the end of Arkansas. I would love to have him interact with his peers of similar ability. I think it would be a great help, and fun to see. We usually don't have him play with other children his age because I don't want to make the other child or parents feel uncomfortable. We live in Ohio. Are any of you in Ohio or western Pa?

As far as being bored in school, it is going to be a problem. I have a 7 year old who is bored in school. He too was reading and very advanced as a toddler. The only thing I know is to keep feeding them information as long as they want it. Don't force it, the ones who need it will show that they want it.

On a separate topic, I would recommend getting an IPad for your children. My son's knowledge is exploding everyday. It is the absolute best gift I have ever given to any of my children. There are so many great apps for the little ones to explore and learn on. Much, much better than watching TV. Also a great tool to have when you need some peace and quiet.

Good luck to all of you.

I agree with this. My toddlers have learned a ton playing on the Ipad. I have about 40 educational apps. I think all but 4 of them were free. Also, I can cater to their interests.

I leave my 3 year old daughter alone with the ipad, buy not my 18 month old son. I believe they are somewhat fragile. A friend of mine cracked his screen.

On the other hand, I think my daughter does her best work without me looking over her shoulder.

Just wanted to let you know that although all kids are different and ymmv, being an uber-early reader does not necessarily condemn your child to a horrible school experience. Like your ds, my dd was clearly reading words at 24 months. At that point, she was already word and book obsessed, and still is a voracious and lightning fast reader at 12yo. We've been fortunate, and it hasn't always been great, but we've generally been successful with the neighborhood public schools for seven years now. Despite scoring off the charts on pretty much any objective measure in academic subjects, she has never been grade accelerated and has never been in a gifted "program" (we don't do that in our district!!). The only formal accommodation is subject acceleration in math (she just did honors algebra as a 6th grader). She is an amazingly happy and well-adjusted pre-teen (knock on wood) who just happens to have extraordinary academic abilities.

Have fun with your sweet little reader. (For the past 10 years, dh and I have had the job of feeding the obsession. Thank goodness for the public library, because we'd be broke and displaced by piles of books if we had purchased everything she reads. And thank goodness for the Kindle too -- we can now travel without a suitcase full of books!)

There is a great protective case for the iPad. It is called a Survivor Case. It will protect your iPad from spills, drops, even wind and rain. When this case is on, the iPad is pretty much indestructible for the little ones. They also have some pretty cool kid cases on line. One looks like a little "Gumby" character. It also has a rubber case around it and looks pretty protective. I think your 18 month old would be fine if one of these cases were on it.

I am so glad that I found this forum! I have been enjoying reading posts, but this one is really great! My 15 month old can recognize letters and loves to learn. People are definitely weirded out by all of his abilities. And I feel like I have to keep most of it to myself in my mom's group because some of them get offended by it. The day he said his first sentence ("I see a deer."), I was telling a friend, and she told her friend, who then said I was lying. That really makes me sad.