Gifted Myth No. 3 Debunked

Myth No. 3: There is no need to identify gifted students in the early grades.

Many school districts do not begin identifying gifted and talented students until third grade. There is a belief among some educators that giftedness cannot be properly identified in the early grades. However, the National Association for Gifted Children programming standards start with pre-kindergarten. The group’s early childhood network position paper says that “providing engaging, responsive learning environments … benefit all children, including young gifted children.”

Well, we all know that I am not opinionated about this at all! (Note Sarcasm) As an educator, that is like telling me that we cannot be properly identifying special education until 3^rd grade.  A gifted child can and oftentimes does perform better when they are younger prior to us “schooling it out of them”.  For more information about that watch this FANTASTIC video by Sir Ken Robinson:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U . 

As a parent, I was truly fortunate to have someone realize that our son was profoundly gifted and he was tested and started receiving services at 2 ½ years old.  Until then, I just assumed all children sorted animals by kingdom, phylum and class.  However, we had a rude awakening when joining the public school system to find out that not only did they not test children that age, they did not provide services.  In fact we were told that all children typically even out around 3^rd grade and if we had just not worked so much with him he would be fitting in better at school.  My beautiful, bright, inquisitive boy who couldn’t wait to go to ‘real’ school (he had been going to an ASU profoundly gifted program for 2 years twice a week) hated going to school and cried nearly every day.  It was absolutely a horrible experience for him and us.  Why would we want to put any child through that? 

Each and every child that we come in contact with should be given the opportunity to be excited about learning something new each day.  Anything else is criminal in my book.  (Again, not showing any opinions here!)

And as a side note, I tested three students today, two were 5 and one was 6.  The test was a piece of cake for them and of course they all qualified.  The nice thing is that the Cognitive Abilities Test, is just that:  a test for cognitive abilities.  I learn so much more than just whether a child is gifted or not.  I can typically tell a lot about a child, their strengths, weaknesses and possibly if they are disabled and it has not been caught because their giftedness masks their disability.  I personally believe that every student should be tested using the CogAt or something similar so that we have one more data point to use to determine appropriate educational paths.

Differentiation

I am reading an article on Ability Grouping & Gifted Children from Duke. In it the article states that most teachers do not differentiate content for gifted learners. Do you agree with that statement? How about in your own classroom?

If you would like to read the article it can be found at http://www.dukegiftedletter.com/articles/vol1no2_rb.html

TRACKING, GROUPING, CLUSTERING, COMPACTING, DIFFERENTIATION

With all of these terms thrown around, I would like to know--what do teachers really think that they mean? How are they used in your school? What do you think is best practice? In the perfect world how would you set up a school or district?

The Gifted Readers Bill of Rights

I came across this and thought it was very eye opening. I went to a conference where the author was the key note speaker...she is probably the funniest gifted advocate that I have ever met! Let me know what you think.

The Gifted Reader’s Bill of Rights

The right to read at a pace & level appropriate to readiness without regard to grade placement.

The right to discuss interpretations, issues and insights with intellectual peers.

The right to reread many books and not finish every book.

The right to use reading to explore new and challenging information & grow intellectually.

The right for time to pursue a self-selected topic in depth through reading & writing.

The right to encounter & apply increasingly advanced vocabulary, word study & concepts.

The right to guidance rather than dictation of what is good literature & how to find the best.

The right to read several books at the same time.

The right to discuss but not have to defend reading choice & taste.

The right to be excused from material already learned.

Kingor, Bertie. (2002). Austin: Professional Associates Publishing

Self Choice

One of the strategies for working with gifted students mentioned in the book is self choice: Having the students come up with their own ideas for projects or activities.

Would you feel comfortable doing this in the classroom?

If so, how would you integrate it into your lessons?

Compacting & Differentiation in Content Areas

Chapter 4 gives great strategies about compacting curriculum & differentiation. I think both of these buzz words are going around right now. My question for you is do you personally use any compacting or differentiation in your current classroom and can you give us examples of what they are and how you use them?

James

On page 41, the author discusses a scenario with James. James was a great kid who didn't make any trouble at school, but his parents were going to pull him out to home school him because he was not getting what they felt he needed at school. Come to find out, James started his "real work" once he got home. He was writing a textbook about Human Anatomy and Physiology. The teacher compacted his curriculum and allowed for him to work on his "real work" at school. Can you see this working in your classroom? Do you think you have any kids that would qualify or benefit from this type of compacting?