Every parent knows his or her child is special and each one is unique.  Children continually astound us on a daily basis with their memory, ability, learning capacity, and the ability to soak up knowledge. And rightly so!  But when is that ability, memory, capacity, talent, a little too unnervingly advanced?  When does a child fall into the category of gifted or talented? 

There is no universal definition of what gifted and talented is, but the generally accepted one is that a gifted child has ability developed way beyond his year group in one or more academic subjects. When these abilities occur in the areas of music, art, sports and expressive arts, the term talented is used.  A child may be especially gifted on one area, e.g. maths, in two areas, e.g. maths and language, or across the board. Similarly in talented: a child may be a good all-round sportsman or just adept in one area, e.g. football. 

However, recognising a gifted and talented child is not always simple: many factors may hide the ability. A child may have ‘dual-exceptionality’ where he has a gift for learning coupled with a special need such as dyslexia or dyspraxia. This can be extremely frustrating both for the parent and the child especially if the school only uses assessments that involve ‘pencil and paper’ tests. Some high ability children may be able to demonstrate leadership qualities or a capacity for creative thought but never be given an opportunity to demonstrate these.  Talented children may simply never have had an opportunity to try the area in which their talent lies: soccer, rugby, athletics, playing a musical instrument etc. Many gifted and talented children therefore do not shine at school: in fact they may well underachieve so much that they cause great worry to all concerned, their potential masked by factors such as frustration, low self-esteem, lack of challenge, or low teacher/parent expectations. 

 It clearly then, is in everyone’s interest to recognize gifts and talents as soon as possible and certainly to offer as many opportunities to children as possible so that they may discover their own special gifts. So how can you tell? Although there is no universal list of character traits that can be ticked off (and sadly children are not born with a bar code across their foreheads which may be zipped on a reader and printed off!) there are certain characteristics which commonly occur and which can therefore help to identify high ability children. 

The following questionnaire has been compiled (with the help from an Educational Consultant who specialists in teaching gifted Children and former head-teacher, Eve Wilson) to help you in identifying whether your child may be gifted or talented; this is not an exact science and will only give you an indication.  Please note however that there is no need for you then to have the child tested to prove it!: the knowledge will simply give you some focus and understanding.  It is important to remember that your child does not need to have all of these characteristics to be gifted. Please note the term ‘he’ has been used throughout simply for ease – there are just as many female gifted and talented children as male!!! 

My child shows the majority of these characteristics, what should I do now?

Do not:

Panic  There are agencies who can help and who understand some of the challenges you are facing and may face in the future but do remember that many gifted children sail through school with no problems whatsoever!  One of the best of these agencies is the National Association for Gifted Children who run a Helpline especially for parents and teachers. They have a membership scheme and run Family Days and other events for gifted children to mix and work together. See below for details.

Rush to have your child psychologically tested  According to Eve Wilson, there is  very little point in this unless at some point your child appears to be vastly underachieving and the school does not recognise his high ability or when the child appears to have a dual-exceptionality (high ability together with a special need)

Do:

Offer your child as many opportunities as possible to satisfy his insatiable appetite for knowledge

join the library

take him to social events where he can mix with children of different ages including his peers. Encourage his interests. 

above all, talk to him, ask him questions and answer as many of his as you can, although you may find yourself quickly out of your depth! 

Encourage him to take part in physical, musical and artistic abilities—who knows what talent is just waiting to be awoken!

 My child does not show the majority of these characteristics, what should I do now?

All of the above!! Just because you have not identified any special gift or talent yet, there is much your child has yet to learn and it may just be that he has not yet had an opportunity to discover or demonstrate his gift

First great role play idea; “pretend to have a teacher shot by gunman in the play ground”. Yes, can you actually believe it this cunning stunt was carried out by Blackminster Middle School in Evesham earlier this week?  Pupils watched in horror as their Science Teacher, Richard Kent was gunned down in the playground; and then watched as staff pretended to try and resuscitate him. Strangely, some children were traumatised by these actions and posted comments on Facebook; “it was sick” another wrote; “most of us were so scared we were crying.” When questioned, Mr Hollands, Head Teacher stated that Mr Kent often plays “the dame” (These are not the words I would use Mr Holland!) and has admitted it was a step too far!

Second fantastic idea is to pretend Aliens have landed. Yes this is what the lucky children of New Milton had to endure.  With the help of the local police, teachers dug a hole in a nearby field, buried a CD player (which played crash noises), left some so called spaceship remnants out and cornered the area off with incident tape. To add more realism to this “role play” the local police sped through the playground with sirens sounding!! According to one teacher: The children didn’t know what was going on! As they approached the crash site we could see how shocked and perplexed they were. It was a fantastic first reaction.” mm as a parent of a 5 year old, I wouldn’t have described that reaction as remotely fantastic (visions of many sleepless nights comforting a child suffering from nightmares springs to mind).

However, as with life the best is left till last, this must be the ultimate role play of what “not to do with children”. Yes believe it or not but teachers at St Hilary’s Primary School in East Kilbride told some pupils that they were going to be taken away from their parents because they had a lower IQ than their classmates.  The whole “stunt” was devised so that children could empathize with the plight of Jewish children in 1930s Germany. Apparently, not surprisingly, some children were “very distressed” leading to South Lanarkshire Council having to issue a formal apology.

And to think in my day, our class teacher panicked because our Natural World TV programme suddenly showed topless Amazonian women! Why do we need such injection of authenticity in schools? Haven’t children enough to cope with learning to read, write and pass SATs? Next we’ll see an extra subject added to the curriculum – post traumatic stress treatment. And don’t get me started on the Head teacher that thought it was a good idea to slaughter the school pets!

 I received my son’s school report the other day and laughed heartily about it to a friend over the phone as it stated, “H is able to write in different genres and is starting to recognise key features of these.” Conversation when something like this:

Friend “What’s that then?”

Me “What genres?”

Friend “Yes”

Me “Well, you know, styles of writing – like science fiction, romance etc they’re different genres. Doubt whether H can do it; he’s only five. Maybe they mean he can write a letter to Father Christmas and write a shopping list”

Friend “Mm maybe, sounds good though – blinding parents with science. Sounds like they got that straight from the National Curriculum! Our reports aren’t like that they just state whether you child has reached the national average or not.”

Me “That’s probably better as this doesn’t say anything; handy to know where they are in the class but teachers will never tell you that”

Friend “My friend was told her child was 3 months behind”

Me “Rather specific 3 months – how would they know, it’s not as if child develop in a predictable manner – you know like a smooth curve “ Me, thinking of the little red book which marked height and weight (H jumped between centiles then).

Friend “Don’t know”

Me “Eve always states that children develop in jerks and even take steps backwards; I spent ages and ages with Henry on his reading as I thought he was getting behind, then all of a sudden he jumped two book bands – do you think kids have Eureka moments?”

Friend “Maybe – I had a friend that can remember work suddenly clicking when she was at school”

The conversation made me think, all of us can remember a defining point in our education when school work suddenly became easier; often this is attributed to a teacher, project or interest in a subject but can it also be down to chemical changes in our brain?  Could it be the point at which our synapses connect? After all our brains are like fickle friends, unpredictable, uncharted and can have huge impacts on our lives.

More to follow on synapses and critical periods for learning language…..

weave the raffia mats, design christmas decorations and bake cookies

the hard part is getting my son interested in doing it.

This how the standard “homework conversation goes”…..

“H, why don’t we do our homework now” (me in a sing songing enthusiastic voice)

“Its Borrrrrrrrrrrring” (H in an annoyed bored voice)

“If you do it now then we don’t have to do it at the weekend” (now searching for a bribe)

“No mum, its boring” (H glued to the Telly)

“Oh look, you have to design a street sign – look you can use your new coloured pens” (hoping the bribe of  using the new pens will work)

“NO MUM, I’m watching this” (Not moving from the Sofa)

“Well, you could paint the sign” (H loves painting, I hate painting as paint gets everywhere… surely this will do the trick!)

“NO, NO, NO MUM, I don’t want to, it’s boring.” (followed by a wailing scream and subsequent roll on the floor).

“Okay, you can do it with Daddy” (Passing the buck to daddy)

Apparently, there is an easier way…. stay tuned for the next update.

Bright sunlight is pouring in through the window as I type this; symbolic of the new year I hope. 

My enthusiasm for this year knows no bounds as believe it or not lots of exciting things are in the pipeline already and we are barely out of January. Firstly, we have added even more to our resource kit with more sports equipment; completed a 90 page  games and activities manual; sold another 2 franchises in the Black Country and have a wonderful new catchy logo (all down to Louise’s ingenious creative brain – thanks Louise). We are however getting slightly worried, as we believe the resource kits will now have to be delivered by transit van rather than Royal Mail! Although we are looking at putting all the lesson plans (I believe we have around 72 of those), manual, additional activities booklets, worksheets, marketing leaflets, flyers, posters, welcome letters, childminder record sheets, colouring sheets and worksheets all on to a CD-ROM.

Secondly, the first batch of Bright Starter offsprings are flying ahead with their reading. This knowledge spurs me on to spread the word on Bright Starters as we know it makes a difference not just to a child’s confidence but a real step forward in terms of their reading ability; and as our founder keeps saying “reading is the key to all learning”. 

Finally, we have introduced an Art Gallery section to our website to show off all that we produce in the classes. Thank you Louise for your picture – I hope Sophie’s pleased. This brings me to tell you about the new and exciting things we are adding to the website: colouring competitions, craft competitions and a parents’ newsletter.  For your free copy of our newsletter, which contains details of activities you can do at home with your child, games and colouring activities, please register your details our website www.Brightstarters.co.uk.   With this month’s newsletter we are giving away a free booklet on “How to help your child with Reading and Writing”.

Wishing you well for 2010

The Brightstarter Crew.

My child

1. Is good at matching words and stickers
2. Remembers words in favourite books
3. Likes to look at someone when they speak
4. Concentrates better when it’s quiet
5. Likes looking at pictures
6. Gets muddled when telling a story or a joke
7. Has good hand eye co-ordination – can thread beads well, likes lego
8. Loves bright colourful books
9. Remembers people’s faces
10. Can pick out, words, symbols and shapes when shopping or watching TV
11. Likes drawing and colouring
12. Enjoys watching TV
13. Enjoys doing, and is good, at Jigsaws

Number of ticks for Visual

1. Remembers things better if he hears them
2. Likes talking out loud when doing an activity
3. Plays well in a group
4. Love hearing stories even without a book to look at
5. Listens and remembers even when appearing to be concentrating on something else
6. Likes telling jokes
7. Remembers people’s voices
8. Is good at mimicking others
9. Likes songs and rhymes and remembers these easily
10. Can hear rhyming words e.g. in nursery rhymes
11. Remembers the exact words from TV adverts
12. Makes up silly rhymes and obviously enjoys using them
13. Learns to talk early and develops a wide vocabulary

Number of ticks for Auditory

1. Learnt to crawl, sit and move early
2. Is well co-ordinated
3. Likes to find out how things work
4. Doesn’t like sitting still for long
5. Likes toys that pull apart
6. As a baby craved physical movement and loved being rocked and held
7. Likes to use construction toys
8. Enjoys physical activity
9. Likes to talk out loud when working on an activity
10. Uses his hands to describe things
11. Likes to act out roles
12. Enjoys ‘rough and tumble’
13. Seems to bore quickly

Number of tick for Kinaesthetic

You will probably find that your child will have ticks in all 3 types but where one is predominant that will be indicative of your child’s preferred learning style. Why not see the article on Learning Styles to see how to help your child.

Eve Wilson, a Qualified OfSTED Inspector and former Head-teacher, is the founder of Bright Starters classes for early years language development. Eve believes that knowing which learning style suits your child and the techniques that work best for that style, can aid your child’s education immensely.

Eve states that “adapting activities to a child’s learning style, enables that child to grasp the learning activity much, much quicker because you are presenting the information in a format that child is predisposed to understand.”

Eve believes schools are now recognising learning styles more and more, especially in the light of the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). One of the learning and development themes of the EYFS is ‘Enabling Environments’ whereby practitioners have to “observe the children in order to understand and consider their current interests, development and learning”  (EYFS 2007).  In the past, according to Eve, “schools tended to be biased towards visual learners teaching many lessons by the ‘chalk and talk’ approach with the children expected to listen whilst the teacher explained/handed out facts”

You might well ask when did this all come about? Well, the concept of learning styles is not new; in fact the best known and most often-cited learning model is the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (VAK) model developed by early years specialists and psychologists such as Montessori way back in the 1920s.

The VAK model categorises learners according to their senses, after all it is our senses that help us to receive, process and impart information. Dr Lauren Bradley, believes that, although most of us use all our senses, when it comes to learning we have an innate preference[1]. Using this model, visual learners are said to learn by seeing and observing things, preferring information given in charts, diagrams, pictures and demonstrations. Auditory learners learn through hearing, preferring discussion, songs, jokes and rhymes. Kinaesthetic learners learn by touching and doing, preferring activities which involve physical experiences –feeling, holding and ‘hands on’ techniques.

NLP (Neuro – Linguistic Programming) experts [2]even go as far as stating that you can tell a person’s learning style preference by their speech and eye movement.

Visual Learners tend to say thing such as: “I see what you mean”, “I get the picture” and “what’s your view? Visual learners tend to look upwards when thinking or answering a question.

Auditory Learners tend to say thing such as: “I hear what you’re say”, “Sounds ok to me” and “that rings a bell”. Auditory learners tend to look straight ahead when thinking or answering a question.

Kinaesthetic Learners tend to say thing such as: “I catch your drift”, “I get what you’re saying”, “It feels alright”.   Kinaesthetic learners tend to look down when thinking or answering a question.

Complete the questionnaire and see if you can identify your child’s learning style – see categories

How can I use this information to help my child?

We parents want our children to learn basic concepts such as letter sounds, shapes, days of the week, colours and basic numbers before going to school. All too often we hear parents say that, “my child just won’t sit down and concentrate” or that ‘they show no interest in reading’; often this may be because the method they are using conflicts with the child’s preferred learning style.  In fact most young children can only concentrate for a short period of time and need frequent breaks in order to learn, and this is especially true of kinaesthetic learners.

Eve has outlined activities that cover all three learning styles for you to try at home.

If your child is a visual learner use the following:

Letter shapes and sounds

• Colouring pictures
• Jigsaws both manual and onscreen
• Word matching puzzles
• Matching Stickers with words and letters
• Word Bingo
• Colourful books

Colours

• Point out in stories
• Talk about the colour of clothes as the child gets dressed
• Point out colours in the environment

Numbers

• Use the numbers in the environment, in the shops etc
• Use jigsaws of numerals
• Count and colour shapes
• Colour in numerals

If your child is an auditory learner try:

Letter shapes and sounds

• Learn letter sounds through music and rhyme
• Talk the letter shapes out –  e..g for the letter ‘C’ tell your child to pretend to drive a car round the bend etc
• Talk about stories that you have read to your child and ask them questions
• Describe the shape out loud as you are helping the child to write it – ‘Start at the top, go down to the bottom, up to the middle and round’. Encourage the child to say it with you.
• Use a song to teach the alphabet

Colours

• Say the colour out loud and associate with an object the child can hold e.g., ‘Yellow for a banana’
• Make up a silly rhyme for each colour ‘ Red in my  head’ and tap your head. Encourage the child to make these up with you – the sillier the better!
• Use colours in songs and rhymes

Numbers

• Use Nursery Rhymes – ‘1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive’.Ten in the Bed’ Six Little Ducks’ etc. Show the numbers as you sing them and use the child’s fingers and toes to count!
• Make a line of numbers using a washing line and pegs. Say the number as the child puts them on the line
• Point out numbers in the environment – in shops etc and always say them as you point

If your child is a Kinaesthetic learner try:

Letter shapes and sounds

• Fill a tray with back paper and add salt. Shake the tray so the salt is evenly spread over the black paper and get the child to draw out the letter in the salt.  This is a very effective way of teaching letter shapes – especially as the letter is black on a white background similar to reading books.
• Make letter shapes with playdough
• Make a set of letter shapes using sandpaper so that the child can actually feel the shape.
• Print out balloon words and get the child to colour in the words
• Buy and use Letter tracks to teach letter shapes (Available from Learn4life.co.uk)
• Get the child to draw the letter in the air and then on your  back – draw it on his back.
• Walk a finger puppet around the letter shape
• Play word and letter bingo

Colours

• Associate the colour with a physical object Orange for the colour orange.
• Always use actual objects for the child to pick up and hold
• Use a different texture for each colour – e.g. make a set of cards using sandpaper for one, felt for another, etc

Numbers

• Use physical blocks or sweets for counting
• Make the numbers in salt trays and out of play dough
• Get the child to help set the table using one-to-one correspondence (1 for me, 1 for you etc)

In conclusion, your child is individual and unique! Time spent with him will reap huge rewards both now and in the future so don’t worry if this all seems confusing at first – the more you do, the more it will make sense. Above all bear in mind the following:

• The most effective learners use information from all three different inputs; therefore encourage your child to try every activity
• Children will go through phases of different learning styles – babies will progress from using their mouths to hearing and touch.
• Children are learning throughout the day not just at specific learning times so although gauging their preferred style may be helpful, use this as a guide not a rule.

And finally, the most important of all – children learn best when they are having fun and are successful. Only expect the play to last a short while and NEVER continue when the child loses interest or becomes tired. Above all, do remember that genuine praise is the best motivator of all so look for every opportunity to gives it sincerely.

Enjoy learning with your child and have fun!

[2] O’Connor and Seymour “Introducing NLP Neuro-Linguistic Programming” Thorsons; 2Rev Ed edition (Jan 2003). NLP is a form of physiotherapy that examines how the way we think (neuro), the language we use (linguistic) and our learnt behaviour (programming)  produces the outcomes and results we experience in life.  Learning styles in NLP are referred to as ‘Representational systems’

Eve Wilson, a Qualified Ofsted Inspector and former Headteacher, is the founder of Bright  Starters classes for early years language development . Eve believes that activity classes are a vital and essential part of a child’s early development and that they do have a profound affect on the child’s learning with consequent long-term effects.  Eve maintains that “Parents are the best asset this country has in terms of education and as a nation we should be promoting more activities that parents can do with their child. We should be supporting preschool activities through which children learn vital language, communication and social skills accompanied by their parent. In this way the parent gains enormous confidence in helping the child, together with insight into how their child learns and  knowledge of activities they can follow-up at home. The child learns with the support of the key person in their young lives.’

So what are these essential skills and how do they benefit my child with reading and writing?

Before a child learns to read they need to grasp what teachers call pre-reading skills. These are as follows:

Matching - Reading firstly involves identifying and matching word sounds with word shapes, then letter sounds (phonemes) with letter shapes (graphemes). Both these skills are vital for reading: the first in order to start to read, the second for decoding words, i.e. phonetics. A knowledge of phonetics is essential for developing and advancing a child’s reading ability as it provides one way of attacking unknown words.  To be able to use this method,  children have to develop good aural abilities (listening skills) and attention skills – music classes are excellent at developing both  skills as children learn informally to participate in a group and to learn words of songs.

Rhyming – Research shows that children who understand rhyming words have a head start in learning to read and, even more, to spell. Why? -  rhyming is a particularly useful skill as it is the basis of another decoding technique used in schools, known as onset and rime (yes it really is spelt that way in this context!).  These are terms used to describe the units of a word. For instance the word ‘cake’ would be made up of “c” and “ake” – by using rhyme the child could then read and spell other words with the same ending such as ‘rake’, ‘bake’, ‘make’ etc.  Onset and rime is a very effective way of helping a child build up a large sight vocabulary.  One reason why nursery rhymes have endured the test of time is because they are a useful way of teaching this skill informally, as well as being great fun! Nursery rhymes are also excellent at teaching basic concepts such as colours, days of the week, letter sounds and basic numbers so next time you are sitting in a circle with other mums waving your hands in the air singing about stars twinkling remember the learning advantages your child is gaining from this activity!!

Visual Memory – In order to read well, children need to recognise both letter and word shapes. Games which improve visual memory are vitally important as we all need to develop a sight vocabulary in order to become a good reader: this is partly because this increases fluency but also because some words are phonetically irregular.  Unfortunately for us, English is not a phonic language and many of our common everyday words therefore cannot be ‘sounded out’. Activities such as “I Spy”, drawing around letters, drawing and making objects from memory are excellent at developing visual memory.

Print Direction. – It may sound logical to us but a child has to learn that English books are read from left to right, top to bottom – this is known as the basic mechanics of books. Story-telling, using Big Books that the children can read with the teacher is vital in developing this skill. Many activity classes have a story time included in their sessions.

Motor Skills – A motor skill is a skill required for a human to move skeletal muscles in a controlled way.  Gross motor skills refer to movement of the larger muscles, e.g. arm, leg,  and fine motor skills to smaller muscles, e.g. hand, finger. Activity classes such as gymnastics and football help develop gross motor skills; creativity classes, where children use crayons, pens, scissors etc help to develop fine motor skills. Both gross and fine motor skills are important for writing.

Concepts of Print – Children have to learn first that print has meaning and then be able to decipher which squiggles mean something and which don’t! Children also have to learn that print comes in all forms not just in books, but on signs, shopping lists, on food packets and posters.  By encouraging your child to read the signs when you are out and about will be a great help in teaching him to read.

Language Skills – We hear all the time about the importance of language and communication skills: the government has recently pledged £40 million to Every Child a Talker early years programme as well as £52 million to implementing the recommendations of MP John Bercow in his recent review of services for children with speech, language and communication needs. Language and communication skills are vital throughout life as our complex society relies on them. We need good communication skills not just in order to read fluently, effectively and efficiently, but at the global level to prevent world wars!  However, for the young child, being able to speak clearly and confidently, to ask and answer questions, to express his needs, and to have a basic knowledge of words makes the difference between making good progress at school and finding schooling difficult.

As Margaret Sarl, a former early years teacher, says “You can really notice the difference with those children who have been to classes and those that haven’t; children that have already know the basics, consequently pick up reading quicker and are more confident at expressing themselves at school”. Margaret adds; “Activity classes help a child develop social skills such as listening, attentiveness, group-participation, turn-taking (vital to good conversation), confidence, observation, imagination, winning and losing, empathy, interaction and sharing”.

Therefore when we consider the essential life skills and learning development provided by many of the pre-school activity classes available it is clear that they represent more than an opportunity to entertain kids for an hour but contribute to their life long learning. Parents are the perfect teachers for their own  young child; given confidence, skills and knowledge, all of which can be gained through activity classes, both parent and child will learn together. Not only that, the fun they share will help them form an even stronger emotional link which will develop as the child grows, thus making communication easier when the child hits those difficult teenage years and beyond. This can only benefit children, parents, the family unit and society itself.

All the above skills are taught in our Brightstarter classes, to find your nearest class please see our website: www.Brightstarters.co.uk

Welcome to the Brightstarter blog

Brightstarters is a new activity class with a difference – we focus on developing the skills needed for early reading and writing. The Bright starter programme was designed by early years specialists and covers the main aspects of the early years foundation stage and the national curriculum. The techniques and methods used in the classes are tried and tested traditional teaching methods that our specialists have been using with children for over 40 years, in fact they represent the author’s lifetimes work in education.

We believe that through fun filled activities, music, drama, dance, story-telling and games children can develop all the pre-reading skills and become excellent readers.  Our class motto is education is a journey not a race.

To find your nearest class see our website

www.Brightstarters.co.uk