Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The ultimate brag thread

My son was a spontaneous reader, probably around 18 months old, but we didn't discover this until he was 2. He was never taught to read. When we finally had his reading tested at age 3, he was already on the 6th grade reading level. His IQ was estimated at 180, since he couldn't complete the IQ tests as he wouldn't answer the questions the way the "tester" wanted them answered. He scored 99& on the Stanford Binet at 5. He was accepted into the Johns Hopkins CTY program at the age of 6, scoring at the 66th percentile of 6th graders on their entry exams. We couldn't find any gifted program in our state, and we were not in a position to relocate. We homeschooled for a year, which was wonderful, but he was becoming extremely introverted, even more than he was to begin with. We put him back into public school for 4th grade (a one-year acceleration), and although he has thrived, he is still underachieving. He is now in a rut of underachievement, getting acceptable grades for an average student. Homework is a struggle because he doesn't see the point, and I can empathize with that. It's just busy work for him, and he aces every test. I wish there were things we could have done differently, but there is no support for these students. He is now 15, and I'm pretty sad that we couldn't do better for him.

Well, you can share his accomplishments here. Don't bother sharing with family and friends...they will just be jealous/haters. I found this out the hard way. They will not share your joy. Sorry to be a downer, but that's reality for us unfortunately. Been dealing with this for 15 years...

DD6 has been really into Shakespeare all summer. I thought this manga Much Ado would be too hard for her when it came (found it on sale to try out) but yesterday she insisted and took it away from me and read twenty pages of the party scenes and told me all about it today, quoting Claudio and Beatrice like a pro. I can't really wrap my head around this. It's a slightly abridged version but all original language. Some of the manga conventions are new to me, and I thought might confuse her along with the language, but she's been really into graphic novels awhile. So last night she insisted she needs to read As You Like It, too--not just the simplified quite short readers theater we read, but the manga version at least. So I bought it used online for $4 because the library doesn't have it. She's told me about the opening of Twelfth Night and randomly spouted the "If music be the food of love, play on" bit. We're going to watch the Tennet/Tate version of Much Ado on Digital Theatre when she finishes the play; can't wait!

I know, and they're even doing Midsummer. But it's very expensive and I'd have to leave my toddler at home and they only do night shows obviously, and the local grandparents are not that great at the quiet bedtime sleepy stuff. Maybe next year!

She just read a huge chunk of the play/manga, with appropriate inflection and lots of hammy acting. I was nursing DS and trying not to crack up.

Ha, I was posting while slightly delirious from cold meds and should probably point out that I meant the Old Globe theater in San Diego, near where we live. But we will definitely all go as a family to London when the boy is older and we have saved up. That's DH's dream for us

hi

DH is sweet because he knows London is my favorite city (I've been, but not recently and no one else in the family.) And now he knows our daughter is becoming an Anglophile, too, what with her Flower Fairies and now Shakespeare. But he gets sports-obsessed DS to take to Padres games so everyone's happy!

Our personal experience is that seeing Shakespeare done well is a totally transformative experience-- our entire family loves the Bard. DD and I were pretty much gobsmacked and geeking out in a MAJOR way during her school trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon... we even stroked the original flagstone floors in his childhood home.



My brag for the week:

DD has two posters, a sewing project and several other static exhibits going to state fair this year, and will also take the Shetland Sheepdog for novice obedience. In the Senior division-- and she just turned 14, so most of her "competition" is +3y and in some cases as much as +5. Oh, and her public speaking, too-- she is giving a talk about acoustics at state fair, too.

She's been to a few performances. She finished last night so now we get to watch the stage version that's online. I can't wait til the Whedon one is on DVD so we can show her parts (it was just a tad too sexy to take her to the theater). Now she's correcting me when I try offhand to recall lines, in a little low wry voice :p

DS5 has lately been into a verbal wordplay game that uses a set of homophones. He blows me out of the water! Basically you just use two homophones, each in a different sentence, but when you get to the homophones you replace them with "teakettle". The other person then has to guess what the words are. DS thinks new ones up all day long. His best one came yesterday. He used the pair phone and fohn (which is a type of wind - and apparently he had heard about it a song by the - as he called them - Bearded Ladies, aka Barenaked Ladies, called the Crazy ABC's.) I seem to have no need to teach this kid spelling, because he seems to have absorbed it by osmosis somehow. I am pretty jealous, because I am a terrible speller. He literally has come up with hundreds of pairs of words as we have been playing this the last month.