Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Teaching a HG+ to read - how do you do that?

Hi there,

thanks a lot for the answers

A few comments:

Chris1234 said: On the other hand, I don't know that ds ever had to practice less common words or what look more like parts of words - pom, dom, etc. Sort of scratching my head there...

They are not part of words but Dutch words. Some of them sound like that but I wrote them by memory - sorry about the confusion I have created. I have now the list with me and those particular ones are : som - tom - bom- kom - dom (in English: sum - Tom - ? - come - ?). Others are for example rijk - dijk - kijk...


Grinity:
Yes, the multilingualism probably plays a role. After all, she is learning to read in two languages at the same time and daddy reads to her in a third one and then she hears mommy and daddy speak in a fourth one ! And then she wants to learn French LOL!
If I spell not too long words for her she can put them together, both Spanish and Dutch.
No, the private teacher is not coming any more although maybe I should consider a 'recall' so she can read to DD in proper Dutch and not in broken accent...
About the audio books, I just got two: Peter Pan and some Dutch music story
I think I have to get more Dutch books in general with stories that she likes very much.

Dazey:
I really hope it will click for DD earlier!!!
I was a late bloomer though. In Spain children are taught to read when they are 5 so they enter 1st grade already reading. I pass to 1st grade not reading very well and according to my mom I was a fluent reader within a week. She probably exaggerates a little bit, but even then, I became later a very fast and avid reader...

Oups ... baby phone ....

OK, false alarm. I can continue watching Kill Bill while I post some more comments and my TV set fills up with blood...

Jojo: I must admit that since DS was born I do not have as much time for reading to DD as I did before.

CaMom: Pity that your DS and my DD cannot play together. Anyway, what you say confirms to me that giving her lots of words to read, even if she has to sound them, is most probably the best way to go.
DD is also mega perfectionist by the way...
I was thinking of using a 'treasure box' but I think putting the words on the wall could be more motivating. I just have to make sure that DS does not reach them LOL.

oups !
Now I have to go.

This is such a great idea! I read this thread this morning, and I decided to try it with my 4-year-old. She's been attending a preschool for high ability kids, and her teachers are working with each child on phonics. Oddly (to me anyway), there didn't seem to be much sequential progression in the instruction - she would come home every day with a different phonics rule to memorize. It was just too much for her, and she just wasn't getting it. She grew to hate it whenever I'd suggest we'd practice reading, and she finally told me, "Mom, I HATE reading. I never want to learn to read." Yikes.

We backed off for awhile, but I started thinking maybe she wasn't as high as I thought - I'd always heard that HG kids start reading very early. We had her tested and confirmed that she's gifted, but we've really backed off on the reading thing because it seemed to cause so much frustration. THEN I read this "Word Wall" idea, and we tried it today. Hooray! She's nuts about it - all it took was taping 6 names of our family members and a few other sight words (the, is, etc.) to her closet doors, and she is adding to the list exponentially. I had no idea she knew that many words, but apparently she's been so stuck on sounding everything out that she hasn't focused on what works for her. Once I explained that adults don't sound everything out when they read - that most of our reading is done by "sight", she got really excited. Even later on in the day at the grocery store, she said, "Mom, we have to hurry up and get home so I can add more words to my Word Wall!"

So anyway, thanks a bunch for the idea - we have one happy 4-year-old sleeping in front of her Word Wall tonight....

Awww! Jen! That's such a great story. Yay, Jen's DD4!

Doggone it, you brought tears to my eyes. You people have got to stop with this heartwarming stuff, I'm telling you!

<muttering crankily about getting soft in old age>

Congratulations on a huge victory! I know exactly the happy dance you're doing right now! It's an awesome feeling to know that something finally makes sense- a huge sigh of relief!

Ok, so my Dutch is a little rusty!
It had occurred to me that they might be dutch, but still rhyming rather than very very frequently used words such as 'the'.

The wall of words reminds me of a nice list ds' teacher gave them, but in a visually pleasing format. It was a word wave, just a single piece of paper, with a big wave drawn on it, and typed all along the wave line were common sight words from most common/easiest to less common/harder ones towards the end. The teacher asked us to have ds read it from time to time and just mark off where they had to stop or sound out a word and we could easily see from that the progress ds was making in that area. I had forgotten about that one...
I kind of prefer the word wall now I've heard about it, bigger is better around our house
Also, that is so nice to see a great success/turn around for your dd Jen!

I'd been worried about this too - given that I've been expecting DS6 to start reading independently for the last couple of years! But I talked recently with a friend whose children, now in their late 20s, are both HG - she said her daughter has always been a dynamo and certainly was reading early, but her son, who is theoretically smarter, has always been more of a drifter and didn't start until he was six or seven. It's nice to know we're not the only ones, though I hope my boys won't drift too much (incidentally - even with a quite fancy looking career, his mother still says he's lazy and could be using his brain more).

We had the boys' eyes tested recently, and DS6 apparently is mildly long-sighted and needs to work on his tracking. The optometrist said that this usually isn't an issue, but with some children getting glasses makes a huge change in reading. We're following his advice and just watching the situation for the next six months or so.

We'll also try the word wall idea - sounds fantastic! DS6 hate hates hates sounding things out phonetically, although he's been able to for years. I think he'll like the word wall - sort of a monument to his own cleverness - bound to appeal.

Everything I've read about multilingualism stresses the slowness it induces for kids to learn to read as compared to their peers in single-language households. But, they then catch up and surpass by the 2d grade.

That reminds me BKD of the differences in reading in my girls. While we thought Miss 7 would be reading by 4, it actually took her a while to get it to all fall into place. It didn't really happen for her until 5. And she really didn't get bitten by the reading bug until this summer (when glasses enabled her to read smaller print and therefore more interesting and complex books more easily). Whereas, Miss 4's reading journey has been very different. She's gone from learning the alphabet to 60-page simple chapter books in 18 months or so. Each child is so different...

jojo

I just told DD about the idea of putting the words she knows by hard in the wall and she liked the idea very much

We just put the first 4: mama, papa, DD's name, DS's name. I wrote them in a card and DD decorated them.

Tomorrow we will start with the Dutch words.

And tomorrow we have a big meeting with Mrs Teacher and Mrs Teacher Support at the school and I will tell them about this idea. I will tell them as well to give DD more variety in the words she has to read, and I was thinking if they could provide someone who reads TO DD in Dutch at the school. I think she misses this a lot.

And then, there is maths... but that's another story...