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Home › Articles › Back to School Headquarters › Gifted Children

Gifted Children

Their Trials and Triumphs

By Gwen Morrison

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At McKendree Elementary where Smith teaches, the gifted students spend one day a week in the gifted (FOCUS) class, which is separate from their regular classroom.

"I know at some schools they get to go for an hour every day, but I think ours is an ideal situation," says Smith. "They get to go for an entire day, so they have more time to complete projects in the gifted class. Also, they don't miss the same subject every day in the regular class."

 

Potential for Success
"There is evidence that gifted kids in ability-groups for the gifted or in accelerated classes for the gifted achieve somewhat higher scores on standardized tests than equally able kids not in such special classes (the work of Kulik and Kulik)," says Winner. "This still does not tell us about future success. What we need are experimental studies comparing equal ability kids who do and do not go to a strong gifted program, and we need to compare them 20 years later."

 

Children who are noticeably advanced in areas of academia need to be challenged. This can be done in a variety of ways, as some parents are finding out. Often, the school is just not large enough to accommodate special needs children so teachers and parents have to communicate on what can be done to meet the current needs of the gifted child.

"Our school is just too small to have a gifted program," says Korchinski. "In the school there were just over 100 students registered in grades kindergarten through ninth, and of those students, two were classified as gifted one was my son."

"My son spends a few hours a week in first grade and has joined a group of children who read to the preschoolers," says Hannah Hyes, a mom in Chicago, Ill. "It has worked out well for him. He is emotionally still a kindergartner. When he finishes his work in class he has the freedom to pursue other things."

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