What to do when you realise & everyone says DS age 2 is advanced?

[metropolis]

My DS is 2yrs 10months. I know I am joining many parents who notice their child is a bit different, bright and noticeably advanced than his peers but what steps have you taken once you found out? Is there anything I am meant to be doing e.g getting him assessed? The nursery have said he is the first child they've seen who can read and write before starting pre-school. He has a thirst for learning. I was shocked he wrote his friends name on the xmas card and no one had taught him.

I'm ok academically but I'm sure I'm not advanced like DS. I had a bad education and suffered through disruptive classes so I don't want my DS to be let down by average state schools. Primary schools admission soon and the only school near us is average. I wasn't impressed with it but we cant afford private schooling.

lots and lots of learning through play. chatting to him and takin ghim out and about to places. getting him loads ofbooks to look at/read. providing opportunities to learn through play. (you know, plenty of crayons/pencils/creative play; water toys and containers/funnels/scoops in the bath. wooden blocks (3d shapes) to build with/sort out/count how high you can build; playing with language rhythms and rhymes/messing about with changing the first letter of his name/making up rhyming words and silly rhymes; reading too him and pointing to the words as you go so that he knows l to r, top to bottom, one word at a time. pointing out simple words like cat and say ing the letters seperately and then putting them together. looking at numbers on the clock, talking about the numbers changing on a digital clock (dd loved that ) looking at numbers on a ruler, counting up and down stairs, one step and one more is... ) counting out food pasta/sweets/fruit counting songs and songs which count down like 5 current buns. dd loved cutting numbers out of cucumber with cutters. putting numbers (eating numbers) in the correct order. asking him what do you think? type questions. playing with duplo/playdough to build finger strength/pegging up the washing/ drawing and writing his name in cornflower mix/shaving foam/sand/flour . drawing anticlockwise circles on the path with water in squeezy bottle. painting the fence with water. painting and drawing on an easel and on different sized/shaped/coloured pieces of paper sharing out sweets/grapes equally between you both. laying the table for teddys with different coloured cutlery. counting how many you will need for one teddy, two teddys etc. )

phew, that should keep you going for about a year!

average schools are ok if they have the right attitude. some people have children who go to outstanding sdchools but they are too rigid and do not cater for individual needs. ask for specifics on how they support special need children and able children. how do they differentiate for children in the classes. do children move between year groups for literacy or numeracy or is all the work done in the same class. look at the toilets. happy child=learnign child toilets are scary places for small children in school. look at the work on the wall. do all the pictures look like they have been made by the teacher with little input from the children or do they show individual creativity. read the ofsted reports to see how they are challenging able learners.

you do realise that you will be told it is all completely normal and that other children were doing xyz more at his age and just to let him play because it all evens out in the end?

i will reread that in the morning after lots of cups of coffee and defrosting my fingers and brain to see if any of that makes sense.

Hi, when I saw the title of your post I was expecting to see flames in the 2 replies. It's not that your dc isn't advanced, just that people on here take issue with describing Dcs in that way at age 2. Personally, I think you can predict a lot about a child's abilities later on from how they are at 2. My dc1 & 2 were bright 2 olds & are now able 8 & 6y olds . Santas given you a lot of good advice & would second all of that, just give him a lot of different opportunities to try lots of different things, like you would with any child advanced or not.

With regard to schools totally agree with Susan again, I've heard a lot about 'high achieving' schools dismissing parents of very advanced children with 'we have a lot of bright children here,' and never really making proper differentiation for individuals, meanwhile more average schools are often better at seeing each child as an individual.

As for assessing him, imo at this point there is no reason to. There are no problems, no reason to put him through it, no need to spend all that money, which would be better spent taking him out buying books etc. You already know he's bright will it really make any difference to what you do for him to know how able he is?

Thanks blackeyedsanta for the amazing reply! Certainly tons of ideas for me to learn from, thank you! We do lots with DS like reading books, cooking, nursery rhymes, making a-z books, practise writing words, visiting galleries museums, creative play etc. I teach art to children so art activities are not a problem but I do run out of ideas in other areas. Thanks for your suggestions. Your DD must have a fun time.

Thanks also for the advice about schools. The school we looked said they just give more homework to more able children. Its also a deaf school so there is more support for special needs than able children. The point about moving between year groups is a good question, will ask them about that.

Glad to see you've not been flamed for once!

Yes, I second everything BES and Joyn have said above. Don't despair about the school situation. I have also heard many so-called "average" schools are actually better at differentiating than many outstanding schools. My DD (aged 7, gifted) has had a very hard time at an academically good school because they thought she was autistic and not very intelligent. Testing proved otherwise (just as we said!), but we've yet to get through to the school on that one, and are now considering changing schools....

My tip for you would be to join the NAGC - there is a wealth of information and advice available through that organisation.

Good luck - your DS sounds lovely and very bright!

I hear what you both say about the word 'advanced' for a 2yr old. I am not a competitive mum, just a mum who is reacting to other people's observations about DS. Its a word thats used a lot when other people talk about DS to me. I rarely post on MN so i have no idea what people take issue with. I'm just after some advice.

A friend said she isn't bothered about what school her DD is going to because her DD is average, not especially bright. Whereas because I notice DS is doing things that his peers are not yet doing and nursery staff keep telling me how bright (won't use advanced) he is etc and advising me to look at private schools, thats why I am going down this route of thought. I think I was just doing my own thing with DS giving him lots of experiences at his pace but when people start saying this and that you start getting anxious that I will be letting DS down if he doesn't go to private school or something.

However I think you've helped answer my anxiety about average schools though, thanks.

When you start to go and look at schools for DS, have a chat to the teacher/head about him. Don't use words like "gifted" or "advanced". Just say that although you have never hot-housed him, nursery are saying things like...

Then you can say that you realise from what Nursery have said and from seeing friends' children, that not all children can do these things at the start of school. Then just ask for advice - what do they think about this? What would they do to help ds? Do they think he would get bored going over phonics he already knows? How have they helped other children like this in the past? I think that you will get a feeling from their replies as to how suited the school would be to your ds.

EyeOfNewtToeOfFrog - thanks for telling me your experiences too. I looked up NAGC. Just read the age 1-4 yrs factsheet, very useful. I agree its not worth assessing at that cost! Thanks for the info.

Thanks sarahfreck - will hopefully be able to speak to the school about this. I think that's one concern I had as he knows his phonics already so I do wonder if he would get bored going over something he already knew.

Does he know all his phonics? eg ey can have an ay sound (grey) or ey sound (monkey)? soft c and g sounds in circle and giraffe? ar preceded by a w or qu makes an or sound ( as in war and quarter)? I'm guessing he knows single letter phonic sounds plus some digraphs ( ai, oy)? Just pointing this out since saying "he knows his phonics already" might get some teachers' backs up. As long as you approach stuff with a "please help and guide me about this" attitude, teacher should realise that you aren't being pfb about it. You in turn can identify a "prickly" teacher from an open supportive one and choose a school accordingly. It may well not be the one with the best ofsted. Do try to talk to the head to. IMO, the head often makes or breaks a school. If you have a positive happy supportive head with good management skills, the staff all tend to flourish and develop their teaching and work more easily and effectively too. Likewise a poor or insecure head can make for an unhappy and ineffective school.

There's no reason why they shouldn't help him to learn more advanced phonics but he may still have to sit in the "whole class" bits as well - They shouldn't be long sessions 10 mins or so of class watching, interacting and learning. Reception is very play based so apart from the "whole class" bits they can choose what they want to do. A good teacher should be able to challenge a child in the right way - eg presented with some writing, challenge them to write another sentence, find a word to describe the caterpillar they have drawn, look at how words like rain and train have an ai grapheme rather than an ay one or whatever! The play-based nature of the class does make it a great opportunity for dc's to develop improved social skills too so don't overlook the opportunity for him to do this and see school as only about "academics".

To be honest, I really wouldn't worry too much at this stage. Continue to do the fun educational stuff as and when your ds is enthusiastic. Don't worry if you don't do things in the same order/way as school as often there are different ways rather than rights or wrongs (though I would say that keeping going with phonics rather than encouraging guessing from pictures or whatever may help your ds to be a more accurate reader in the long run!)

Try and pick the best school from your gut feelings when you go round but also understand that no school in the world can accurately meet every single child's needs in every single way all the time. You just can't with a class of 30. I say this as a tutor who works one-to-one and loves really being able to meet each child's needs but also recognises how I couldn't do this the same way when I was class teaching. But schools can approximate to where they are at and you should expect this and supplement at home with whatever you see fit when the time comes.

we didn't do anything tbh.

i really do think it's way too early to be even thinking about it. in our case when ds1 started nursery (about 3 days after he turned 3) they wanted the lea to assess him immediately, but they refused.

we are all still alive. we buy books, he does loads of activities. he entertained his early years teachers no end. all fine.

we are thinking of home ed now though. he doen't really fit into a school environment.

and when people tell you how clever he is, you smile, say thank you, and carry on as you were. no biggie.

would agree with sarah though. let school determine how bright he is. they get really bored by the humber of parents telling them how gifted the soon-to-be yr r kid is.

we always just said 'oh, x is reading, but i expect you'll be assessing where he/ she's at' and let them get on with it.

Great list of things to do from BES. Sound advice about the "didn't do anything" from MWIA. We did nothing and it's been great. You can always test if problems arise later and you think it maybe of benefit.

You are obviously doing plenty with your DS as he is advancing really well and you certainly don't mention anything that makes him sound unhappy . Testing at a young age is far less reliable than later and it is expensive and additional things taught at home with lots of 1-2-1 can falsely inflate results.

We never even mentioned reading etc (no need to-thought it was normal).

sarahf - I meant he knows single phonics already. I've not shown him advanced phonics. He could probably pick up advanced phonics but for now he's happy singing single phonics non stop along with signing. This is really useful info though, thank you so much. Yes, I totally agree with how important social skills are not just the academic side, and a good social mix. DS was quite withdrawn and mature before going to playgroups and nursery but now he's very confident, vocal, and loves helping the other children signing, reading and writing. And in turn they help him loosen up and go crazy like any 3 yr old.

mwia - thanks for your comments. Good to hear your experiences. Sorry to hear your ds is not fitting in - is it related to being bright? Sorry I don't know what word to use any more! I used to work at a gallery teaching art / conceptual art to children and a lot of home ed children were often the most enthusiastic, inquisitive children I've ever taught.

thanks iggly2 for the advice. Ds is doing well despite going through some tough times at home with us. I have an illness so I'm not able to look after him and do much with him as I used to. It is affecting him and he asks why I'm sick, being a very sensitive child anyway. We have had some rebellious behaviour of late! I think he's missing the time we used to spend together as he was always asking me to teach him things.

not sure what it's related to really (sorry, am mwita having an out of body experience - trapped in an alter ego after a test name change and now can't get back!) but he does have some adhd type attention issues and struggles to stay on task if he's not stimulated/ challenged - which i guess is to do with being bright... and he isn't stimulated/ challenged by most of school he does struggle a bit socially with his peer group, which again, could be because he's bright, but could also be because he's just not very social! it's very much to do with his particular personality type i think. both his sisters are also v bright but have no problems with school. i think they are natural crowd pleasers, whereas he is just not...