Math Can Wait

When my son was 2 he had a (board line) obsession with puzzles. He would do them as fast as possible and do them over and over again. Ever eager for ones with more pieces.

When he was 3, everything was about letters and spelling. I felt like I was living in a spelling bee. Wherever we went it was "How do you spell this? How do you spell that?". Around the age of 4 he informed me that "We need to talk about numbers sometimes". We had been sitting in a Taco Bell when that statement was made.

So his 4s were spent with looking at numbers. The spelling bee car rides turned into car rides filled with math problems, him asking me and me asking him. Some days he would just be happy to ride and count; to see how high he could go before we got there. 334, 335, 336, 337; the numbers would drone on and on.

When he started his 5s he was still "obsessing" over math. Working in math workbooks like some children use coloring books. Car rides where filled with even more math quizzes. Then we bought him a watch. And the counting was replaced by "It's 4:32. 4:33. 4:34. 4:40. 20 minutes till 5pm. Oh, oh wait for it 4:42". Humorous at first, but it got old quickly.

Then the math obsessions started dying off, about a week later my son realized he could read. It sort of came out of the blue. He's been sort of reading for years now. Knowing tons of sight words, and puncuation; but this was really the first time he put all his practice to use. He picked up a copy of Read with Dick & Jane: Something Funny, and away he went. Reading all 40 something pages on his own. The math workbook was left to collect dust, and a new world was opened to him.

I asked him last night, since it was late, if he would like to read to me or if I should read to him (we didn't have time for both). He told me he was going to read to me, since "he needed to practice". His words not mine. He brought one of his Franklin books to read, I told him I thought it was too hard. He assured me he could read it... and sure enough he could. Sounding out the words he didn't know as he went.

What Defines "Gifted Child"

To ask the question - what is a gifted child, is to open a flood gate of responses. Some responses are fact and some are opinion. Some people feel that all children are gifted. Yes, children are a gift; but not all children are gifted. Some use the term talented interchanged with gifted.

A lot of resources often refer to gifted children as those having an IQ over 130 (110 in other references). Some facilities will define it as a child preforming at least 2 grade levels above his peers. Still others see giftedness as the ability to preform on an adult level while still a child.

Giftedness can manifest it's self in a variety of ways - intellect, artistic or physical ability, emotional and/or cognitive development.

And then there are different levels of giftedness. 5 levels to be exact (but that's another post).

Gifted children are infamous for their asynchronous development. Albert Einstein being one of the most famous. He didn't speak until he was 4 and couldn't read until he was 7.

One of the best resources on the web for gifted children is "Hoagies Gifted". If you check out the link below you can see what they have compiled from various resources about what defines a gifted child.

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/gifted_101.htm

Wisdom by Pearl Buck

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To him...

a touch is a blow,

a sound is a noise,

a misfortune is a tragedy,

a joy is an ecstasy,

a friend is a lover,

a lover is a god,

and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating."

-Pearl Buck-