By the time Joey turned one, he could recognize many, many words in English and French. I think they call that the 'whole word method'.
At that point, we started working with the fridge letters for letter recognition and pronunciation. After a short while (2 months or so??), it became evident that Joey knew all his letters, upper and lower case.
See this video we took at the time:
By the time I got 'Hooked On Phonics', it was obvious that Joey had already mastered phonics on his own because not only could he recognize any words, both in English and French, but he could even start spelling words with the fridge letters!! At that point, I felt like we could really start cruising... so instead of using fridge letters, I got a 'Franklin KID-1240 Children's Talking Dictionary and Spell Corrector' and I printed out a 3-letter word scrabble list. For each word, we asked Joey if he knew the meaning and if he could guess how to spell it. When he was done with the 3 letter list, we moved on to the 4 letter list, etc. Just 5 words a day. Of course we kept reading Joey all kinds of books as well, and I started getting the wonderful Marthstart series, which explains a math concept in the form of a well illustrated, engaging story. Also, since we are Jewish, we started receiving the incredible free books from the PJ library, and we also bought other books related to Jewish holidays, as well as simple wood puzzles, including an Aleph Bet Puzzle. Just teaching him to recognize 4 or 5 letters a week, it only took a few weeks for Joey to have memorized the Hebrew alphabet and recognize all the letters..!
Around that time, Joey also started learning to write: one letter a week (upper case, lower case) and one number a week. We used letter and number guides for this purpose to get him going, and we included cursive letters too, although we did not keep up with the latter. As a complement to that, we got him a doodle board, which is still uses to this day, and we also have a travel one (whoever invented this should get the Nobel Prize...!).
Around that time, Joey also started learning to write: one letter a week (upper case, lower case) and one number a week. We used letter and number guides for this purpose to get him going, and we included cursive letters too, although we did not keep up with the latter. As a complement to that, we got him a doodle board, which is still uses to this day, and we also have a travel one (whoever invented this should get the Nobel Prize...!).
But let's come back to math... Apart from 'Little Math' from Brillkids, which basically uses the Doman method, I started wondering where we could go from there. So we started getting a lot of puzzles (12 and 24 piece Melissa and Doug wood puzzles), but for math, a lot of these wonderful eeboo puzzles, which teach to count (one to one correspondence) and even the concepts of adding and subtracting (for this purpose, we also got 'Addition Match-Ups' from Lakeshore Leaning). Eeboo also has puzzles that also reinforce spelling skills. Joey has always been very precocious with his puzzles skills, so this was perfect for us. Otherwise, we got a lot of toys that reinforced his knowledge of shapes, and by 18 months, he knew all his shapes (supplemented with the video 'Meet the Shapes
') and colors ('Meet the Colors'), which he could all identify correctly in real life situations. For colors, we also used sorting games, such as 'Know Your Colors Sorting Baskets' (Lakeshore Learning). A puzzle is also what helped him identify body parts (and not just the basic ones). We also got him one of these talking maps, which was great to get him started on geography. Joey just sucked up all this information. By 19 months, he could easily count to 100 in English and French, and he understood the concepts of addition and subtraction. To reinforce his math skills, we started using the 'Numbers & Counting Folder Game Library - Pre-K-Gr. 1'; ' Patterning & Sorting Folder Game Library - Pre-K-Gr. 1'; 'Beginning Operations Folder Game Library - Pre-K-Gr. 1' (Lakeshore learning). The great thing about these folders is that they are very colorful and are very much manipulative oriented, so perfect for very young children. Another wonderful manipulative, which we still use are the Learning Palettes for Math. By that time, we were completely done with Little Math (Brillkids), so we also got him started on Syngapore Math (Kindergarten Program), which is now used by many private schools. What I like about this method (apart from the fact that it is very successful), is the fact that it has more depth and less breadth, so it introduces a concept with manipulatives (for young children), then through pictorial representations, then text. And it requires a lot of practice on one topic before moving on the next, something I happen to believe in. I learned some Russian in college (I forgot it), but a Russian saying I still remember because it rang so true is that 'repetition is the mother of learning'. Of course for gifted kids, you have to be careful not to go over things too many times, lest them become bored and resist your efforts. Sometimes, as I found out, it means moving on a bit before the topic is 100% mastered, even if it means coming back to it.
To develop Joey's patterning and deduction skills, we used the 'Building Thinking Skills' books from The Critical Thinking Co, starting with the KD book. We still use this series to this day, at the current grade level Joey is working on for other things.
To develop Joey's patterning and deduction skills, we used the 'Building Thinking Skills' books from The Critical Thinking Co, starting with the KD book. We still use this series to this day, at the current grade level Joey is working on for other things.
Around that time, we also got him a little toddler piano, and started teaching him a tune or two. Nothing too intense at that point.
One pattern that started to emerge in our educational strategy (if you can call it that - it was definitely on the subconscious level at that point) is that we never taught Joey anything just 'one' way, or with 'one' set of material. We never just relied on one video or one toy. Another thing that started to emerge was Joey's unbelievable, out of this world, memory.
Up until 20 months or so, one area Joey was not advanced in was talking. The fact that he is a boy and bilingual certainly had something to do with it, but by 18 months, he only had a few words. The pediatrician said not to worry, but I was worried anyway, and started reading up on this. I read the Einstein Syndrome, a book about very bright children who are late speaking (like Einstein was).. this made me feel better, but we still got the Baby Babble videos... we even made one appointment with a speech pathologist, just in case... and honestly, this was a bad experience for Joey and me: imagine a complete stranger talking in high speech tone in your face and expecting you to respond. My bottom line opinion (from this experience and what I read) is that speech pathologists should not be trying to diagnose speech delays.. once a developmental pediatrician does, this is another story, but until then... Anyway, I don't know if it was the videos or the timing, but by 20 months, Joey vocabulary started building up dramatically and now I just wish he were quiet once in a while and stop asking so many questions, ha, ha!
At 18 months, we started putting Joey in pre-school a couple of mornings a week, and this was my first experience as a mother of a gifted child in school. Prior to enrollment, I made an appointment with the school director to appraise her of Joey's 'special needs' in terms of stimulation and access to advanced material. Not only she didn't believe me, but I could tell she was figuratively rolling her eyes..: 'imagine that, another Jewish mother who thinks her son is a genius..!'. Right... This was really difficult because from the get-go, Joey did not really enjoy the typical pre-school classroom, which is loud and completely over-stimulating. I actually have videos of him reading a book in a corner while the other children were jumping up and down at the tune of a preschool song. No doubt Joey stood out, but not necessarily in a good way. I also remember one instance of a classroom party, which was a complete zoo. Joey was reading words on the walls (including the 'exit' sign, LOL), but who could hear him? By the second year, things started to improve, and to the great credit of Joey's teachers, they started seeing his abilities and giving him books to read (but this is for the next post), etc.
That year, Joey did another successful round of Infant Swimming Resource.
By 22 months, Joey could correctly identify any number when presented with two choices (up to 1 million but we haven’t tried to show him anything above).
By the time Joey was 23 months old, he read his first book aloud. His diction was not that understandable to the casual observer, but he read it! Out loud. A big change from just identifying words by pointing to them. It was 'Jen the Hen'.
One pattern that started to emerge in our educational strategy (if you can call it that - it was definitely on the subconscious level at that point) is that we never taught Joey anything just 'one' way, or with 'one' set of material. We never just relied on one video or one toy. Another thing that started to emerge was Joey's unbelievable, out of this world, memory.
Up until 20 months or so, one area Joey was not advanced in was talking. The fact that he is a boy and bilingual certainly had something to do with it, but by 18 months, he only had a few words. The pediatrician said not to worry, but I was worried anyway, and started reading up on this. I read the Einstein Syndrome, a book about very bright children who are late speaking (like Einstein was).. this made me feel better, but we still got the Baby Babble videos... we even made one appointment with a speech pathologist, just in case... and honestly, this was a bad experience for Joey and me: imagine a complete stranger talking in high speech tone in your face and expecting you to respond. My bottom line opinion (from this experience and what I read) is that speech pathologists should not be trying to diagnose speech delays.. once a developmental pediatrician does, this is another story, but until then... Anyway, I don't know if it was the videos or the timing, but by 20 months, Joey vocabulary started building up dramatically and now I just wish he were quiet once in a while and stop asking so many questions, ha, ha!
At 18 months, we started putting Joey in pre-school a couple of mornings a week, and this was my first experience as a mother of a gifted child in school. Prior to enrollment, I made an appointment with the school director to appraise her of Joey's 'special needs' in terms of stimulation and access to advanced material. Not only she didn't believe me, but I could tell she was figuratively rolling her eyes..: 'imagine that, another Jewish mother who thinks her son is a genius..!'. Right... This was really difficult because from the get-go, Joey did not really enjoy the typical pre-school classroom, which is loud and completely over-stimulating. I actually have videos of him reading a book in a corner while the other children were jumping up and down at the tune of a preschool song. No doubt Joey stood out, but not necessarily in a good way. I also remember one instance of a classroom party, which was a complete zoo. Joey was reading words on the walls (including the 'exit' sign, LOL), but who could hear him? By the second year, things started to improve, and to the great credit of Joey's teachers, they started seeing his abilities and giving him books to read (but this is for the next post), etc.
That year, Joey did another successful round of Infant Swimming Resource.
By 22 months, Joey could correctly identify any number when presented with two choices (up to 1 million but we haven’t tried to show him anything above).
By the time Joey was 23 months old, he read his first book aloud. His diction was not that understandable to the casual observer, but he read it! Out loud. A big change from just identifying words by pointing to them. It was 'Jen the Hen'.
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