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Profoundly gifted iq1/21/2024 ![]() When special gifted programming exists, it usually places all gifted children in the same program as though all gifted children are alike or of the same ability. The method does not usually accelerate instruction or learning it adds more at a similar level.Ģ. This approach is popular but tends to be burdensome for the teacher and is often inconsistently delivered, e.g., it requires considerable planning and may be frequently omitted from the day’s schedule. In this approach, children are grouped heterogeneously by age while advanced learners periodically receive enrichment. Individualized, enriched instruction at grade level. Generally, schools now take one of two primary approaches to addressing the academic needs of students who are very different from each other.ġ. Worry that other students will be offended if one child is accelerated.Fear that acceleration hurts children socially.Belief that acceleration hurries children out of childhood.Philosophy that children must be kept with their age group.Limited familiarity with the research on acceleration.With all the research evidence, why haven’t schools, parents, and teachers accepted the idea of acceleration? A Nation Deceived, presents the following reasons why schools hold back America’s brightest kids: Research does not support that they suffer in any way, socially, emotionally, or otherwise, from being allowed to move ahead academically. Research consistently shows that brighter students benefit from being allowed to progress at a faster rate. There is research that goes back as far as the studies of Lewis Terman (1925) and Leta Hollingworth (1926) and continues to the present to show that highly intelligent children learn faster than same-aged students with lower intellectual abilities. While the learning differences of children who are slower learners seem to be well accepted by educators - and attended to in schools - the concept of different levels of high intelligence has been fuzzy and confusing for parents and educators alike. Although my Ruf Estimates of Levels of Giftedness are relevant to children in the upper one-third or so of a typical classroom, differences of a similar magnitude occur throughout the range of learners who are generally in the lowest third of many classrooms. There is a mountain of research on individual learning differences that is available, and has been available, for many years. Some years ago I set out to study learning differences - particularly those of highly intelligent children. I believe that unless we know and understand how different children can be from one another, we cannot effectively address the best methods for meeting the needs of any of them. If a boy who enjoys reading books on history and wants someone to discuss his passionate interest with, he may be viewed as socially immature if he keeps turning to his teacher for attention instead of playing with the boys his age. For example, when a little girl routinely uses advanced vocabulary and wants to guide the play of her more typical classmates, they may resent her and see her as “bossy” or strange because of the words she uses. The intellectual differences between children of the same age become socially and academically problematic when the children are continually grouped together in schools all day for all their instruction and activities. Despite considerable evidence that the achievement span among children of the same age can be - and usually is - quite significant, children are almost always strictly grouped with others who are the same age as they. The customary method of grouping children for instruction in schools is heterogeneous (mixed ability) grouping and “whole class” instruction. The problem may be that there is little or no understanding in schools of how vast the learning differences are. ![]() Even our school systems acknowledge that children vary in their learning abilities but at the same time that we recognize that children are different from one another, we set up school instructional and social situations that treat them as though any differences are either small or nonexistent. Although certain characteristics certainly run in families, the looks, temperaments, abilities, talents and interests of each child are usually at least somewhat dissimilar between them. Any parent who has more than one child knows that regardless of the way they parent or what they provide for their children, the children are different from one another in many, many ways.
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