Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Sibling Question - Confused

I have a basic question about a younger sibling. My older dd did well on her WISC read very well very early. She also wrote extremely well at five. She was a completely fluent reader by five and is now 7 and just keeps improving. Now we have her younger sister who is currently five. Younger dd is extremely bright. She understands complex concepts, became aware of her own mortality at two and has an eery undertanding of death. She walked at nine months and was talking in full sentences a year and was completely conversational with an amazing vocabulary by 15 months. Strangely enough she is having a difficult time learning to read. She can't get much past three letter words and still writes many letters and numbers backwards. It is very strange because my DH reads long books to the girls each night, Harry Potter etc, and she is able to comprehend and retain the detailed story. Why do you think she is having such trouble learning to read and write?

Is she interested in writing or reading? If she isn't interested, that might be why her reading isn't fluent yet. If she is frustrated with reading and wants to learn, it might be worth checking her vision or checking for a learning disability (gifted kids can have those, too). Either of those can make it difficult for a child to start reading...

My DS12 was also a 'deep thinker, great listener, and late (LOL) reader. To make me crazier, he knew all his letter by name and sound around age 2, but he really was ready for 'Magic Tree House' book and Captain Underpants around the end of 1st grade. People thought I was nutz for worrying....

Turns out he had a kind of vision problem that isn't detected by regualar eye exams, and couldn't really be called a problem, just that his developmental track was a bit slower than average, and the rest of him was way way above average. You should get her tested by a 'Behavioral Optometrist' just to see where she stands. DS12 never did the therapy, time and regualar life just evened him out over the years - but it sure messed with his head to not be able to do a simple thing like read!

In the meantime, get lots of books on tape of detailed, deep stories, like 'Tuck Everlasting' and 'Bridge to Teribithia' so she can learn to love Literature, no matter what else is going on.

LOL - around Kindy age, we were hanging out with a child who was the son of my DH's best friend. This kid was really reading, and the parents were so proud, and he could get through any book with pictures and a few sentences on each page. But when I urged the parents to read Harry P to him, or any other 'deeper' book, they looked at me like I had lost my mind. Either he wasn't ready to sit and listen, or they weren't ready to admit that he was ready.

LOG - it exists. It matters. BTW, my late-reading son just a few years later got Davidson YSP qualifying IQ scores. So while many many HG kids do read early, no all of them do, by any means.

Grinity

Thanks for the replies. Part of why we're shocked is because of how much she loves books. She looks at books all the time. She is my girly girl and will sit and look through American Girl books so it's not just that she looks through picture books. But when you ask her if she wants to come over and sit down and see what words she can recognize she gets very upset and refuses. I guess I'll just give her more time.

I second the vision check with the behavioral optometrist!

Several of us noticed the same sort of love of books but lack of reading in our bright kids, and it seems pretty common that this indicates a vision issue that normal "eye chart at the pediatrician" visits don't catch.

My 4yo has some "visual immaturity" and needed glasses for close work...like reading. If that doesn't help, then he'll start vision therapy in the spring. It's worth a check!

I was going to chime in earlier but I didn't want to bias you Ianfan.

But since the others (ha ha, you all are now "the others"-when does that bugger start anyway?) are thinking along those lines.


Same for our little C. Although there may be a more serious processing issue, but we'll see. We did opt for the therapy to be on the safe side, plus all this was affecting her confidence and she COULD read! It was just harder than it should have been(is)!

She loves, the Dr. and I think she's pretty great. We have great hopes.

Since no one else has mentioned it, look at www.covd.org for information on vision issues. ('neato- I guess I'm one of the "others" now!!!) LOL!!!

I've got my eye on you, kid!!!!!!!

I'm reading the most interesting book now called Raising Topsy-Turvy Kids: Successfully Parenting Your Visual-Spatial Child, by Alexandra Shires Golon. It may not have anything to do with your DD, but I thought that I would through this out and see where it lands.

According to this wonderful book, Visual-Spatial kids love books, but struggle sometimes to learn to read. Here is a quote:

I first heard about this book here, and it may be old hat by now. But everything in this book explains my highly VS kid. It even addresses VS learner's inability to do multiplication tables easily, since they need to form a mental picture in their minds of the math facts. She even goes so far as to say that bottlenecks are possible with VS kids when their brains pause during an activity where they need to translate from a non-pictorial item (writing, or math facts) into a image that their brains can handle.

So it may be that both of your girls are gifted, but they are gifted in different ways. One may be a audio-sequential learner and one may be a visual-spatial learner?

Just a thought to keep in mind. Or not!

Geez, my girls are so similar to Ianfan's I thought you were talking to me for a second!

You can make flashcards with the dolce sight words. Just google that and you can find lists. What is it, something like 85% of all reading material consists of these 100 words or so?

I'm sure I have my facts a little off there, but you get the point. Start with the easy ones like: I and is.....
I used to give the cards to C when she had them instant recall and she loved that. It was like: " I OWN this word now".

Both my girls could do simple math in their heads, way early. I used to ask them to picture m$m's.

I read on this forum, I'm pretty sure, a good way to teach them to recall spelling words they are having difficulty with is to have them close their eyes and tell them to try and *see* the word on a paper. And if they can spell it forward and backward, they know it. I told DD8 to do this on spelling tests if she's not sure she has the word spelled correctly. Finally getting a few hard vocab words each week, YAY!