Special Needs Homeschooling is not only learning disabilities and medical problems. Special Needs Homeschooling can be a child that is gifted and learning at a phenomenal rate!
Hold on to your seats because things are going to move fast! Gifted kids have an ability to zoom through a year’s material before Christmas. You will go broke trying to keep up with their intense learning material needs. What I have found to be highly successful is to be a multi grade material. There are also online programs that do not charge you per subject but rather per month. Those can save you a load and money.
The joys and pains of hyper-focus. My daughter found the translation app on my phone. She spent the next three hours using it to learn new words in several different languages. Then she moved on the SAT words. This kind of single-minded focus on a subject, book, new app, etc. is a hallmark of gifted children. It allows them to get a tremendous amount done or learned in a short period of time, but they need you to allow them the space and time needed to hyper-focus.
These children are not in the box learners! What looks scattered and messy maybe perfectly logical from your child’s perspective. Take the time to find out what they are doing and why. Here are the books I found around the house with bookmarks in all of them from my daughter. I was upset at first thinking she was reading a chapter or two then leaving the book without finishing it. When I talked to her. She knew where she was in each book and could tell be the storyline for each. She has placed them throughout the house in places she likes to lay down and read.
Create a relationship based on love, and respect.Face it your child may well become smarter than you. That does not mean they then become in charge of the relationship and family. If you have created a relationship with your child that is based on love and respect than you will have that foundation no matter what the future holds.
Gifted does not equal successful. ADHD and other learning disabilities can be present with a gifted child. This can impact their productivity and focus. Making them appear to be unsuccessful or scatterbrained. It is our job to teach follow through and help your child to be productive.
Parenting a gifted learner is an intense experience. Being able to feed the need for more information can be a full-time job. There are also great rewards for homeschooling your gifted child. They can graduate early. They can take college classes from home until they are ready to attend a college. The most important key and delight to homeschooling your gifted child, you see them as more than an IQ. Your child will know that they have worth and value that is not attached to their IQ, through your loving support.
Homeschooling my gifted child is a delight!
Here are some gifted homeschooling sites to cruise:
Here I am, Heather’s groupie! 🙂 I appreciate this post. I don’t know yet if my 5 yr old PDD-NOS son is GIFTED, but he’s definitely very smart! He could identify all letters/sounds by 18 mos and was reading 3-letter words at 3 1/2. But, as you said, gifted does not mean successful. Now that we’re actually trying to learn how to read more than 3-letter short vowel sounds or easily recognized sight words, he doesn’t want to plow through. I think he’d probably rather memorize all the words in the world instead of working at it! 😉 I’m so glad I have virtually met you so I can get help from you!
I love this post, Heather. Thank you so much for including the topic of gifted learners in your series!
Love this! Thank you!