The Importance of Maintaining Gifted Programs: Schools Must Not Neglect Gifted Children

Her kindergarten teacher recognized her inability to stay focused compared to her peers. In first grade, Grace took longer to complete assignments, had a tendency to daydream, and had difficulty with paper and pencil tasks which was the most noticable in math. Her first and second grade teachers provided her with additional educational support through small group instruction, and she receives weekly instruction from the reading specialist. Finally, her scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition and Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement show she has deficits in the areas of Working Memory, Passage Comprehension and Math Fluency. Since information has been obtained by a variety of dependable sources, identifying Grace as a learning disable child is

Middle school is a period of transition for adolescents. Students are no longer the children were once were in elementary school; they are beginning to mature into the adults they will need to become. Gifted learners at the middle-school level face the same developmental and tasks tasks and challenges that their peers do. Yet, gifted learners also possess traits that are different from their peers, which often make them misunderstood or ignored. The need for teachers to identify these students and differentiate instruction in a way that addresses the needs of the gifted students in the classroom is becoming more crucial than ever.

It has been seen that gifted children have different coping mechanisms, as they are likely to face different problems than their peers. This usually means them being overlooked by staff as they are not seen to need the same assistance as other students. It is often found that gifted girls may learn to hide their abilities in order to blend in with other children whereas gifted boys are usually considered immature and are unable to socialise with children their own age. These children usually have different learning methods therefore teaching staff may find it hard to work with their needs. This may lead the child to feel bored in class when the work is not differentiated to their

programs, the gifted child learns how to overcome adversity, a life-skill that benefits the gifted

Some people believe that intelligence is inherited through genes and that they never change. Giftedness is not one of the inherited talents that are possible to inherit. Giftedness has to be developed and practiced as the child grows out of their early years. They also believe that gifted students read all the time, wear glasses, and are most of the time called “nerds”. This is called stereotyping. Gifted comes in different varieties varying from great athletes, talkative or shy persons, or just normal individuals with gifts. Not one specific type of person is gifted. You might think of the word gifted as bad such as mentally gifted, physically gifted or just gifted in general in a bad

(2013). Curriculum Issues. Gifted child Today. Retrieved from Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson), Ipswich, MA. Accessed July 29, 2015.

I am a proponent of ability grouping. I believe that the best way to make progress is taking students and breaking them up into leveled sections so that they can achieve to their highest potential. To me, this is the only thing that truly makes sense. In an article from Newsweek.com entitled America Hates it's Gifted Kids (2014), by Chris Weller, while No Child Left Behind from 2001 did help to improve the scores of underachieving students across the nation, by some degree, we did terrible things for our gifted students. Many of these were left to fend for themselves. Gifted programs were often unfunded in order to handle the needs being created for underachieving students. When our gifted children may someday become our inventors, engineers, and doctors of the future, why on earth is their education and growth not as important as a student with special needs, or anyone else? We build individualized education plans for students who struggle, those with needs, yet we ignore other special abilities. Why can't we build a plan for them as well? Why don't we build a plan for each student, so that instead of a one-size-fits-all education, we provide a track for all students to run on based on their strengths and weaknesses. In this manner, all can continue to grow. There is nothing that says a student who begins in one group cannot move up. There is nothing that says a student who struggles in math couldn't be a high achieving reader. In the Education Week (2004) article on tracking, the major concern against ability grouping has to do with labels. That the majority of students in low level ability groups are poor and minority, and that ability grouping sets a stigma on that particular population. Yet that is where they achieve! By giving specialized instruction at each individual level, all have a chance to grow, instead of lagging further behind, stagnating, or creating a greater challenge when their unique needs aren't met, and further

A child’s intellectual development can vary greatly and is usually dependent on what opportunities they have been given and on different experiences they see or actively participate.

Adolescents face many developmental tasks: physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally. For example, puberty happens, intellectual interests expand, moral thinking happens, sense of identity is initiated, independence is worked towards, there is conflict with adults, and peer influence becomes an issue—to say the least. This particular read focuses on twelve west coast inner city students and the developmental and environmental tasks that impact their education. Professionals often use the word resilience, or suggest that students become resilient, without putting much thought into the difficulties that students must recover from.

Motivating gifted students can present a challenge for any teacher. Many children are coming to school with very little enthusiasm to learn, especially the gifted child. Although

It is the first day of school. The new GRT has checked his mailbox and found that he has 18 identified gifted students to educate of this year. He notices four of the names have purple italicized text next to each name. Twice-exceptional. His insides feel unstable for a moment. The classes offered at his college included a Special Ed course, but now these children were right there in front of him. He would be responsible for their individual successes for an entire year. He had five In-service days to get to know the building, all of the teachers, the administration, and understand how uniquely different each of his twice-exceptionals were. There were also 14 other children. He knew from his Gifted Endorsement his identified students would

Adams County public school system’s current program doesn’t seem to recognize any minority or poor students who could be considered gifted. Educators in this district and committee members seem to lack any motivation to include diverse learners in their program. The fact that Adams County only recognized three out of four hundred thirty-eight over a five-year span is appalling. I feel Adams County need some major changes to extend their idea of giftedness. It needs to start with intensive and in-depth teacher training along with community outreach and awareness programs to help educate parents about giftedness. For instance, parent could learn ways to better support their children and help identify their child’s areas of giftedness.

Adam is a 6-year-old child in kindergarten. He is a white male son of 2 doctors and 1 of 3 children, youngest of all 3. He is overall one of the highest in the classroom. He is able to identify all letters the alphabet without error. He knows all of the basic sight words and higher one that are required for 1st grade. He has been tested for the gifted program and was accepted with an amazing score on the test given to him in all contents. He can read and write on the kindergarten level and higher. He can answer any high level question given to the classroom. He will be the first in the class to shout out the correct answer with out think much about them. He is on the high 1st grade level in the language arts part when doing groups. The only bad thing he does is that he is a very slower writer, when

Ford, D. (1998). The underrepresentation of minority students in gifted education: Problems and promises in recruitment and retention. The Journal of Special Education, 22, 4-14.

Simonton’s view of gifted intelligence supports the concept that gifted education can improve the overall academic performance of students who are identified as exceptionally high performing. His work suggests that there are two key identifying factors that acknowledge a difference between early and late blooming talent indicators. While Simonton’s work is focused more on the very young student, it is interesting to consider that gifted education is not limited in scope. Further emphasis is given to the role of the loss of intelligence over time without proper encouragement and intellectual nourishment. Simonton suggests that young people, who have been identified as gifted, can experience a significant drop in academic promise, determination,