Is she gifted and do I need to do anything to support possibly gifted 2 year old?

[RainbowsFriend]

DD's childminder has been commenting for ages on how advanced she is - I don't really see it as she's my first!

But DD is 22 months old - talks clearly in sentences.
Names and recognises shapes like square, rectangle, triangle etc,
Counts to 12
Can say without counting whether she has one, two or three of anything - needs to count them if above 3
Knows all her colours
Draws fairly recognisable rocket shapes, or raindrops, or rainbows - her favourite things
Is starting to recognise some letters and numbers.
Is starting to use "s" to signify plural (even when wrong, such as "sheeps" )
Probably some other stuff not immediately to mind.

Anyway, I don't do a lot with her - take her to the park, read her the same bloody books over and over, chuck her in front of her chalk board or play doh every so often - usual stuff - but I don't teach her anything is what I mean!

So is this gifted? And if so should I start doing more with her than the vague sticking toys in front of her that I currently do?

If she was reading (I know that some MNers children were by this age), playing the piano or reciting back books or poems of by heart at this age, I would say you probably needed to do more with her and that it was probable that you had a child that was off the scale. However, the things that you are talking about are less dramatic - I'm not saying that she's not bright, but they're much more 'normal' (ie like my son ) and what you're currently doing with her sounds ideal. So... keep up the good work!

Phew! I'm not sure I'd know what to do with a truly gifted child - my CM just had me worrying

Thank you

teach her to read using flashards, this time next month she will be reading words

She does recite back songs verbatim, but I'm sure you don't mean twinkle twinkle et al

Just let her be a kid. They are like sponges. she sounds perfectly possible to hothouse if you feel like it, but she'll pick up stuff anyway, as that's what they do.

Dd1 knew her alphabet at 18mos (not by rote - she recognised individual letters and could identify words beginning with that sound) and the other stuff you recognise (she could count to 20 in three languages lol). She isn't particularly gifted (iq only around 132, but enough to stand in her good stead through school). My most gifted kid wasn't verbal until well over three (but had taught herself to read lol). and the third one (the least gifted on paper) had taught himself multiplication and number bonds by three. He's pretty much average at school. Likes maths. Could be a genius but isn't really interested.

Either way, bright, clever, gifted, whatever, just get on with treating her like a fascinated little person who is interested in stuff, just like any other two year old, and she'll be fine.

No special attention required. She'll teach herself to read or whatever if she wants to, just by osmosis. They pick stuff up. Teaching definitely not required.

I#m not sure she would enjoy flashcards?

Don't do them with her then - I left reading to school and DS is very happily devouring books despite that...

(Is it bad that I don't even know what number bonds are?!)

Maybe if I just start pointing out the words in her books, sounding them out? I think she'd like that.

My daughter is 23 months old, and sounds very, very similar. (She actually does "read" some of her favourite books almost verbatim .)

I don't do anything special with her, I don't want to teach her to actually read, or do flashcards or anything with her. I think she's very bright, and I do think she's particularly good verbally - some of the insightful things she comes out with do really impress me sometimes - but I think she'll be just fine playing and chatting and reading books with me and her elder sister, and just pottering round doing normal toddler things.

7+3 =10, 1+9 = 10 etc....

That's what I was doing with reading - reading with him beside me, running my finger along the words as I read and then letting him guess certain obvious words - gets the idea that the words are coming from what's written down and also gets the flow of things too....

No need to do sounding out - that would completely ruin the point of reading for pleasure.

Bananas, mine used to march round the house reciting room on the broom verbatim. They were obsessed by julia Donaldson and that ilk.

Be careful though - we assumed dd2 had just memorized the stories from hearing them so often, but then she started reading a Virginia Woolf text book over my shoulder, and read the lion the witch and the wardrobe to grandma when she babysat.

I love kids. They are equally amazing and scary.

But no need to teach. Really. Just exposure to lots and lots and lots of stuff.

And no sounding out. I can't think of anything worse for a toddler that enjoys stories and reading. They'd be like 'wtf are you talking like that for??'

If she recognises her letters you can play 'hunt the m' or whatever though. Not in books, in real life. You know they've got it when they point out the f in graffiti. And then read it to you. It makes being out in public so much more, um, enervating. And you realise just how many macdonalds there are in the world.

All sounds totally normal to me :)

DD was doing everything you say and more at 15 months. I've never assumed she is gifted though. Some children do take on an incredible amount of information very early on.

Just don't let granny leave her awful 'real life' magazines laying about, when DS was 2.5 he exclaimed 'dirty dave left knickers in the glove box'

DD1s name starts with F, she announced out very loudly in one supermarket "look Mummy, that says my name" as she pointed to the sign for Fresh Meat

I'd say the most important thing at that age is definitely not to start trying to teach her to read or do maths. If she is really bright, she will pick up those things up in a flash when she is ready and interested. There is no advantage to knowing them at age 2. I couldn't read when I started school, but was powering through the Hobbit after a couple of terms.

Talk to her lots, read her stories, talk about them, sing, play music, explore outside (catch snails, look at different leaves, talk about everything), give her multi-purpose toys like blocks and duplo and dolls houses to do role play with, avoid electronic 'educational' toys, do messy arts and crafts, give her plenty of crayons and paper... DD started to love I think the most important thing is talking - not lecturing her, but chatting about stuff - and letting her curiosity guide her to learn new things.

Oops, deleted part of sentence - DD started to love jigsaws when she was around two, like a lot of bright children, but DS hated them (they are both officially G&T, but very different).

Lol at katopotato - I had to turn around the books on my shelves and dh was aghast at my research stuff open on the laptop - he was terrified that the children would head off to nursery and announce 'mummy has a big black penis on the shelf'. (It was about masculinity and race... But you can bet your bottom dollar that nursery would not have cared about the nuances...)

Am loving dirty Dave's glove box.

Your DD definitely sounds very bright and eager to learn, OP.

By comparison, my two year old was counting to 20 easily (understanding amounts too) before the age of two. He can do very complex jigsaws now he is two and a half. And like others on here, he knows the work of Julia Donaldson verbatim and can pick out certain words - eg puppy - correctly without prompting. He can't read but he can definitely recognise words and numbers and tell you the number of any passing bus.

I think he is bright and could use encouragement as he loves learning but I don't think he is gifted. Not that it matters really as I am unsure what gifted really means.

I say this as an allegedly "gifted" child myself. I was reading at 18mo and started primary school using the texts for nine year olds. I was in the top percentile nationally for exams. I was noticeably different from other toddlers and children from an early age (which my son isn't).

Reassuringly, whether your daughter is gifted or not, I seem to have grown into a relatively normal adult without any noticeable superpowers apart from being able to learn quickly and easily.

Alas I still can't remember if I locked the front door.

Arf at big black penis. I'm sure the same magazine had 'my nipples floated off in the bath' too but I whisked it away quickly!

Dirty Dave indeed!

My son could do all that you have mentioned, plus he used to know every letter of the alphabet, could read out number plates and could recite several favourite books absolutely word perfect at that age, but he peaked too early and turned out to be only moderately bright by the time he got to school.

Lol at all the stories!

Thanks for all the reassurances that she is "normal" - I must admit the thought of having a gifted child was terrifying! I'd like her to be bright enough to enjoy school and find learning easy of course, but I wouldn't wish any sort of "high expectations" on her IYSWIM.

I am a bit lazy with her though - she does love her jigsaws, building blocks and lego. She's currently making "boats" out of her blocks... not sure they look much like boats to me, but that is what she is insisting they are!

Although everyone's telling you she's normal, that doesn't mean she's not unusual. I think it must be very unusual to be that advanced at such a young age, I would guess it must put her in the top 1% (only a guess!!)

Having said that, she may just be an early starter and may be less exceptional by school age simply because other children will have caught up a lot.

I personally don't think you need to make special provision for her - she's clearly learning well from whatever you're doing with her at the moment, so carry on! Just be guided by what she finds interesting and stimulating (and fun) same as with any child.

She sounds great!

I taught my daughter to read, she did it because she wanted to. She thanks me for that as it exposed her to reading from before she can remember. She developed fast reading method by herself, she reads 3x as fast as I d and remembers all the facts (I tested her :) ).

I don't understand why people say - don't teach them to read?????
What is the crime?
She is predicted high grades in all humanities for GSCE's, her grammar and vocabulary at the age of 8 were of a grown up, beyond the scale of testing.
Whats wrong with that?

My son wasn't interested in reading at at the same age or even at 5,6 or 7.
Only this weekend he told me he thanks me that I insisted he read, I bought him lots and lots of books, various magazines and comics as they were coming out - anything he wanted. He said - had I not insisted he would have not been reading as well ad he does now, not very fast, but with great enjoyment.

I don't think there's anything wrong with teaching a young child to read if they want to. But I wouldn't say it was remotely necessary at 2.

I'm not going to send my 2 year old off to read a book on her own, I'm going to read it with her, and imo she'll get much more out of me reading it to her at this age, even if technically she can decode the text.
If I'm reading it, she'll learn about expression, rhythm and dynamics etc etc. We might well talk more about the pictures, about what we think is going to happen, because I can set the pace if I'm reading, and stop when I want to to talk about it.

I can imagine my DD might be the sort to teach herself to read quite early, because she has an older sister who is just learning herself, and she always wants to copy her. And also because she has always been very good at inferring things and making connections, so connecting the words on the page to spoken words and sounds is something she might do quite naturally. Fine, and if she does, I'll follow her lead. If she doesn't, I'm fine with that too, I'm not going to get hung up on whether a two year old fulfills there potential or not .

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