What is gifted?

[RBBMummy]

I feel like the term is overused. My son loves learning and increasing more and more people are calling him gifted particularly today. But I thought gifted meant having a natural ability, he just can't stop learning. Its not gifted if it's just learning is it?

Duchy, I think it's more complicated than that. I exposed my ds to a lot. He was hyperlexic, so really interested in numbers and letters. But I never actively taught him. I didn't read bed time story, dh did sometimes, but not regularly. But he watched telly with subtitles since he was a baby, due to me being a foreigner and having it on all the time. He pulled a book from my shelf and pointed out and said, "Mummy, it's said ", before 2 . He never needed us to teach him how to decode, though I don't think he would have got that if he wasn't exposed to many books or TV. He sat down and looked like he was reading from really early days. Though I did tell him the names of the alphabet not the sounds, when he was really interested in magnetic letters.

Same for times tables. We never taught him what is addition or subtraction, but he had a times table poster bought from library, he new what it meant, even division from it, as an opposite operation.
We never needed to teach him anything, he just get on with it himself, by mostly using websites these days.

Not every child has magnetic letter, times table posters of is sat in front of Ceebeebies. It depends what is classed as teaching themselves, but to me, it is just a question of degree.

"or", not "of"

I think what JustRichmal and I agree on is that immersion in an environment that is loaded with information on letters, numbers, phonics along with some informal shared reading, counting etc. is sufficient instruction for some kids to reach a threshold where both decoding and arithmetic "click". They only need the hints and outlines and they can fill in the rest.

Some parents say "he taught himself" but at the same time acknowledge they had the same magnetic letters etc. that we did. I'd argue the overall environment was the teacher - if that environment had not been present they would not have had the clues to crack the code. Apparently I "taught myself" to read by watching sesame street (not in this country) and I started school already reading well. But it then follows that if we hadn't had a TV and I hadn't had that exposure, I wouldn't have been reading.
Multiple-digit arithmetic and fluent reading were considered beyond most adults a few centuries ago. Maths beyond arithmetic took the world's finest minds centuries to construct. It is a delusion to think that a child can self-teach this or that it is innate. What has changed is the environment. Any child can switch on the TV and have educational experiences that were beyond the reach of royalty a century ago.
I think an easy mistake to make for a newcomer to these threads is that "Those poster's kids self-taught these things - it was innate. They're the gifted ones. My child just learns really quickly but requires some degree of tuition. He can't be gifted". That is a spurious conclusion. Both kids may well be gifted, and possibly the only difference may the adult's interpretation of a similar highly facilitative environment.

@irvine - your son learned via the TV. No child learns in isolation. By all means call him gifted and talented but he learned too, just via the TV instead of people.

I’m dyslexic and mum was too busy to teach me - I was still years ahead of my peers at reading and arthmetic because we always had access newspapers, TV, and radio. I literally learned how to read via the comic section in the Sunday times and TV.

I totally agree, even the ones with instinct need some guidance. When my ds started doing mangahigh, he asked me what 2^2 meant. Or what square root of 64 meant. I taught him that. I never think my ds taught everything himself, but he had environment that enabled him to pursue his interests, with minimum input, but still, needed it to progress.

Cross posted, that was reply to extra.
Yes, I agree, Duchy, he learned to read from TV. I have never said he learned everything from nothing, he learned everything from his environment, us, books, TV, website, toys.

And I am not sure about calling him gifted, I wouldn't, since he has so many issues like can't remember why he went upstairs to get something!

Is it an irregular conjugation?
My child is gifted
Yours has HLP
Hers has needs which cannot be met by standard curricular provision.
His just learns extremely quickly
They are pushy parents, are hothousing their child, and are delusional about his ability
We are British, a bit embarrassed about it, and prefer to deny the whole thing is happening.

Sorry, extra, is that a response to me? I don't get it, unfortunately what you mean.

Irvine - I am glad that when the terms used are discussed further, there is a lot of common ground.

My last post wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. It just seems to me that even on an anonymous gifted and talented board, people are curiously reluctant to use the word gifted, despite the fact that the children they are describing very clearly fit commonly accepted definitions of that term as used within education. Failure to accept that "gifted" is a term that really does apply to their child puts parents in a poor position to find further information or to advocate for appropriate educational provision.
Gifted kids don't have to be all-rounders. Indeed, I know some that might even fit in at the midvale school for the gifted.

I don’t k law exactly how I learned to read but I could read fluently by the time I was taken into care at age 4. We had no books at home and my birth mother had extreme learning difficulties so I very much doubt she taught me
Most kids in the same situation would not be able to read and right but I think some kids who are predisposed to be early readers will find a way to learn no matter what.

Gifted means having an unusual natural ability to learn or understand academici work in at least one area - usually maths, science or literacy. Talented means an unusual ability to apply a learned skill, such as dance, art, music etc. That's what we were told. So maybe his ability to learn and learn is a sign of a gifted brain. It is a genuine issue that gifted childfren end up understimulated and can get bored an dstart hating school or playing up and can find it harder to make friends because their intellect is way ahead of their social skills.

The problem with people arguing that it's beyond what a preschool usually teach is that it will be the same when he goes to primary school. Hopefully they will be open to using their sister school for resources though and not give him a label. In a few years what he learns will be beyond me so having educaters teach him will be important.

It's not the same in school. With school, you should have a right to demand that he is stretched academically. Preschool on the other hand, it's not place for academic teaching in the first place. That's what I am saying.

Should being the optimum word

If you read past threads, there are so many posts about children aren't challenged at school. Some do, some don't. Some are just not capable. But if he loves learning, it won't be so much a problem regards to learning itself, because he can learn all by himself from books, online, tutors, etc. School maybe a dull place though, depend on what you expect from school. My ds's maths ability is beyond teachers at his primary tbh. But he still enjoys going to school, learning and playing with his peers. You may strike lucky and he goes to school where very able will be sufficiently challenged. Or you may have to think about other options, like sending him to academically super selective schools.

I've got a meeting with the school in June so I guess we'll see. It's just not fair on him to be left out

Of course it's not. But at least your ds's preschool is identifying him as able and willing to accommodate, by letting him do the worksheets. Which is a bonus for preschool. They are not the place for academic teaching. So he is one of the lucky one in a sense.