should I stop stimulating my smart kid?

pobody's nerfect

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 1:09 am

sigh.
I'm distraught.

yitzy is ka'h really smart, and I know it's a bracha, but I just don't know what to do with it.
at 23 months, he knows about 2/3 of the alphabet by sight and can recall numerous words that start with each letter. he's constantly pointing out the letters that he knows on store signs, toys, you name it. just today I asked him what letter is for "lollipop" and he was able to figure it out. then he continued the thought and told me me "L, logging truck. L, lawnmower (and L Yael but that's a bit confusing Smile

)." he knows a few of the aleph bais, and a few numbers. and I never taught him any of this in an official lesson- just read books, played with foam letter toys, and involved him in discussions all the time. each time I show him a new letter, he remembers it forever.

my question for now is, should I stop stimulating him in terms of alphabet/abcs/numbers? home schooling will NOT be an option for us. our local school has really great teachers and small class sizes, so I'm sure he'll be stimulated enough when he gets there. but I don't want him to be so far ahead that it will be awkward or overly boring. I feel like it's wrong to hold him back from his potential, but it also may be wrong to aid him in something that may ostracize him from his peers.

in other areas, he makes mental connections, understands emotions and abstract concepts, and has very good fine motor skills. but none of that really worries me. it's just the pre-reading skills that I'm concerned about.

I'm sure there have been discussions on the boards similar to this, but I didn't find any. so.. what are your opinions?

HindaRochel

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 1:25 am

Follow his lead, that's all. Let him tell you the letters, ask him questions...leave it fun and exciting.

Don't worry about him being ahead now. Don't worry about it in school. Leave it as natural. Many of the other kids will catch up rather quickly...and if he does pull ahead, so what?

3 little 1s

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 3:01 am

Depends on the school you are going to send him to, if they are good at stretching the smart kids then its ok. Do u have a friend that teaches there, you can ask?

If they don't do anything extra for smart kids I would hold off on ABC and reading and focus on specifc areas of interest to him and build his knowedge in those areas. Eg. If he likes bugs, teach him the different names for them and how they are different from each other.

If the school won't stretch him, he can end up very bored at circle times and even activities and end up acting out for lack of anything better to do....if he knows it all already.
By focusing on specific areas really extensivly you can build his skills and knowledge without covering his whole pre-school/school curriculum.

That's what I think...

drumjj

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 3:39 am

3 little 1s wrote:

I sort of have to agree with what you are saying, I would teach him broader things that he wouldnt necessarily learn when he goes to pre school, those kids that go to school knowing everything are a bit annoying for the other kids. its not easy always to have a kid who is two years above her classes level. and they will not change even if you dont teach them the abc when they are two. (I never taught my daughter and she is two years above her class in most subjects)

pobody's nerfect

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 7:30 am

so he definitely has other interests. he knows the names of every type of truck out there, from excavators to hay balers (and here I thought they were just all called bulldozers....). one of his books is called "alphabeep" though and it has a truck for each letter... so he knows which letter starts each truck, too.

I teach in the school he will go to. the teachers all try to stimulate different levels of learners, but I know that it's a tough thing to do. kids that are reading before kindergarten (pre-1-a for you NYers) are usually skipped... but he's already on the younger side of the grade and I'm not a huge fan of skipping for social reasons. I know we have a long way til then, but I need to decide now about encouraging pre-reading skills.

in a way, I wish I could homeschool, but for many reasons that will not be an option for us. I guess if I want him to be mainstream, I should just keep the truck obsession going and find other areas for him to explore.... shame, though. he really *could* be reading early if I encouraged him!

yOungM0mmy

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 9:40 am

My DS also knew all his alef beis before he was 2, and by the time he was just 4 he knew how to put together with kamatz, patach, tzeirei and segol. And he learned it all himself - he loved watching the lamdeni dvd, and we had a few alef beis books which he really enjoyed too. But TG he loves school, and was socially happy, so did not mind. Now he is interested in the ABC, and in his school they do not learn it till 6 years old (they want to get the kids fluent in Hebrew first), so we have an ABC floor puzzle, a chart on the wall and foam letters for the bath, but I specifically did not buy him the letterland books, etc. I would not hide them, but would not push them. Let him pick it up if he likes, let him ask questions, but eg when walking down the street and he points out a fire truck, you don't have to ask him what letter it starts with. However, if he asks, definitely answer.
Meanwhile, my son knows almost every animal there is, exactly what they look like, down to if the giraffe has spots on his cheeks or not, what they eat, what noise they make, how they sit and lay down, etc, which was something I was ok to encourage.

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 11:01 am

I don't think it is possible to stop a child who is ready from learning to read, any more than you can force a child who is not ready.

Don't hide the letters and books. Let him explore and learn on his own schedule. If/when any school challenges arise, you'll deal with them - but I don't think you will avoid them by trying to stunt your child's growth.

amother

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 11:43 am

Pobody-
I was just worrying about the same thing!
My 19 month old dd knows the five letters in her name my sight, and a few random other ones. she counts to ten and knows all of the colors and shapes (including rhombus, trapezoid... pentagon and octagon and hexagon confuse her though) she points to the letters when she sees them on peoples clothing, etc. I dont want to stop her because it feels so wrong to stifle her love for learning, but then again, getting ahead of yourself can be difficult in the future.
I always thought the parents of kids like this were pathetically obsessed with making their children perform, but now I see sometimes it can come from the child, and the parent has no idea what his them!

octopus

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 12:03 pm

do the schools near you really teach? or they do a letter a week and then expect the parents to do tons of review? (because they teach whole class instead of teaching reading in small groups). I find in general, the schools in bklyn (being that class size is so large) rely heavily on parents ultimately teaching the kids to read. I would say your child is fine. and probably won't be bored.

cranberry

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 1:03 pm

I was recently wondering the same thing with my son. He's almost three, but for many months he's known all his uppercase letters and some of his aleph beis, counts to 20, etc. But I decided that it wouldn't be fair to him to consciously try to stop him from learning this stuff. He loves it. His favorite book is Aleph to Tav by Yaffa Ganz.

And really, how long is really spent on learning the letters, etc. Most of the day is activities, storytime, learning about parsha, animals, etc. He should be able to handle the 20 minutes or so of learning letters that he already knows.

MaBelleVie

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 4:38 pm

There is no limit to what or how much a person can learn. And someone who enjoys learning should be encouraged to do so. Worse comes to worst, your son can read a book quietly to himself if he gets bored when the teacher is showing everyone else what "A" is. Chances are, though, he will be excited by whatever drama the teacher will put on while she's teaching, and he won't recognize it as a boring moment. Even if he knows "A", he doesn't know the story about Mr A that his teacher is telling the class, and he never stuck airplane stickers on the big A either. So he'll just have less work to do at home in review.

tzipp

Fri, Aug 12 2011, 5:40 pm

HindaRochel wrote:

I don't believe in either holding back or pushing forward (encouraging yes!)

Great advice. Follow his lead, make different things available, if he asks you to do alef bais with him, do it. There is nothing wrong with spending more time of broader topics like science types of topics. Maybe he would love a certain museum etc.

For a child who is gifted, it is as important to meet his needs as it is to meet a special ed. child's needs. That is who he is and he just needs to be encouraged to be proud and enjoy it. When it comes to school, he may need to have some extra work when the others are learning things he knows. Even if you hid the alef bais etc. and didn't teach him, he would still end up in that position because he will learn everything in a fraction of the time the other kids will. And then he will be bored and not validated causing a ripple affect. At least now you know to prepare for this a a possible issue is school. It probably won't be a problem if everyone knows he needs some accomodations in the first place.

Oh, and have lots of nachas!