At what age can children be tested for "gifted" programs?

Question

My daughter is 4 1/2 years old and is extremely bright. She just started Pre-k and has never been to daycare or anytype of school before. She has known her ABC's and how to count from 1-50 for a while now. She comes home from school and I have to buy her extra activity books (which she finishes in one sitting) because she wants to keep learning even after school is done. At what age can children be tested for placement in accelerated "gifted" programs. She needs something that will challenge her more.

Answer 1

Most schools will not test children for gifted programs until the end of first grade. My son's gifted program started in 2nd grade and the other gifted kids I know around here had to wait until 3rd grade to start gifted classes. Evidently a lot of schools wait until the end of first or second grade to test because they feel that a lot of kids "level out" with their peers around that point.

If you want, you can look into paying to have her privately tested, but I understand that this is expensive.

There are a lot of great books out there on gifted children that might be helpful to you. I'll list some in the section below, as well as several links on gifted kids.

Answer 2

God poor kids, the minute they enter this world they are started to get tested for every damn thing.Kids need to play untill age 6.Stop preparing them for a rat race and dont steal their childhood away from them.Finland comes 1st in world school that is because they dont start school untill age 7 ! Remember curiosity is most important and these competitions and tests from early age can stress kids out and burn them out at an early age . Ideally gifted programs should start at middle school thats when a kid is emotionally and intellectually mature.Anything before that is just MONEY,MONEY,MONEY ! Eintein's,bill gates,buffet's did not attend gifted programs !

Answer 3

The first answer was accurate. My daughter was tested last school year when she was in first grade. When she was younger we bought her computer games for older children, all of which she advanced at. Disney has a wonderful game that teaches Spanish. Jump Start makes some also. Try to buy her some workbooks for different grade levels, we got ours from Target and Wal Mart.

Answer 4

she can be tested in kinderdarten, I was tested at in preK- but it was a private school only for gifted children. Most public schools wait until at least first grade to test for anything.
I would talk to her teacher personally- testing usually comes by teacher reccomendation..

Some teachers will not single out a child for testing unless encouraged by a parent.

Answer 5

In the womb......they are in the process of perfecting a fetal response mechanism that will determine brain wave reactions to various stimuli....they then can begin "piping" in various types of learning information; such as, foreign language study....it is never too early to begin giving your child a competitive advantage....the third trimester has proven to be the most effective starting point for this process......IQ however, may not be as significant as EQ which is emotional quotients....reasoned responses....they have begun experiments in mother's milk "shock" therapy with infants as young as 3 months in age....it is a form of conditioning a child to various forms of intellectual stimulus by withholding mother's milk until the correct response is uttered via translations of the infants babble...once again, it is never too early to begin providing your child with that much needed competive edge......