An outstanding book for parents of bright preschool children (now out of print, but easily found online through second-hand book sites such as alibris.com and abebooks.com) is Siegfried and Therese Engelmann’s “Give Your Child a Superior Mind.”  It is well-written and provides detailed but easily-implemented strategies to foster and enhance the reasoning skills (both verbal and non-verbal) of young children. It is interactive and not workbook or paper/pencil oriented. Also by Engelmann, for parents of school-aged children, is “Your Child Can Succeed!” which has practical suggestions re the elementary grades.

Another good one, full of language games and activities mostly for children aged 4 and up, is Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness’ ” Language Wise:How to Increase Your Child’s Verbal Intelligence.”

Margie Golick, formerly of Montreal Children’s Hospital, wrote an engaging book called “Deal Me In!” which outlines how to use a variety of card games to promote children’s development of important concepts in mathematics.

I would be interested to know of any data supporting the contention that the “vast majority” of students in “gifted programs” were early (pre-school) readers.  This contradicts the bulk of the literature in the field, which finds a low-to-moderate correlation between intellectual giftedness and early reading. Fewer than half of Terman’s gifted children (these were *extremely* high-IQ students) learned to read before first grade. Most other studies find the rate varies between 15 and 30 percent, but also finds that early readers are not especially likely to be gifted—children with cognitive disabilities may also be precocious readers.  On the other hand, early precocity in mathematics *is* highly correlated with intellectual ability. So is early language and verbal reasoning skill. 

In several years’ teaching gifted programs, I did not find many students who had been readers before attending school, and in my current school, where we screen all students with several reading and pre-reading measures, none of the students identified as gifted have been readers on entering school, while others who *were* precocious readers have not proved to be gifted.

Of course early reading can be beneficial to any child, gifted or not, since much growth in vocabulary and general knowledge occurs through reading, and early development of this important skill is beneficial to anyone and paves the way for a lifetime of enjoying reading.

Dear TDSBNW,
Thank you for enriching the discussion on early learning. Those are great leads. With regard to my contention that the vast majority of students in gifted programs were early readers, I have no data to back it up and must therefore withdraw it. It’s very valuable to have sharp-eyed, knowledgeable readers to keep us honest. My contention was based solely on what I saw going on in my children’s schools, anecdotal evidence, and my observation that child-centred learning is great for the kids who already can read, write and do math.