Raising Gifted Children

We finished up our reading goal just in time for school.

The rascal will be going back to preschool, but he can read on his own. Of course,
there are a few words that he needs help with, but he surprises me each day with the amount
that he retains.

I worked him so hard, completing two lessons, almost daily, including weekends. I don’t want to give him much slack, but I’ll let him read leisurely until he starts school, next week.

Then, we’ll focus on mathematics. Let’s see if I’m up for the challenge.

Tags: preschool readers, reading lessons

My rascal, who I have been working on reading for a few months surprised me today.

After we were done with our reading lessons, I decided that he was capable of reading his Dr. Seuss book on his own. “Cooking with the Cat” was his first book, cover-to-cover.

My little man read 31 pages of unadulterated rhymes and even pushed my hand out of the way when I tried to aid him in keeping his place.

I think he’s doing remarkably well, considering he just turned 4 years old.

Tags: books, children, reading

One of our favorite books. It’s great in English, just as appealing in Spanish.

If you are trying to find some classics in Spanish, for your youngster, this is a must. It has the typical Seuss nuances, but with a little picante, spice! Even if you are not fluent in Spanish, don’t be daunted. It’s an easy read and your child will simply love it.

We have been reciting the same words every day, for months. There are days when he can spell each and every word without batting an eye, but he never spelled his name correctly.

Out of the clear, we were sitting at the table, pointing out letters on a place mat. He just started to rattle off the letters in his name, as if he’d always been spelling his name and spelling were a natural evolution. I just stood there with my mouth open, because I never knew he actually paid so much attention to the little things that I have been trying to teach him.

The fact that he is spelling his name is monumental for a couple of reasons:

1. He is able to spell his name, which shows his ability to retain information,
2. and it helps me understand how he learns, what may work for him.

I’ll introduce him to new words, see how receptive he is.

I do not know what got into the little guy yesterday, but he decided to pick up a book and start reading, on his OWN!

Rather than stop to ask questions, I just fed his interest. He plucked at words, while I gently corrected him. We worked on the same page for about 20 minutes. He seemed content to reinforce what he learned. He took the same book to bed and fell asleep reading it.

I guess it’s true, what the say. Children will do what they want, at their own time.

We have been playing a game that seems to be effective in reinforcing word recognition.

We use flash cards with words, words cut out of circulars, just about anything.

I’ll put five or six words on the table and say, “Can you find the word dog?”

If he finds the word he gets lots of praise; if he doesn’t I quickly correct him and continue hunting out all of the words. Eventually, we go back to the missed words to ensure that he gets them.

Today, he recognized several words that we did not even cover yet: monkey, goat, apple, horse.

The rascal will be three soon. My goal is to introduce him to a new word each day. I’d like to see how much he retains by his birthday.

Today we reviewed some words that we had already covered:

1. cat
2. dog
3. horse
4. pig
5. zebra
6. apple

He was able to pick the words out consistently without any help from me. I gave him a little treat each time he got a group of words correct.