I know that people recommend Ruf's book (am reading now) but no one makes a comment about Marica Gross' book Exceptionally Gifted Children. I have ordered from the library and waiting. Has anyone read it? The author seems to be referenced on Hoagies' website.

I personally loved that one! It has lots of case studies, and lots of data. Insane person that I am, I was able to use that book to "estimate" DS's SB-LM score, ROFL!

The only "negative" about the book is that it is based in Australia. Now offense to our friends down under, but the educational system was slightly different than ours here in the US, and direct parallels slightly hard to draw. It's also older, pre "new SAT" for example, and some of the insights are dated in that regard.

Still, I loved that one! Enjoy! Feel free to skip around, too. For example, there was an entire section dedicated to career choices and earnings of the families involved. Since I strongly feel that "smart" people can choose lesser paying careers, this section was not overly meaningful to me, and I skimmed over it quite superficially.

Terrance Tao's family has been very forthright in sharing their experiences, so it was also nice to put the "end result" after the early profile in this book (under a pseudonym).

From the perspective of a "Mildly PG" kid's Mom:

Of course it's a good book, but Gross is still in the "SB-LM" camp, which I protest. ((See her chapter in High IQ Kids, also very good)) I have a hard time getting past the '150-200' level scores and trying to match up my child to those children. I feel much more comfortable with the "these children are above what tests can measure," but there are many parents who have found SB-LM useful. I've even heard that it impressed a school once. Still I believe that when doing advocacy with schools, continued use of SB-LM does more harm than good by making the kids with 140 on the new IQ tests look "not that unusual." I wish this wasn't the case, but I believe it is.

I particularly like Gross's articles, and that she lumped kids with only a 'token' skip in together with kids who had never been skipped - what a great perspective!

My feeling is that if one must know where one's 'top tenth of a percent' kid ranks among other 'top tenth of a percent' kids, get the SAT at age 9-12.

Would I feel differently if my child was on the "wildly PG" third of the tail? Perhaps!

Smiles,
Grinity

I like Miraca Gross. I read that book before it was reworked, and I had hoped that the newer edition would be updated across the board. Unless Dottie read the older version, I guess not.

An oldie but a goodie is Children Above 180 IQ by Leta Hollingworth, if you can find it. When I read this and compared my own kids, I knew that I had some kids way outside the norm.

For overall usefulness, I like this one: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8365.asp

I like the idea of having a different system to identify levels of giftedness, but I think Ruf's sample size was way too small and her distribution a bit random. Kids who knocked my socks off were assigned level 4, while at least one who didn't appear as gifted landed in level 5. Deborah Ruf is a lovely person though, and she genuinely cares about these kids.

I agree with this one!
Grinity

Thank you Lorel for the link, but you don't post an author. I went to the nypl.org catalog and didn't find by title.

Could you please post details on A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children?

Thanks.

Ren

I have really loved reading Miraca Gross's book and articles. It has helped me a lot, given me courage to keep at it (advocacy, which we all know is so tiring and sometimes disappointing). While some of the scores for the children profiled are intimidating, I still found her studies on long-term wellbeing of radically accelerated kids inspiring. I also like the discussions about siblings. Her book is one I go back to every so often to get "grounded", especially when I've been discouraged by the "system".

Genius Denied probably had the most impact on me of all the books I've read--getting me started. Karen Rogers' Reforming Gifted Education (I think it's called that) got me thinking about grade skips, A Nation Deceived, and Developing Math Talent--all good, but the more I've read, the more overwhelmed I get about how much more needs to be done for my kids. I haven't read Ruf yet.

There's a reason I didn't include the author, LOL! There are four of them! Here you go:

James T. Webb PhD
Janet L. Gore M.Ed
Edward R. Amend Psy.D
Arlene R. Devries M.S.E.

I hope you can find it and that it is helpful to you.

The NYPL had one book by James T. Webb, but someone took it. I will request they buy this one.