How to tell if a child is gifted?

[barbie-doll]

Thanks Sleepy!

[cnimed]

Can admit earlier, but it has happened only in very rare instances.


And bear in mind that if you later feel that school is not suitable for your child and decide to homeschool him, it may be much harder to get permission than if the child was not already on their radar as being exceptionally gifted. MOE’s policy is to keep gifted kids within the school system as far as possible. Without exemption, you are legally bound to continue sending the child to school.

If you feel that your child is very gifted, but is not sure if the school system will nurture his talents and emotional growth, it may be better to visit the schools you are thinking of and get a feel of their attitudes and policies towards such children beforehand.

[mummysara]

Original Title: Gifted toddler? - knows ABCs at 18 months


Hi Mummies out there,

i have an 18 mth toddler son who can

1) name all the different types of vehicles (even submarine and hovercraft),
2) knows numbers 1 to 20 and can verbalise it
3) identify individual alphabets
4) Tang shi
5) 2 times table. Teaching him 3 times table now
6) pronouce 4 syllable words

Does anyone know where I can get help to teach him better? Where can I get him assessed to know if he's really gifted?

[mummysara]

Hi, time flies… his 20 months now.


Here’s he’s progress.

1) able to recite 3 times table now
2) Know shapes including rhombus and parallelogram
3) sing twinkle twinkle, baa baa black sheep and some folk songs taught by my MIL
4) knows colours, common fruits and vegetables in the supermarket
5) high level of imagination
6) could remember his overseas trip that we had at 15mths. We were surprised when he told us at our recent trip to airport that he sat in a plane to Taiwan
7) able to speak 5 word sentences and cant seem to stop talking
knows to pick his favorite DVDs
9) Up to 30 types of vehicles including excavator, hovercraft, etc
10) A few chinese characters. He converses in English and now starting him on Chinese.
11) Spell a few words; coconut, car, dog.
12) count from number 1 to 30
13) identify animals at the zoo

We are at a loss now as we are running out of things to teach him. He’s high energy level also makes us really tired. These few days have been really taxing as we stopped letting him go to the playground in lieu of the swine flu pandemic. He’s been spending too much time on the tv due that.

I’ve heard that children can enrol into primary school as young as 5 years old. Not too sure if this is best for the kid.

Has anyone put their kids in at 5 years of age?

[ZacK]

Hiya.. Mummysara... You may want to have a read in this thread because what you have asked or want to know should already by covered there


http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=340&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

[blessed]

mummysara:

Hi, time flies.. his 20 months now.


Here's he's progress.

1) able to recite 3 times table now
2) Know shapes including rhombus and parallelogram
3) sing twinkle twinkle, baa baa black sheep and some folk songs taught by my MIL
4) knows colours, common fruits and vegetables in the supermarket
5) high level of imagination
6) could remember his overseas trip that we had at 15mths. We were surprised when he told us at our recent trip to airport that he sat in a plane to Taiwan
7) able to speak 5 word sentences and cant seem to stop talking
knows to pick his favorite DVDs
9) Up to 30 types of vehicles including excavator, hovercraft, etc
10) A few chinese characters. He converses in English and now starting him on Chinese.
11) Spell a few words; coconut, car, dog.
12) count from number 1 to 30
13) identify animals at the zoo

We are at a loss now as we are running out of things to teach him. He's high energy level also makes us really tired. These few days have been really taxing as we stopped letting him go to the playground in lieu of the swine flu pandemic. He's been spending too much time on the tv due that.

I've heard that children can enrol into primary school as young as 5 years old. Not too sure if this is best for the kid.

Has anyone put their kids in at 5 years of age?

Hi suppose u've exposed him to DINOSAURS names (esp. long ones & ask him to spell)
my son did that at that age, now he's a great SCRABBLE player (pri sch champ).

[mummysara]

Hi Zack and Blessed,


Thank you for the information.

Read in the referred thread that there was a mum whom put her kid through the classes from 1 year old. Thats scary.

Its more like nurture through force. Anyway, we are not that financially well to do to send him to those classes.

We brought him to Science Centre yesterday and had lots of fun. He seems to like the mechanical science displays a lot. Maybe thats the direction that he wants to go. We will try to see if we could get some toys for him to explore.

Cheers…

[cnimed]

personally I think this age is not about teaching but exposure to real life. You don't have to spend your time teaching him, and there is a lot of value in allowing the child space and time to explore things on his own. For ideas you can look up some Montessori activites for young children. Waldorf also appeal to children's imagination and senses. Water play, painting, wooden blocks are simple but allow endless possibilities to the creative child, whether a toddler or a few years old. The complexity of the play will increase. Give the child a pet fish, or a plant to look after, occasionally provide them with beautiful stones/shells/sticks to decorate the area. Track insects. Kites. Balls. The best toys are non-electronic open-ended toys.


At this age there's no need for assessment, and ETHICAL child psychologists will tell you so. Assessment is not reliable until the child is older, and even then, it is valuable to know why you need that information, because every assessment will have its own biase, and abilities are so much more diverse than what is defined by the tests.

Exceptional cases will be...very exceptional, and grade skipping is not solely based on abilities, but also social maturity.

He's still very young. Enjoy this innocent age and follow his lead.

[mummysara]

Hi deminc,


Thank you for the assurance.

We have 2 fish tanks and several pots of plants which he co-owns to feed and water them. We allow him to decorate his room and toys with stickers. Tried to encourage him to draw with crayons but after a while he just gets bored and would chew and throw them instead. He has learnt how to do forward rolls on his own and surprised us with his choice of words. His remarkable memory also keeps us in check to try to be selective with our words when we speak.

At times he speaks like an adult. But when he throws tantrums… we are soon reminded that he’s only 20 mths old.

I guess most parents would agree, that we try to make up to our kids for the things that we missed out when we were children.

[tamarind]

mummysara,

Your child is certainly exceptionally bright.

I started the other thread \"Any parents of gifted children\" because I am very interested in their development. However that thread became a debating ground for many issues and many people did not like the word \"gifted\".

Personally, I think that it is not that important to identify whether a child is gifted or not, or whether the word \"gifted\" should be used at all. We should be concerned about how to develop a child who is able to learn effortlessly at a very young age.

I am still very interested in the development of gifted or exceptionally bright children since birth. Hopefully we can stay on this topic in this thread.

The first thing you need to do is to teach him to learn independently. In order to do that, he must learn to read independently.

Take a look at the types of books my girl was reading on her own before she turns 6 years old.

http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2009/02/great-books-for-confident-readers.html

I know there are many other kids who can read like her at an even younger age. I only started to teach her phonics and reading at 3 years 8 months old, because at that time I did not believe that a child can learn how to read before 3 years old, this was my mistake.

A child may be able to read a few complicated sight words, like dinosaur names, etc. But that does not mean that he can read. We can only say that a child can really read, when he is able to read the entire Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (by Roald Dahl) fluently, and understands the book completely.

I would advise you to teach phonics and sight words at the same time. Checkout my blog.

http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-teach-phonics.html

Reading is the most important skill for learning. Since my girl is reading so well, she naturally knows how to write. She can spell many words without having to memorize the spelling. She is able to write her daily journal since 5 years old.

I think you should put much more emphasis on reading and writing, in both English and Chinese first.

For Chinese, checkout the standard at Berries(Chinese enrichment class) in my blog.

http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeromes-chinese-test-at-berries.html

That is for the average 5 year old kids ! I think some children may be able to read like that way before the age of 5.

For maths, the most important skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division can be mastered by a bright child very easily.

Personally I think that the brightness (or giftedness) of a child, is defined by how easily he/she can learn new things. For example, we only need to teach a child the concept of addition once, in less than 1 minute. Then she is able to add any number from 0 to 100. In other words, a bright child does not require any drilling.

There are many young children who can remember things like the 2 times table after many repetitions or drilling. But a child who knows the 2 times table after being taught once, is certainly different from the rest. In any case, if the child truly understands addition, then she can even work out the 2 times table without having being taught at all