Parenting and Teaching Young Gifted Children

In her article, Differentiated Instruction for Young GiftedChildren: How Parents Can Help, Joan Smutny does an excellent job of explaining strategies that can be used in the classroom to address the needs of young gifted children, including

• Compacting—Children skip content that they already know and move to more advanced work.
• Learning Stations—Areas of the classroom where students can work on different tasks within a unit. Each station may represent a higher level of complexity than the one before it. Students move freely from one task to the next.
• Tiered Activities—A classroom of children may focus on the same, broad learning goal, but at different levels of depth and complexity.
• Clustering—Students who are significantly ahead are grouped and provided with more advanced content.

The best parts of Smutny’s article, though, are the many quotes and stories about children she uses to illustrate her points. She not only explains the strategies that might be used in the classroom to differentiate instruction, but also shows parents how they can enhance their children’s learning at home and also support and get involved with student learning at school.

From this article, both parents and teachers will get ideas about ways they can form better partnerships to enhance the learning of young gifted students.

Smutny has made young gifted children one of her specialties. If you like her article mentioned here, you will probably also enjoy some of the many books that she has written on the subject. You will find these by going to web sites such as Amazon and typing in her name or doing a general Internet search using her name.

Free Guidebooks to Help Exceptionally Bright Children

The Davidson Institute serves profoundly gifted young people under the age of 18. As part of its mission, Davidson Institute professionals have written a series of guidebooks designed to assist families in finding the most appropriate educational settings for their exceptionally bright children. The guidebooks are excellent resources and can be downloaded at no cost. While the guidebooks are written for parents and students, teachers should also become familiar with them so that they can effectively advise families.

• Advocating for Exceptionally Gifted Young People—What should you know about your child? What should you know about gifted education? How should you formulate a plan? How should you approach your child’s school? How can you monitor your child’s education?
• Investigating Early College Entrance: A Guidebook for Parents and a Guidebook for Students—How does one assess whether a student is ready for early college entrance? How might early entrance impact the family? What about scholarships and other financial aid?
• Investigating Gap Year Opportunities—A gap year is a “break from formal education to become more immersed in another culture, to volunteer domestically or abroad, to gain experience and maturity…” It is becoming more common in the U.S., especially for students who graduate early from high school. This guidebook discusses possible options for a gap year, the pros and cons of taking a gap year, and what colleges think of students who pursue this option.
• Volunteerism and Community Service—This guidebook provides resources, strategies, and valuable information to think about when considering the who, what, where, when, how, and why questions associated with volunteering.
• Considering Homeschooling—Readers will find information on homeschool curriculum, applying to college, cost considerations, networking with other families, homeschool laws and more.
• Mentorships—How does one search for a mentor? What types of mentoring relationships are available? What characteristics should a great mentor have?

Questions for Thoughtful Discussions

Are you looking for some great starters for deep discussions among teachers, parents, or students? Consider using one or more of the following questions to get the ball rolling.

• Are schooling and learning synonymous?
• When school isn’t the ideal place to educate kids, what should you do?
• Should schools be responsible for completely educating young people or should they be considered supplements to education provided at home?
• Are we adequately preparing kids for living and working in today’s world?
• How can we foster a natural love of learning?
• How can we allow and encourage young people to follow their passions, even though time consuming school assignments may make that difficult?
• How can parents best communicate their educational philosophy and the needs of their kids to teachers?
• How can parents play an active role in the education of their youngsters? What does “active role” mean?
• What does an educated person look like?
• How can parents and teachers help to keep the joy of learning alive?
• How will technology change the way we learn?