Channeling Students into a Gifted Program
By: Haley Bass
Incorporating children into a gifted and talented program should start early on when the children are young. Gifted children should have access to materials that can grow their minds at an accelerated pace. This accelerated pace should be reflected in a specialized syllabus designed specifically for the gifted child. Their activities should be more sophisticated and they should be exposed to a variety of schools of thought. This will keep their hungry minds fed and will prevent their attention from wandering elsewhere.
Early interventtion can help to enhance the child’s development, provide support and assistance to the family and to maximize the child’s and family’s benefit to society. Children who are found to be profoundly gifted will be given academic based test and a creativity based test. This will identify what level of intervention is needed if any. How students can be referred to or identified for the program. We rely mostly on teacher nominations to begin the process of testing to see if the student will be placed in the program. Parents and the student themselves can be nominatiors, but they will ultimately have to go through the teacher to be tested and recommended to the program.
In order to achieve meaningful academic and intellectual growth, gifted students must experience advanced curriculum content that is both discipline-specific and integrated/interdisciplinary. The content, pacing and depth of instruction must be appropriately differentiated and should emphasize critical and creative thinking. Gifted learners should participate in a well-defined, sequential affective curriculum that revolves around personal and social awareness and understanding social and emotional adjustment, and academic planning and career exploration. In order to gain a balanced sense of themselves and their abilities, and to realize their full potential, gifted students must have extended opportunities to...
