A very gifted reader

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let her review books on amazon. It's fun to get other's feedback on your reviews or to see how others have reviewed the same book. Would be kind of cool to maybe someday spin it into a college admissions thing -- she could say that she was reviewed over 1000 books on Amazon or something. They rank people by how many reviews they have written and how helpful they were. She could be the pre-teen harriet Klausner.

I love this idea! Can a kid do this with a "kid profile" attached to your account, or do they have to use your name?

[Anonymous]

Op here. I mentioned competitions because I am aware of math competitions, but I’ve never heard of reading ones. I did once hear of a mythology competition she would have done well on, but I read about it too late. She qualifies for CTY but the classes are ridiculously expensive. BUT she liked the test. When can she take the ACT/SAT for talent search? Is that 7th?

[Anonymous]

OP look into the Great Books Foundation. https://www.greatbooks.org/great-books-k-12-programs/

[Anonymous]

Does your school do the Battle of the Books?

http://www.battleofthebooks.org/state-competitions/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does your school do the Battle of the Books?

http://www.battleofthebooks.org/state-competitions/

No. But that would be fun. The book lists are good. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

I just went to the library when I was a kid. I read everything at home, and we had tons of books, so I then read all of the encyclopedias and Webster's dictionary. I read everything I could read, including the backs of bottles in the bathroom, the ingredients on every box in the kitchen, my dad's GED books (and passed the practice tests when I was really young)....I still read everything. I have almost 3,000 books in my home library, not counting children's books. Just let her read. You'll be shocked at what a difference it will make. I can read somewhere around 1,000 wpm (not sure of the exact number). I have never used a bookmark, and have never turned down the corner of a page. I can have 5 or 6 books going at once, and always know exactly where I am in each one, no matter how long it's been since I read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Damn. I loved reading because it wasn't competitive. The best thing my parents did was to let me read any book I wanted without limits.

Something weird is that I keep a journal of all the books that I read. I really enjoy putting another book on the list and have been doing this since I was 8. I still average 60+ books a year.

That's neat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I mentioned competitions because I am aware of math competitions, but I’ve never heard of reading ones. I did once hear of a mythology competition she would have done well on, but I read about it too late. She qualifies for CTY but the classes are ridiculously expensive. BUT she liked the test. When can she take the ACT/SAT for talent search? Is that 7th?

I don't think reading competitions exist, and, frankly, it'd be strange if they did. What is the skill that competitors would be demonstrating, the ability to understand someone else's ideas?

[Anonymous]

My DS just took the ACT as part of the 7th grade talent search at Duke. His 32 on the Reading portion certainly helped him qualify for Duke and also for Davidson's highly gifted program. This is the only time reading has been used competitively by him (and he's very competitive). He has been writing for awhile as well. Maybe encourage your DD to start keeping plot ideas etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I mentioned competitions because I am aware of math competitions, but I’ve never heard of reading ones. I did once hear of a mythology competition she would have done well on, but I read about it too late. She qualifies for CTY but the classes are ridiculously expensive. BUT she liked the test. When can she take the ACT/SAT for talent search? Is that 7th?

I don't think reading competitions exist, and, frankly, it'd be strange if they did. What is the skill that competitors would be demonstrating, the ability to understand someone else's ideas?

There's the National Language Arts League. I'm not entirely sure if that's what OP is looking for or what it is, but DC's elementary school offers it as one of their enrichment programs.

I wouldn't have been interested in competitive reading myself, it was strictly my source of entertainment. But I will admit I loved taking standardized tests and getting the scores back.

[Anonymous]

My dd sounds a lot like yours. She started a book club with 5 of her friends who also love to read. It didn’t matter that she was reading higher level books than they were usually because she continues to enjoy all level books despite her abilities. We would pick 3-4 books and have the girls vote on the one to read. They would get together and talk about their favorite parts and characters, then it would dissolve into a play date (much like my book club which dissolved from the book discussion into a drinking wine and talking about life party). But it got all of those girls into different books and talking about them and enjoying them.

[Anonymous]

Have her join her school’s battle of the book club.

[Anonymous]

My middle school participated in a "Book Bee" competition, and since I loved reading so much, I took part. While I'm grateful to the librarian who worked with us, the competition definitely did not capture what I loved about books. We read a list of books, and then the competition consisted of answering trivia questions about them. "What color door did Jane walk through?" "What was the name of the neighbor's dog?" Rather than reading for fun or for understanding, we ended up reading for tiny details that we then memorized.

I'd urge your daughter to ask about book club opportunities in your local library system, or start her own with friends. Let her write reviews on Good Reads or Amazon. Make sure she has a good dictionary to look up words she doesn't know. In middle school, make sure she knows the school librarian--maybe she can volunteer there or share ideas of books that the school should buy. Sign her up to take the SAT or ACT with a talent search (like CTY) in 7th grade. When she's a teen, let her volunteer at the county library.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let her review books on amazon. It's fun to get other's feedback on your reviews or to see how others have reviewed the same book. Would be kind of cool to maybe someday spin it into a college admissions thing -- she could say that she was reviewed over 1000 books on Amazon or something. They rank people by how many reviews they have written and how helpful they were. She could be the pre-teen harriet Klausner.

GoodReads also has a robust community that does book ratings.

[Anonymous]

Washington Post used to have a summer kids book club with great book recommendations. Not sure if they still do it but you can find past ones online if you're looking for reading suggestions.