Gifted Kids

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of attending a lecture conducted by Dr Deborah Ruf entitled "Bright child, gifted or not?" She was lovely! Basically she went through the levels she outlines in her book titled 5 Levels of Gifted. Some interesting points that I jotted down to share are ...

• where kids show a keen interest when they are young shows potential for future careers
• no busywork
• IQ's can be measured by suburb ie - professional people tend to have higher IQ's and tend to congregate by suburb, think Dr's, lawyers, accountants
• siblings generally have a 15pt range of one another and are also close in range to their parents
• married couples tend to be close in range to each other
• many gifted kids don't do well with phonics, many prefer a whole to parts approach than part to whole
• don't teach gifted kids expose and discuss, they are inquiry driven
• a level 4 child will be ready for algebra by age 10
• a HG child can go from not reading anything to reading at a adult level within 2 years
• L5 kids tend to have a musical aptitude that isn't as present in other levels
• we naturally like to do what we are good at, so look at kids when they are chilling out, what are they doing?
• teachers teach to the top of the bottom 1/3 of the class
• for math, single sex classes are best
• girls do better in single sex high schools
• HG kids can be left handers and highly excitable, also have sensory issues
• in countries where kids are tracked from 9 or 10 the gifted kids tend to have better outcomes, think Asian countries
• L5 kids are a suicide/depression risk in years 11 & 12 (late highschool)
• Book rec about boys "What could he be thinking? How a man's mind really works" - the author doesn't go into giftedness but knows his stuff about boys/men
• gifted kids, boys inparticular should not go to school until age 7

I am currently half way through her book so there will be more to come.