Gifted Children and Early Reading
Monday September 25, 2006
Early reading often appears on lists of characteristics of gifted children. Certainly those children who read early are gifted, particularly those who are self-taught readers. However, not all gifted children read early. In fact, only about half of all gifted children read before the age of four. Even fewer gifted children read before the age of three. Those gifted kids who weren't reading before they started school usually learn to read quickly and easily.
Poll: Was your child an early reader?
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Poll: Was your child an early reader?
- Yes, before age five
- Yes, before age four
- Yes, before age three
- No, but learned quickly in school
- No, and didn't seem to learn any faster than other kids
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Comments
I clicked “No, and didn’t seem to learn any faster than other kids” But my son, now a junior in HS has always been very bright, is 1st in his class and they are saying his PSAT scores may the highest ever at his school. I’m not convinced of a correlation b/w early reading and smarts.
Not all gifted children are early readers, nor are children who learn to read when other children do necessarily not gifted. In other words, it is perfectly possible for a child who did not learn to read either early or quickly to be a gifted child. There is definitely a correlation between early and quick learning to read and giftedness. It’s just not a 100% correlation. Few things are.
I conducted a study of IQ compaired to reading and math performance in second to third grade and found a much stronger coorilation between IQ and math .80 than reading .45
I find the obsession with early reading as a tool to identify giftedness within popular society misguided and unfounded.
I’m rather puzzled by your comment. I don’t think I’ve seen any evidence for an obsession on early reading and I’ve never heard of early reading being used as a tool to identify giftedness.
However, a good number of gifted kids were in fact early readers. And kids who are spontaneous early readers, that is self-taught early readers, are almost always gifted. That’s why some say there is a correlation between the two.
None of that means that early reading should be used as some kind of identification tool. That is especially true when many kids are taught to read early and that is not the same as spontaneous early reading. I’d be interested in knowing if your study made distinction between self-taught readers and other early readers.
Early readers may or may not turn out as gifted individuals. But when you are reader by 4or 5 and enter Kindergarten in a public institution you are then tracked in some way by placing in “gifted” type of classes. The same is also done for kids who are not emergent readers exiting kindergarten; provide with “extra” help. So early readers are continuously provided with “just right” challenges in a public school setting to a “gifted” pool and I feel they are get an advantage which can lead to gifted labeling. It is not clear if that child leaving the public school setting into the real world will achieve what society thinks a gifted individual should accoplish.