Literacy Resources for Gifted Kids (and Their Parents)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Need some book recommendations for your children? Excellent lists of worthwhile books can be found at

• Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) publishes lists of award-winning books for young people, including Newbery and Caldecott winners.
• International Reading Association provides “Choices” reading lists. These are books chosen as favorites by children, young adults, teachers, and librarians around the country.
• EDSITEment's Recommended Reading List for College-Bound Students offers a list from the National Endowment for the Humanities, along with suggestions for study and discussion of each book.
• Classic Novels offers one of many lists of the classics available on the Internet. This list was compiled by the Cincinnati Public Library. If your student owns an eReader (Kindle, Nook, etc.), many of the classics can be downloaded for free.

 

In addition to reading good books, children may enjoy creating their own books. There are a number of websites to help with this. One such site is Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord’s Making Books with Children, which lists resources, ideas for teachers, and ideas for families.

Vocabulary Development for Gifted Students

Advanced vocabulary development is essential for students for many reasons. It not only helps them excel at college admissions tests, it also helps them succeed in a wide variety of endeavors. For example:

• Increasing vocabulary encourages the use of more descriptive words when writing or speaking and enables one to communicate thoughts more clearly.
• Understanding the meaning of a wide range of words enables better reading comprehension, thus increasing retention.
• A large vocabulary helps verbal communication flow smoothly and eliminates unnecessary noises such as "umm" and "uhh" when speaking.
• Using richer and more colorful words projects a more intelligent image.
• Having the right vocabulary for planning and solving problems helps students maximize their thinking skills.

There are many ways that students can increase their storehouse of words. They can

• increase their vocabulary significantly by reading widely and actively, noticing and looking up new words as they read. Students should also seek out classics and other books that require them to pay close attention and think deeply about language and ideas.
• explore fun and relaxing ways to learn new words, such as solving crossword puzzles and playing word games. These activities help students to not only learn new words, but also learn alternative meanings for words.
• deepen their vocabulary further by studying the meanings of root words, as well as prefixes and suffixes. These devices help students intelligently guess the meanings of words that they do not already know. They also help students gain a broad understanding of language.
• experiment with the words by using a thesaurus when while writing. Young people will not only learn new words this way, but they will also gain a richer appreciation for choosing the right word in a sentence.

 

The following websites represent just a few of the online activities that encourage students' vocabulary development:

• FunBrain: Rooting Out Words has good exercises for students in elementary and middle school.
• Language Arts Games features a variety of vocabulary games for all ages, ranging from simple games for elementary school students to advanced games and quizzes for high school students who are studying for the SAT and ACT.
• Number2.com offers free online test preparation, including a vocabulary builder. This website includes practice sessions that adapt to a student's ability level. The website requires students to set up a free account.
• SuperKids: PSAT and SAT Vocabulary Flashcards and Matching Games allows students to study and learn more than 1,000 words that are frequently found on the PSAT and SAT exams.
• Word Games From Merriam-Webster has more than a dozen different online word games that students may enjoy.

Helping Gifted Students Read and Analyze Literature

The website Guidelines for Reading and Analyzing Literature was compiled by Dr. Tina L. Hanlon, associate professor of English at Ferrum College in Virginia. Although the guidelines were originally assembled for college students, they are equally applicable to gifted high school students and, with some minor adjustments, also can be used by gifted youngsters in middle school and upper elementary school.

The higher level thinking skills presented on the website provide an excellent model for teachers to use with almost any piece of literature. The guidelines also are helpful for parents who want to have in-depth book discussions with their kids. Hanlon breaks down the process of reading and analyzing literature into five steps, which become more complex as one moves down the list.

• First Impression
• Types of Literature
• Literary Techniques
• Themes
• Evaluation and Review

I like this particular website because the information, while extensive, is presented in a form that is very easy to scan quickly. It also contains universal ideas that can be used immediately.

News Sites for Kids

Kristin Hokanson (elementary teacher turned high school tech coach) maintains The Connected Classroom website. Hokanson understands the growing importance of technology in our lives and urges teachers and parents to incorporate technology into their children’s learning experiences. Connected Classroom contains many interesting sections. Today, I’d like to tell you about News Sites for Kids. News Sites for Kids offers a comprehensive list of links to news that kids can understand. Many of these links also offer lesson plans.

Hokanson has including additional links to visual sites using world maps to organize the day's headlines, world newspapers, commercial newsites, sites that help teachers develop lesson plans about current events and the nature of journalism, and learning to report the news.

Dragons in Literature

Kids often relish theme-oriented studies. These studies allow students to study a topic in-depth and at a higher-level of thinking than many traditional units.

One fun, interesting, and non-conventional theme for study is Dragons in Children’s Literature, which can be adapted for students of all ages. If you have a student who might find this topic interesting, there are some good resources available.

Tina L. Hanlon, Associate Professor of English at Ferrum College in Virginia, has assembled an annotated bibliography on Dragon’s in Children’s Literature. Included in the bibliography are picture books, novels, poems, background resources, and a paper/essay (the essay is particularly interesting) that Hanlon presented at the Children’s Literature Association Conference in June 2002. Using the extensive information that Hanlon offers could be a basis for a wonderful study of dragons (from those in Beowulf to Harry Potter) and their role in literature. Sometimes dragons are regarded as a symbol of evil and, as Hanlon states, sometimes as “watered-down images resulting from the attempts of modern Americans to protect innocent children from the violence in traditional literature.”

Teaching Students to Analyze Literature

Whether you are a parent or a teacher, there are some great resources to help you encourage students to think analytically about the books they read.

From University of Connecticut’s Schoolwide Enrichment Model Reading program, comes Using the SEM-R Bookmarks (first click on "Implementation Resources." I like the suggestions provided at this website because they explain how adults can model the thinking they want to develop in children. For example:

“How would the problem change if the story took place elsewhere?

The teacher could say, ‘I’ll show you how I might answer that question. First I would think of a different place or setting—maybe here in Willimantic. Then I would think about what is different between Willimantic and the setting in the book. (She could talk about some of these differences.) Now I would think about how these differences might change the problem.”

By modeling all behavior, we help students to better understand.

Be sure and download the “Bookmarks” provided at the link above. These bookmarks provide many pages of good higher level questions to pose when discussing books of all types. Even if you haven’t read the book that the child is discussing, you can elicit a conversation with these questions.

Shakespeare

The writings of Shakespeare never grow old. Shakespeare was an outstanding observer of life and created many immortal characters that profess and embody human nature. His characters often capture traits that are universal. He used rich literary devices, compelling plots, and had an enduring wisdom and wit. He also wrote many unforgettable lines that are imbedded in our culture. He continues to be the most-quoted author in the English language.

There are many resources available to help teach about Shakespeare.

Advanced Placement Classroom Series 

This series, available at Prufrock Press, is designed for the upper level classroom, grades 7–12. The books help teachers motivate students above and beyond the norm by introducing investigative, hands-on activities, including debates, role-plays, experiments, projects, and more, all based on Advanced Placement and college-level standards for learning. These books present background material and activities for teachers for King Lear, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth.

The Writing Company  

This publisher has an extensive collection of books, videos, posters, simulations, and other resources on William Shakespeare. You can search by play, type of media, or by grade level (including material for advanced students).

Navigators 

These collections of questions and activities are intended to support group or independent study of selected literary pieces. They are published by the Center for Gifted Education at The College of William and Mary. If you scroll to the bottom of the Navigators link, you will see the plays of Shakespeare that are offered: Henry IV, Part 1; Hamlet; Macbeth; Midsummer Night's Dream; Much Ado About Nothing; Romeo & Juliet; and Twelfth Night. These Navigators are designed for students in grades 9–12.

OpenSourceShakespeare 

Complete texts of Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets, and poems can be found here. This site also includes search tools and statistics.

Shakespeare Resource Center 

The purpose of this site is to provide links to aid students in online Shakespeare research. Here you will find Shakespeare’s will, the authorship debate, language, the Globe Theatre, Elizabethan England, and theatre companies, to name just a few.

GoodReads: A System for Organizing Books

I am hooked on the website GoodReads for keeping track of all the books I read. The site will also work for students who are avid readers. In addition to students using the website as a way to keep track of books they have read, it also encourages them to write and to communicate with others about their reading.

GoodReads is free and you can keep recorded information as private as you want.

This is what I like about GoodReads:

• I can list all the books I have read and rate each on a scale of one to five. I can also list books I want to read in the future.
• I can list the dates on which I start and finish each book.
• I can easily access a summary of a book or information on the author. This is good, because sometimes I can’t immediately recall the theme of a book if I read it several years ago.
• I can record anything I want about the book. Sometimes, I find it helpful to write down meaningful quotations or passages. Sometimes, I just want to remember a particular impression I had, or cite what I learned from the book. I can also write my own review of the book.
• By clicking on the title of a book I’ve read, I can see comments that others have made after reading it themselves and click again to see threads of discussion about the book. I can also rate the reviews of others.

For those who like to organize information, this is a great way to do it. The books I read become my friends, and when I go back years later and review some of the things I have written, the words bring back warm memories.

If I choose to become “friends” with others on GoodReads, I receive an email when my “friends” post books they have just finished or when they have reviewed a book. This allows me to keep up with the interests of others.

A group of readers can be formed by a parent or teacher to discuss books read in class or through a homeschool group. GoodReads is one way to be able to organize and voice opinions outside of class.

Click on “Groups” and enter a search word. You will find a group to follow for just about any interest you can think of that has to do with reading. There are also groups for aspiring writers.