___WEDNESDAY___CH 4___UPDATE___"CHILD GENIUS"___UPDATE___CH 4___

[RTKangaMummy]

WEDNESDAY

CHANNEL 4

AN UPDATE ON THE CHILDREN FROM LAST YEAR

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Documentary
Child Genius Wednesday 16 April
9:00pm - 10:00pm
Channel 4
1/2
The subtitle of this series about megabrained children is "young and gifted", but by the end you half-wonder if it should be "young and cursed". We're catching up with kids we met in the last series - chess champ Peter (11), who wears a "genius in training" T-shirt, Adam (eight), who dissects rats in the kitchen, and Mikhail (five), who as Britain's youngest Mensa member has appeared on Oprah and Countdown. We also meet Georgia, who toppled Mikhail as Britain's youngest Mensa member. At two, she was measured with an IQ of 152 - impressive given that, being a toddler, she fell asleep halfway through the test. Her mother notes that "a lot of the pictures we take of Georgia have this white light around her . . ." That's the thing: inevitably, parents become caught up in making their gifted children into mini-celebrities, especially when TV crews get involved. It makes for fascinating TV; whether it's great for the pressure-cooker kids is another matter.

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In secondary schools, there tends to be a large pool of LSAs, and a couple of learning support teachers. The LSAs are allocated according to the hours on the statements. Probably different in primary, where one statement can make a big difference in LSA hours required.

My best friends a primary school teacher, the TA's are allocated hours for each sn child depending on their needs. She had a class of little sods monkeys a few years ago and was so happy when she was given one full time TA which later had her hours reduced as the children calmed down.

The Star Wars books are very good (so I've been told). Has he not found an author he likes or does he just hate stories?

Jane fwiw, Agony Beetle's bored 8yo is now 13 and in Y8 at a grammar school where she is happy as larry, with lots of friends and doing fine. Teachers love her, which was a new one on me I burst into tears at her Y7 parent-teacher meeting last year because I was so overcome by the fact that all the teachers were talking about the same lovely child that I could see at home, rather than the lippy, resentful little sprite she'd become in Y5 and Y6.

Seeker, fwiw I disagree about schools focussing on Level 5s at my dc's former primary school, Level 4 was what it was all about, because that's what shows up in the league tables. Level 5s were all very nice, but they didn't actively go after them. And they plumped up their value-added statistics by marking down the Y2 SATs my ds who was reading Swallows & Amazons in Y2 and had an encyclopedic knowledge of Greek myths was assessed as only reaching level 2 for reading, along with kids who were just starting to stumble through Horrid Henry.

The whole system is bonkers. The lack of the whole SATS insanity is the biggest single bonus of the private sector imo.

We still have sats madness but it's not that bad!

That's good. Ds was re-reading Anthony Horowitz, something about a detective that he found amusing. I've just given him Stig of the Dump so I'll see how it goes. He's writing a star wars book.I've wrote this somewhere .

Sorry, didn't mean to post and dash, but am being nagged to come to bed so will return to thread tomorrow. I certainly don't think that being a good reader means a child is profoundly gifted, but, in general, from what I've read, there is a strong correlation between reading ability and general intelligence. This correlation apparently increases with age.

Of course just being able to decode brilliantly doesn't mean you are a genius, but I get inordinately irritated by all this 'early reading has nothing to do with intelligence' stuff that's spouted on here. Actually there is a very strong correlation between early reading, particularly self-taught (like avenanap's son), and high intelligence. See Ruf's scales and Hoagie's for more information.

I've set up msn. I can do yahoo aswell.

Thanks singersgirl. Goodnight

I've seen Hoagies, the parts about oversensitivity and social problems really stuck out. I just tend to say he's bright. He gets told he's bright by almost everyone he talks to. I don't like the term gifted, it makes them feel like they are above everyone else. This can't be a good thing for them to believe.

That's horrid. I hope that child develops a huge spot on the end of his nose. I bet your little one was upset. That's not going to make himself feel good.

It doesn't really matter though does it? DS2 is a good reader, which isn't that surprising given that he has 2 Oxbridge educated parents; chances are that he's going to be reasonably academic. It makes school a lot easier for him (except when they ask him to use scissors) but ultimately it doesn't really matter how academic he is. He has the ability to grow up and make his own choices. As will ds3 - no idea where he is ability wise. And that's about as much as we ask for in this house. Health, happiness and the ability to make free choices. I don't really see what difference it makes. DS2 can read well, he's happy at school, that's enough really.

The lovely thing about being able to read well is that a child can explore things themselves. Earlier this evening ds2 was playing on some chess tutorial website - I have no idea about chess (dh does but he was at work) but because he can read fluently he could get on with it himself. It's given him a chance to develop his own interests. If he'd waited for me to read the bird books to him we wouldn't have got very far, but he's been able to do that himself, and combined with cheapo pair of binoculars and birdwatching out of ds1's bedroom window has learned a lot. That's an advantage but I'm not sure anything needs to be done with it, nor does it need to be stretched, it just means that sort of thing can be done earlier.

All the self taught readers I know (and one 5 year old I know is amazing, he decorated some paper with writing to make wrapping paper and my mum though an adult had done it) also have learning difficulties - in their cases they're not necessarily reading with understanding- so I'm not sure about the correlation with intelligence- something to do with pattern recognition perhaps.

sorry the it doesn't really matter was to singersgirl, not to your son being called names KM.

Not quite sure what the point of my last post was. Just that I don't necessarily think that reading early is that important. It makes life easier if you're reading with understanding earlier- but I don't think it ultimately means much.

I think half of ds's knowledge comes from books that he has read. He doesn't have learning disabilities though. The best way to tell if they understand what they are reading is to give them a joke book to read. Ds used to go around the city centre reading them to me. People would stop and listen, I knew he understood because he'd get the joke. Then he moved on to roald dahl as well, he'd talk about the characters and why they had done things. I'm pleased that he can read as well as he can. He gets shakespear but has only read extracts. He finds school a bit of a bore. Maths, english and science are not a struggle for him, he doesn't often learn something new. I don't think this will change until he can choose what he can study though. I hope the new school stretches him in a different way.

There's a boarding school near us and they have chess on the curriculum taught by some clever chess people. Do they have a club at school?

They are jealous.

avenanap- the children I'm talking about who are self taught readers are all moderately/severely autistic and do not have a conversational level of speech - so their disabilities are quite obvious iyswim. Self taught reading is quite common in autism (hyperlexia).

I wasn't suggesting your son might cross over into that ccategory it just strikes me that there must be something about learning to read that is separate from 'intelligence' in that way its usually thought of.

But then that brings us back to what is intelligence I guess. DS1's IQ is unmeasurable/impossible to assess so he's classed as below 55. Yet in some areas he is outstanding (matching images- I suppose it's pattern recognition as well). He can also meet someone once for 10 minutes and 18 months later will complain very noisily if they turn up in a different car. We're about to teach him to read/write (although he can do some already- if very cross he can stab out words on a letterboard) - if he does get a way to communicate through this it will be interesting to see how much he does understand. Lucy Blackman - who is very like him- was classed as severely learning disabled (non-verbal- she still is - and she still requires 24 hour assistance) until she learned to type and thus developed language in her teens. She was found to have an IQ of over 130 and one of the hardest things for one of her sisters was to discover that Lucy was actually brighter than her.

Don't get me wrong, I think being able to read early is great- and I can see how many benefits it brings to ds2, and how his world has opened up because of it, but I'm just not sure that it's indicative of setting some standard that I should be ensuring he strives for iyswim.

Re: repeating. I don't know. I'm going to go and chat to the head. He gets on well with the children of his year, he's working at the top of his year and a bit of the next year (year 6). As it has a secondary school attached they have more flexibility. It's hard. His dad isn't any help at all. I've looked after him without any help since I found out I was pregnant with him. I think he's too far ahead to repeat.

Autistic childre often see patterns and have a fab memory. I do see what you mean though. It's an indicator, that's all. The schools use this as a measure for giftedness though. I don't think that's right. A parent can force a child to read by making them do it over and over again, the same the child on the CG programme (the little one who did the spelling competition, was behind in literacy, parents gave him extra lessons and pushed him, also the one that was good at maths, was sent to the boarding school). There should be some distinction between gifted and pushed.

Your child sounds like he has a fantastic memory. he'll find a way of utilising this and there will be no stopping him. IQ is a load of rubbish. It's a person answering someone elses questions of what intelligence should be, it does not take into account what makes a person unique. We all have a talent, a gift. Some people's are obvious, others take time to shine.

Yurt1, really interesting - but it's not Michael who is on my mind so much as my students. I agree no school can cater for Michael as its main or even subsidiary goal. Nor should it.

But what about all the really brilliant and able kids I see every year who've been frustrated and held back by a system designed to reassure the less able? It seems impossible to stretch ANYONE.

And it IS unjust if true that independent schools do more of this - it DOES mean the value of education partly depends on money, which is really really really unjust.

PS. I have no idea what a statement is.