Parents and teachers often face the problem of finding developmentally appropriate materials for young gifted children.

 

 

Gifted children tend to begin reading at a younger age, read at a higher reading level that their age peers, and go through books more rapidly. This creates a number of problems for parents. It becomes a challenge to find materials that are psychologically and developmentally appropriate. Although a 7-year-old child may be reading at a 12- or 14- year-old level, materials which deal with puberty, sex, violence, and other topics will not be understood or enjoyed. The intensity of some books can also disturb young gifted children. The best way of knowing what your child is reading is to read it yourself. However, a gifted child can devour books at an enormous rate, making this task difficult. Just for Kids has developed a Recommended Reading List for young gifted readers. Don’t stop at the first page of this site, which is just the table of contents. If you delve further into the site you will find specific recommendations of titles of books.

 

Some of My Best Friends Are Books: Guiding Gifted Readers from Pre-School to High School is a classic resource, which offers an annotated bibliography of books recommended for gifted students.

 

Math is so much more than just computation. Learning how to think through problems, finding different ways to solve problems, and nurturing general logic and reasoning abilities should be emphasized. The Prufrock Gifted Child Information Blog Enrichment for Gifted Children in Math from May 13, 2005, provides a list of publishers that have excellent materials to support this philosophy. Also, look for mathematical games to play at home. These can either be purchased or you can invent your own games by asking your child to solve problems around the house (i.e., You may ask a very young child, “If we have 10 cookies for dessert, how can we make sure each of the four members of our family gets an equal share?”).

 

This topic may be the easiest to deal with. Young children love to learn about animals, insects, and the world around them. Visit nature preserves, zoos, and streams or lakes. Spend time observing with your child. Don’t just notice the things that are obvious. Look word up at the sky and get your noses down into the grass to see both the big and little worlds that are often overlooked. As you observe objects, smells, and the forces of nature, help your child discover patterns that occur and pose questions together . Posing questions will lead to finding answers through reading books or searching on the Internet. Your child will “lead” you in areas that interest him. The more you expose your child to, the greater the chance she will find an area she wants to pursue.

 

For general information on young gifted learners, teachers especially will want to check out books such as Teaching Young Gifted Children in the Regular Classroom: Identifying, Nurturing, and Challenging Ages 4-9 and Nurturing the Gifts and Talents of Primary Grade Students.