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My DD4 is suspected gifted. We'll have her assessed by the G&T program at our school sometime in kindergarten. She's currently in PreK (our state has a universal voluntary PreK program, which is collocated at the local public school).

I just wanted to go ahead and introduce myself in case I come in later and ask questions. We have absolutely no schooling issues at the moment; DD's PreK program is a Reggio Emilia/Montessori mix, and her teacher is very proactive with her and supportive. For example, DD decided without warning that she wanted to learn cursive, and not only did her teacher go to the third grade teacher to grab a workbook for her, but she allows her to work in the book during their "journal time" (when most kids, including DD until last week, drew and doodled in their little notebooks). We ordered a Cursive Logic workbook for her (a company started by a friend of mine - check it out!) and DD took to it very well and today she brought that in to work on instead during journal time.

I doubt she's PG, etc. I'd be really surprised. But I'm about 99.9% sure she's at least moderately gifted. DH is almost assuredly gifted. No G&T program at his school -- his was a Reggio school -- but his mom told me he was assessed as gifted at a young age when they brought him in to a psychologist when worried about his behavior, and he's in Mensa also. Even without that, I can tell he's gifted by the way he thinks. I'm at the very least a "high achiever", no idea if I'm gifted as well. I can see either possibility.

DD taught herself lower and upper case letters by 18 months, had about 100 words at 18 months, was doing 48-60 piece puzzles at 3 and now is on 100 piece puzzles on her own. She's learning basic math -- mostly addition. I suspect she could do subtraction and fractions if she were interested, but she hops from interest to interest so is "off" math right now. She's reading beginner books, although she mostly does either sight words/guessing. We're on the 2nd set of BOB books but she's more into whole language reading as opposed to phonics. She became interested in cursive last week when she out of nowhere started reading cursive words to me, not realizing it was a different type of writing. As a side note, she's left handed and often writes in mirror-image. I like her doing cursive because she's more focused on doing it the "correct" way (I don't correct her mirror writing, except only sometimes pointing it out).

I sometimes read stuff about gifted kids at a young age and am surprised they are gifted traits -- ex: asking questions about life and death, high emotional intelligence, etc. I definitely have the imposter syndrome where I completely question my assessment of DD. The reason I originally even considered she was gifted was not the questions/emotional intelligence or even the early literacy (we just expected that, since DH read at 3 and I read at 4). It was her spatial reasoning and memory, like her directional sense and the fact she was playing the game Memory before she turned 2. Actually, it's my lack of spatial sense and number sense that makes me pooh pooh the idea of my being gifted. I contrast her with my son, DS3, who is certainly bright and inquisitive but doesn't blow our minds regularly, and that's when I know. (I mean, DS could be gifted too -- who knows -- but it's not something that I would've even considered if it weren't for learning more about giftedness because of DD).

Anyway, this is long, but I know I will have tons of questions later about assessments, kinds of gifted programs, differentiated learning, and how to keep DD engaged. Right now, she's just happy being a kid, and is totally extroverted and social, and she loves school.

Welcome! I consider myself a newbie in this forum, but have received many great advice and information that are very helpful.

Welcome! I just wanted to add that my twins (now 16yo) went to a Reggio Emilia preschool, and we thought it was a fantastic environment for our gifted preschoolers. There was no defined curriculum, so they were never out of sync. The classes did projects based on the interests of the kids as a group, and the kids defined their own roles, in fitting with their learning level. We ended up keeping them there another year instead of pursuing early K (December birthday), and had no regrets.

Welcome! I hope the forum provides what you are looking for.

Heh. I remember saying nearly this exact same thing about my DS when he was your DD's age. It turns out he is HG+.

In talking with many others on the forum, there are quite a few of us who have underestimated our children. If she has two gifted / "high achieving" parents who feel that she is obviously gifted, it's very likely that they are underestimating her, too.

Ha. I remember writing something very similar when she was 2. Even these days, I tend to focus on what she cannot do (yet) or does poorly. It's not that I expect her to be perfect or excel at everything but as a parent, I want to help her get better at areas of relative weakness so 98% of the time, I think of her as a "struggling" learner.

I just looked at Ruf's Levels of Giftedness and took the assessment. Both my quick glance and the assessment said she's in between Level 2 and Level 3, and it indicated a Type III school (high socioeconomic-class,educated parents) would be a good fit for her. Phew! I think just looking at that information, we'll be generally okay through the elementary school years, and it's nice to know that she'll likely qualify for the G&T program for additional "pull-out" enrichment time.

Seems like Level 2/3 is around IQ 130-135. Is that moderately gifted? Because again, that's somewhat of a relief - like the best of both worlds.

Good luck! FWIW, when we read the book, we assessed ODS at between a 3-4. He was assessed professionally as PG.

There can be educational challenges at all levels, so I wouldn't necessarily say it's "a relief," nor would I rely on a rough estimate like this to be anything particularly definitive.

If you were to force me to make a "best guess" about your daughter's level of giftedness (LOG) from only this statement, I would say she is at least HG. But that's certainly not a rigorous analysis. There are many facets of intelligence, and some of them don't present themselves in obvious manners a lot of the time.

No matter what LOG your child may be at, it's important for you to stay on top of what she needs to thrive and be challenged throughout her young life. Never assume that a school system, by default, knows best or is going to know how to provide what she needs to be challenged. You may be on top of this already, and that's great! It doesn't get any eaiser, though.

Hah, don't worry. I'm obsessive about certain subjects, and one such subject is DD's education. I definitely plan on keeping a close eye on what's going on at school.

I've read more threads note about the Ruf estimates that are critical of LOG. So I won't take the Level2/Level 3 assessment at its word. I just tracked down DH'S stuff and apparently he was evaluated 3 times, the final time at 8 years old on the WISC-R with a 135-145 range. I have no idea how that (late 80s) compares to today's testing.