#3: “Gifted children will be okay, they will make it on
their own.”
False: Gifted children need access to learning opportunities
at their commensurate instructional level and pace. Research on gifted
readers indicates that explicit instruction rarely occurs in schools at the
level that gifted readers need. According to Reis, et al., (2004) Reading Instruction for Talented Readers:
Case Studies Documenting few Opportunities for Continuous Progress, while teachers have good intentions of
providing for high ability children, it typically does not happen. Teachers are so overwhelmed with instruction
and mandates for those who struggle that the child who has already mastered
reading is too many times left on their own. It is no wonder that we don’t see
gains in scores - which leads me directly to the next misconception.
#4: “It is not possible to identify giftedness in preschool
or early childhood. By the time they are in third grade they will
“even out.”
False: I am always amazed by the above comment. On first look one might
falsely think that these students no longer appear to be discrepant from their
peers. Maybe the more pressing question is, Why (or how) did an educational system allow these children to regress?
We would never allow scores to stagnate or regress for any
other population of students without working hard to address the decline. Why
do we
not have the same level of
concern when our high ability students do not show gains? If we have children
who might have been considered for identification, but instead have scores that
have been regressing to the mean, we need to question the
instruction they are getting and the content that they have access
to. Where in
daily instruction have
they had explicit instruction to continually move them forward? What access to
materials of the correct reading and complexity level have they experienced? Children
who have cracked the language code and have been learning by leaps and bounds
on their own should at a minimum continue at that pace when under the guidance
of a skilled teacher. If they enter the world of school with it’s learning continuum
of skills and objectives and the learning drops off or stops, we need to stop
the decline with the same sense of urgency that we would use for other students.
We need to realize that drops in scores are most likely evidence of inappropriate
instruction and lack of access to the level of content that is needed. Early
identification can be realized with collaboration between families and school
as together they work to document learning through portfolio development. I
encourage you to look into the document that Sally Beisser and I developed to
address this very issue.
An Early
Childhood Assessment Tool to Identify Young Gifted Children,
2014 NAGC session by Linda Moehring and Sally Beisser, Ph.D.
False, Think about the effort and hours that trained
teachers spend with children to bring them to the entry level of reading and
writing. Our complex system of language, with rare exception, involves hours,
days, weeks, and for some, years of implicit modeling and instruction from
trained professionals. Practice and support are needed to move young children
into this communication of symbols that requires understanding of letter sounds
and how they blend, fluency, and comprehension all at the same time. Understanding this very
complex system takes work. (Reading
teachers please forgive me for simplifying this point.)
Many gifted children sit in classrooms waiting to learn while the focus on instruction and strategies is designed for the struggling learner. There is no question that struggling learners need support, but not at the expense of the gifted. Gifted children need learning situations and content at a pace that allows them to be challenged and grow. They need research based practices that are specific to their needs, not generalized to their population. 
