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Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Not so much for the high achieving students, but where the low and average are concerned?
It depends on the class. I generally teach K-2, and some very low students are placed in my class because of the way i structure it. The children are learning on their level for math, reading, writing, and spelling. If you are already grouping kids by ability and designing umpteen individualized lessons it works. The other classrooms have a different makeup that is usually the mid range to high achieving students.
I rarely teach a whole group lesson, unless it's something they all have to learn. ( that's the old school lecture style while everyone is in their seats.)I do pretesting, group students by ability for each area, assess, and re teach if necessary. I also do a lot of project based learning. The low students meet with me everyday in math, reading, and writing for a full group. The average students get 3-5 days of group a week for a full lesson. The high meet with me everyday for each area, but it's a shorter group.
I try to scaffold their learning so they can learn in their zone of proximal development. I want each child to make at least one years growth in all areas. I strive for more than one years growth.
We have to follow a curriculum that's fairly set for Social Studies and Science, but i supplement these with integration into Language arts and Math.
By middle and high school the curriculum is naturally more separated by ability, and children are usually put in a group of similar students.
Last edited by Meyerland; 05-20-2014 at 12:42 PM..
I know how to identify gifted children with learning disabilities because I have one. No, I did not ask for any testing; fortunately a fantastic teacher spotted something "off" with him. I agree with you totally that in most cases unless a child learns differently, there is no need to identify and label kids based on their academic achievement.
That is great news! I have had to argue to get certain students tested that were twice exceptional.
Depending on the source, non gifted learners make up 94-96% of the population. So most people are not gifted. They may be very smart and high achieving though.
I disagree and your definition of "gifted" in the academic sense is off and not necessarily measurable in all children; children are more than a number. You have children who are "twice exceptional"; those who may be gifted but also have a learning disability. How do you measure those kids? That number is but one tool that professionals take into consideration when including a child in a GT class. And I stand by my statement that all of us are provided a God given gift at being exceptional at something. I am not intending to be argumentative, so let's just agree to disagree.
When speaking in the context of education the word gifted means having an IQ above a certain level.
If I remember correctly your child is an infant or toddler so perhaps you aren't around a lot of parents of school age children.
IMHO, there are many parents "out of touch with reality" in this matter.
I was thinking back to my childhood. Even though I lived in the country, by a fluke, we had six girls all in the same class living within a mile of each other as close neighbors, from elementary school through HS. All, of us were smart. All six of us went to college, in the 1070s, and most went on to get advanced degrees. But, I can't ever remember any of our parents bragging that their child was the smartest of all of the neighbors, or that their child was the smartest in the entire school, or that their child had the top score in the class on the Iowa test. In fact, although all of the parents were clearly very proud of their children I don't remember any of them bragging. Today that type of bragging/exaggeration is very common.
From my original post, see the section, about 46 out of 48 children had parents who bragged to the teacher that their child was "gifted". The percentage may not always be that high, but it is very common for parents to say that their child is gifted.
Huh. My kids are ages 10-18 and I've NEVER heard a parent say "my child is the smartest kid in the neighborhood" or school.
Last edited by strawflower; 05-20-2014 at 03:32 PM..
I hated awards ceremonies in elementary school, because I had two pretty routine winners, and one who never did. But by middle school, it's time to buck up a bit.
Based on my personal experience with my kids, teachers are at least somewhat to blame for the scenario of so many parents not knowing, or claiming falsely, that their child is academically gifted. I find it especially hard in the US to get an accurate feel for how my daughter is really doing, versus her peers or the norms for kids her age. I'm not just asking for sport or bragging rights - she started her education later than US kids, at age 7, in another country/ language; I truly want to know how she's doing in making up the lost ground to see if she has any major deficiencies we need to tutor for at home.
All I ever get back are could-apply-to-any-child platitudes about 'making great progress' and 'working diligently' and 'pleasure to have in the class'. She gets As on her report for what I know are fairly mediocre bits of work that she threw together with no attempt to go beyond anything other than the bare minimum expected. Coming from a European background, I'm used to an A being a very hard to achieve grade, given very sparingly for the most exceptional, over-reaching projects, for kids who've gone above and beyond the expectation and demonstrated real aptitude, passion and effort. You know, the potentially gifted ones.
So I have no idea whether her getting As is meaningful or whether the whole class gets an A for successfully breathing in and out that day; whether she's in fact doing a great job acing 4th grade and my expectations are inappropriately high, or whether she's bumping along the bottom of the class being given As out of pity to boost her self-esteem.
Not in the History of Ever have I managed to get a teacher to give me any sense of 'well, she's about average for the grade in reading, a little lower in math but really applying herself and making excellent progress so we'll wait and see how the next few months pan out'. So I turn to some form of standardised testing to try and get concrete information because what the teachers tell me is nebulous and often makes no sense.
For example, last year, at the end of 3rd grade - a year her teacher spent telling me that she was doing 'great, just swell!' - her end-of-year state tests placed her on the 36 percentile for Math, and the 19 percentile for Language Arts. These numbers were fine considering she'd only been in education for 12-18 months at that point, but still, that's the result of a year in which she academically did 'great, just swell'?!! I wasn't asking about her progress against her grade peers for a quickie ego boost, I really wanted to know the truth!
I've had the same this year in 4th grade, with her teacher politely deflecting any attempt to get a feel for where she now stands versus other kids her age, at even the vaguest of bands. I don't want a full ranking of the 25 kids subject-by-subject, I just want a notion of whether she's still near the bottom of the class at this point.
Sigh... another test, then - I said the word 'gifted' to the school and filled in a request form, and she took the CogAt some weeks back, and scored around the 75 percentile for both verbal and numerical reasoning. That's very helpful information: I now know that she's made tremendous progress during 4th grade (I know CogAt technically isn't a 'learning' test, but it shows her reading and vocabulary level's really come on, at least, and I won't get the comparable 4th grade state testing results for a couple more months), and that she's well-rounded with very equal strengths in both Math and English. No tutoring needed, no obvious gap to fill, and I can see how she continues to do during 5th grade and beyond.
So yeah, I'm one of the parents saying 'gifted' and demanding my child be tested. Because it appears to be the ONLY way to get a straight answer of how she stands academically against her peers and what's expected of her age group.
After reading all these posts, I have to ask - what happens to the child who actually IS gifted? If the teacher has the automatic reaction of rolling their eyes and thinking, oh boy another one....can that child eventually PROVE to the teacher they are gifted?
Or is the teacher supposed to discover and accept this on their own? How do they do this and how long does it take?
Being in early childhood education for 20+ years, I've had my fair share of parents who thought their children were at a level they were not (both ends of the spectrum) and usually all it takes is gentle education to help them put it into perspective, if they are indeed incorrect. I, myself, am educated on what gifted actually means and how it translates to individual needs due to my profession. So I don't have a problem with parents thinking their child is gifted, because with some time and effort it can be determined and sorted out.
What I do have a problem with is people who immediately reject the notion a child is gifted without taking the time and making the effort to see if it just might be true. Sometimes it is eye-rolling worthy after you've done due diligence, however sometimes it is exactly as presented and that child needs to be approached differently than the others in the group.
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