Typical Characteristics of Gifted Children

As a teacher of Gifted/Talented students, I get questions pertaining to giftedness often. One of the questions I hear most often, from parents and other teachers is, how do I know my child/student is gifted?

Today's post will begin a new series on Gifted/Talented children. The purpose of these posts is to help parents and teachers of gifted/talented children assist these children in reaching their fullest potential.

Understand, there is no one test that can determine the giftedness of an individual. As educators, we use a multitude of information to determine a child's giftedness.

Characteristics of Gifted Children

Keep in mind, you most likely will not see all of these characteristics in any child.  These are the typical characteristics that may be seen:

• high level of language/verbal development
• high level of curiosity
• very sensitive
• creative
• often intensely motivated/persistent/ goal-oriented
• many times will resist direction or interruption
• often critical toward others
• dislikes routine and drill work
• prefers individualized work/needs freedom of movement and action
• has difficulty with criticism and is vulnerable to peer rejection
• can see diverse and unusual relationships
• unrealistic self-expectations/ often a perfectionist
• able to generate original and ideas and solutions
• has a keen sense of humor
• displays an increase sense of justice
• shows leadership ability
• has inconsistencies between intellectual maturity and social, emotional, and physical development
• sometimes may show poor test performance and achievement in basic skills areas
• daily work may frequently be incomplete or poorly done
• may have low self-esteem
• inability to focus attention and concentrate efforts on tasks
• difficulty making and keeping friends

Some of these characteristics seem to contradict one another, however, these are typical behaviors of gifted children. Your child or student may exhibit some but not all of these characteristics at one time or another.

Do you have a child or student that exhibits some of these characteristics?

Check back for the next installment in this gifted information series. I will be talking next on Encouraging Creativity.

Dee

Five for Friday

I have been seeing this Five for Friday linky going on for a few weeks now and decided that this would be the Friday that I link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and join in on the party.

Here goes my Five for Friday:

 1. We have been doing our district benchmark testing all week..well Tuesday through Thursday. It seems that all the teachers and kiddos were wound tight this week. I guess that is what benchmark testing does for everyone. Just wait until the end of this month when we do our comprehensive test...talk about wound tight!!! Anyway...because of this testing, I only got to pull my gifted students on Monday and Friday. Boy...did I miss them!!

2. So....my Monday and Friday groups are the only kiddos that I had in my classroom this week (I had to administer tests to one of the 4th grade classes along with the 5th grade science test). FUN!!! YeaH!!!! Annyhow....we have started a unit on Australia and I decided they would do some aboriginal art painting...........on rocks!! Do you know how difficult it is to find a decent sized rock in the Mississippi Delta? NOT EASY!!!!! However there were a few found and this activity was a huge success. Just take a look at the photos. (These are from my Monday group's rock paintings...they are 6th grade).

Didn't they do a fabulous job on this activity? These kiddos really seemed to get into it!!

3.  I tutor several 3rd grade students in Reading after school two days per week. I still get so excited when a student shows improvement in their reading. This little sweetie started with me reading on a 1.9 grade reading level. I haven't tested her to see where she stands at this particular moment. But she began with me not being able to read a lot of the sight words. We are now using phrase cards..(yes...the ones that I have in my TpT store) and when we started using them she was only getting about 18-20 phrases in a minute. This week my little sweetie has managed to consistently swing 40 phrases per minute!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!

OK...I took this photo on Tuesday after the tutoring session...and forgot to take another one after Thursday's session...but she hit that 40 mark on Thursday as well!! I am so proud of her!! She has really been working hard!!

4.  At 3:30 today....I will officially begin my spring break....what am I doing during my spring break you ask? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!! Yeah right! I am sure I will be cleaning and decluttering. That seems to be what I do every time I have a little time off from school. But...that is alright with me. I really am not going anywhere.

5. I am putting this one as my #5...because I will enjoy a fabulous dinner with my sweet hubbles tonight to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. NO...today is not the actual date...that would be next week on the 14th....However, the hubbles will getting chemo on that day and we have opted to celebrate tonight!

What is your Five for Friday??? Come on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and link up with yours!!!!

Dee

Using Common Core State Standards with Gifted and Advanced Learners - Part II

Using the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts with Gifted and Advanced Learners by Joyce L. VanTassel-Baska
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The main goal of this book as stated in the first lines of the introduction is to provide classroom teachers and administrators with some examples and strategies to implement the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts for advanced learners at all stages of development in K-12 schools.

The Common Core State Standards illustrate the curriculum emphases that are needed for students to develop the skills and concepts required for the 21st Century. There are currently 45 states that have adopted the CCSS and this gave cause for gifted education as a field to reflect on supporting gifted and advanced learners appropriately in all of the content areas. Some people feel that gifted education is not needed now because these new standards are already at such a high level. However, although these standards are strong, they will not be sufficient to accommodate the needs of many gifted learners. There will be students that have completed all of the CCSS standards prior to reaching the end of high and this will require educators to provide advanced content for them.

The 21st Century skills that receive major emphasis in this book are: Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Problem Solving, Technology literacy, Information media literacy, and Cross-Cultural skills.

Differentiation is the key to unlock the potential of the gifted and advanced learners within the CCSS. The book lays out four major strategies for accomplishing this. We must, (1) provide pathways to accelerate the CCSS for gifted learners;(2)provide examples of differentiated tasks to address specific standards; (3) create interdisciplinary products/units to increase the learning for gifted students and to efficiently address multiple standards at once; and (4) create different assessments to demonstrate authentic learning has taken place.

The booklet has provided us with quite a few different specific standards with examples of how to differentiate for gifted and advanced learners. In order to sufficiently address the curricular needs of gifted and advanced learners, teachers will need to differentiate curriculum by posing progressively more complex issues, using texts according to each student's reading level and interest, modification of mathematical processes according to what has previously been mastered, and the pace of instruction.

The contributors to this booklet also gave a chapter devoted to resources to use when implementing the CCSS with gifted and advanced learners.

This is a book that I purchased to help integrate the CCSS into my own classroom while continuing to challenge my gifted students at a level that will help them grow and be ready for college and the workplace.

I am looking forward to digging much deeper and finding out just how challenging these standards can be made for those students that are highly gifted or advanced.


Here is an example of one of the standards with differentiation for gifted learners. This is for:

Grade 3 CCSS RL.3.1 Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.


Typical Learners: Students will ask and answer student-and teacher created questions regarding the plot of Patricia MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall, explicitly referring to the text to form the basis of their answers.


Advanced Learners: Advanced students will ask and answer student and teacher created questions regarding what the p lot of Patricia MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall says about courage and the life of women in the 19th century, using textual references. They will create a multimedia project that characterizes Sarah as a person of courage.


In my part I post, I stated that many times I feel that I haven't challenged my students as much as I should. After reading this book, I am certain that I have fallen far from the mark on most occasions. However, I will pick myself up and dust myself off and read and study more about CCSS to make sure that my future lessons/units are more in line with where they need to be to challenge my students adequately.


Looks like I know what I will be doing this summer.


If you have any comments, suggestions....please leave a comment. I need feedback on this. I need to know what others are doing....and is it working or not?


Toodles for now!!

 Dee