Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums "Children even out in reading by 3rd grade..."

I also think those claims are ridiculous. The research I've done indicates that reading increases vocabulary and understanding and once the process begins, if continually encouraged, the difference can't be made up. The reader is constantly acquiring new information creating a scenario where others will always be one or two or three steps behind. I suppose it is not impossible but it is highly unlikely. If your child is a voracious reader at five, as my daughter was, there is no way other kids will catch her. By the time they start acquiring the vocabulary she had by Kindergarten she'll be on to other things. Reading is not just about the act of reading. It is learning and gives children such a tremendous advantage. My daughter knows everything there is to know about Greek Gods because she love the Rick Riordan series. She is not only reading she is taking an ancient culture class. Kids might even out by high school or even junior high if you have some late bloomers but devouring everything they can find at five and never letting up is something that can't be caught and it is silly to say that it can. I agree with Chris kids are different and why schools always seems to knock down special talents to make others feel better is beyond me.

Nobody would ever say oh well they're all good at Math by 4th grade. I don't know reading is such a punching bag. My daughter often struggles with more difficult math concepts and I would never diminish the talents of those kids who light up when calculating or judging quantities so why is it always done with reading.

Sorry for the rant but just once I would like the example to be designed to prop up my daughter's fragile ego rather than tear it down.

This has been our experience too. The kids I know are bright but just aren't showing it in the usual ways early on, start showing it by about 3rd grade. And the kids whose parents pushed and shoved every scrap of "learning" they could down their throats early on aren't seeing the same leaps ahead that they might have when they were preschoolers. Also by 3rd grade most kids are reading, so the difference between reading fluently and with excellent comprehension at an adult level vs. just barely reading isn't quite as noticeable as the difference between just reading vs. not.

With DS, what I've found is that by 3rd grade he was much more "even" with himself. The areas that he had lagged behind suddenly started to catch up (coughcoughspellingcough), and the unpredictable pace at which he had been progressing started to smooth out into about a year's growth in a year's time. Just not the particular year one would expect of an 8 year old. So part of that could have been my settling into the correct level of instruction in finding just what amount of challenge it would take him a year to conquer, but I think there was something developmental in there too. Just not the same "evening out" that people are usually talking about when they say that!! LOL

That makes perfect sense to me, Erica. I see my kids making HUGE strides in a given area, then nothing for a while as they make HUGE strides in a different area. It does seem like all that striding might make for a pretty well-rounded kid...eventually!

This is true for most, but this does not mean reading at a third grade level. In my daughter's school, one/third of the class was reading at an eighth grade level. My daughter was reading at a fifth grade level and considers herself a slow reader. Their advancement does not "fly" as fast after that.

My daughter was at a tenth grade level in fifth, so she is still advancing - except at this point, we don't know what to let her read. This becomes a huge issue. I remember my very accelerated niece reading books with advanced (mature) subject matter when she was in sixth grade. My daughter's school reading list is mostly history books - not her favorite subject.

I think the best kid books are up to the 8th grade level. After that, there is so much dating and sex in them that the popular books are fairly inappropriate. Anyone else having this problem?

Okay, this describes me as a kid. I read at an 8th grade level in 2nd grade - Watership Down. Then I started picking up my father's novels lying around the house (he read one or two per week). I read The Eyes of Laura Mars in 4th grade... that's when I learned that some people stick their tongues in other people's mouth and call it kissing. Blech! And I learned there was something called public hair (I didn't recognize the word pubic). Let's just say I should never have picked up that book. I think my father was horrified I read it.

My father took me to the library to pick out age-appropriate, award winning books with me for as long as I remember. But I wonder if he didn't realize I needed something more challenging in 4th grade.

Hehehe... when I was nine I read the Hobbit, which was fine, but then I picked up my 19yo brother's copy of the Harvard Lampoon parody Bored of the Rings... A lot of the (really obvious) innuendo went right over my head, thank goodness!

I've had really good luck with older books... and especially older British books, although they need discussing (colonialism/racism, antisemitism and sexism issues in particular, but also the subtleties of communication that are part and parcel of a fairly rigid social structure...) DS is currently reading some of my favorite Dorothy Sayers mysteries.

Mine was The World According to Garp. This is definately scary for me. I have noticed I can't leave books around, caught my daughter looking at a Nora Roberts book the other day. Bad! Bad! I say. She seems caught up right now in a very low level series since they deal with monsterous bugs and animals. I'm just happy they are fiction. She read three yesterday. The only problem being she will be done real soon and I have no idea what to get her next. She is forced to follow a fourth grade reading program in school because of her writing level and general opposition to fiction. I'm not sure how much longer she will put up with that though.

I agree that they seem to find their level of advancement rather than "even out".

I caught DS6 with my copy of The Kiterunner

He thought it was about flying kites... fortunately he hadn't read more than the first few pages.

Yes, this is what I am talking about. Ability does not mean that they are ready. I loved Kiterunner, but my daughter (11) would be mortified that I read it.

Hehe... Definitely understand some of that from both perspectives. I was one of those kids reading Tolstoy, Shakespeare... in grade school. I remember a fifth grade book report on Anna Karenina. Not exactly meant for ten-year-olds... I have to say that classics and nonfiction tend to have less adult material than some of the new teen-geared books (although, I do remember having a similar conversation with my parents as Master of None after I read a medical textbook). Whenever adult subjects arose in my reading choices, my parents would have a discussion with me about what I had read. It's worked well with my youngest thus far, who enjoys reading history (including some of the imperialism and war literature).