It's never been easy to coach my 3 years old to read nor write, as she is a highly egoistic child! Despite we read to her a lot and she enjoyed listening to the books we recited and explained, she can't read... not even a single word. However she is gifted with incredible memory, to be precise she has amazingly good selective memory. She can memorized the most difficult(for me and papa)books' titles, storyline and content, and even chanting a Buddhist mantra that would take an adult ages to memorize it!
I have tried with flashing word cards( when she was much younger), phonics, and even words game that sort of like playing scrambles, yet still she has problem to identity which direction should a word start!! For instance, 'DOG'... she will arrange it as ' GOD' (slapped forehead)!
This post is actually to record an incident that happened this Sunday, when we were in Popular IOI mall. She took a paper back book and pestered me to buy for her, I looked at the price, it's RM9.90?!!(for such a thin paper back book) I didn't want to upset her with a stern 'No', thus I tried to reject her with a more indirect trick. I told her if she got to read the title of the book, then I'll buy her that book(of course in my mind I actually thought she can't never get it right) else she has to put it back from where she got it from!
To my surprise, She pointed at the title words by words and pronounced, "Dora's Picnic!" She got it all right, I know she might have tricked me with her intelligent as the front page showed a picture of Dora was having a picnic, but nevertheless it's a good reading attempt! Well done my lovely girl!
Labels: J(Juan Juan), milestone, reading


Some gifted children may have dyslexia (could be slight). This may lead to difficulty in reading and spelling. Excellent memory skills could still help them learn very quickly though. In case you spot more dyslexia signs in future, consider getting professional assistance to help her overcome it and aid her learning progress.
It's both wonderful and challenging to have a gifted child as they have unique learning needs. All the best! :)