🚀 go-pugleaf

"Chookie" <ehrebeniuk@foulspambegone.com.au> wrote in message
news:ehrebeniuk-6C2BA1.23020124042005@news-vip.optusnet.com.au...
| DS is 4y 2mo now.  We've known for a long time that he's bright, that he's
| good with language, and so on.  But it is still a bit confronting to see
your
| preschooler *reading*, when you know that you and your DH were not doing
it at
| that age!  Not every word he sees, no; but enough for us to know that he's
| reading words, not reciting from memory or working it out from context.
|
| Today at the supermarket, we decided to indulge, and picked out packets of
| chips for ourselves.  Thought DS had grabbed some Cheezels.  At the car,
he
| read "Holes".  Sure enough, they were Cheezel Holes, but DS is not
familiar
| with the related concept of Donut Holes, the picture wasn't really
| enlightening, and we can't recall reading any stories with "holes" in them
| recently.
|
| Two things surprise us.  The first is the size of his reading vocabulary.
| Back when I did Language Acquisition in Psychology, it was thought that
most
| of us have about a 50-word whole-word vocabulary.  DS must be getting
close to
| that now.  He can't, AFAICT, break a word into sounds yet -- he's reading
it
| as a unit, though he's aware of the word as a fixed letter sequence.  The
| second is for how long he must be remembering some words, like "holes" in
the
| anecdote above.
|
| DS also likes to put pen to paper and produce marks like running-writing.
We
| mere parents can't read it, of course, because DS is writing (he tells us)
in
| *German*.  He reads it back to us in gibberish.  We aren't
German-speakers,
| though DS has probably heard me mention this as one of Grandpa's
languages.
| AFAIK there are no German-speakers at daycare.
|
| I don't know that we need to change what we do with him, though
suggestions
| are welcome, but I'm just a bit staggered...


Um is your name Melissa and we've stepped back in time by ooohhhh 9 years??
This is EXACTLY how we clicked to J being different. We had this hugeeee
Bridgestone sticker thing in the garage and we always thought he was just
recognising the "symbol/look" (kwim??)

Anyway I went shopping with him one day and he was reading stuff as we went
along but I still thought it was recognition rather than reading...so we
wrote it down...lots of words, written by different people, in different
styles. He could read them all.

So we gave him magazines and papers with a few words and he could read. It
blew our minds. Even now he still blows ours minds with the stuff he does.
Today he was in his room doing his OWN math sums...trying to find a number
that would end up whole? I think it was if it was dived by 7!! He spent
hours on it...I think he got the answer he was after but fell asleep!

I would suggest you get in touch with your local MCH centre and take it from
there. She should be able to give you links to the GIFTED childrens centres
(or goggle them) but defaintely get hold of them.

Congrats...you have a very bright little person!

melissa

|
| -- 
| Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
| (Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)
|
| "In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is
| nothing worth being eager or vigorous about."
| Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893.