I'm curious what other people think of this. What would you consider gifted?
For instance, what grade levels of math, reading, etc. would you expect a "gifted" 1st grader to be doing?
I am finding that my definition and the definition of others aren't matching up. I'll explain more after I read your responses.
6 comments:
Very, very loosely speaking I'd consider a child advanced if they were working a grade level or two above in their subject. I'd consider a child gifted if they were working two or three (or more) grade levels above in their subject. I think it's a lot more complicated than that... someone could be gifted and working below grade level, for example. But I think that's a general starting point.
I would say 2 grade levels above would be gifted.
I agree with Heidi. I also think that someone who is gifted learns with out any effort and remembers instantly everything that was taught or even knows things they where never taught but just came to their own conclusion of, no matter what "level".
I don't know what the public school districts say but I can tell you that the private schools that I talked to wouldn't even label a child advanced/gifted until they did testing at the end of 3rd grade or unless they were working far about grade level in all areas.
Drew is reading at a late 3rd/4th grade level and finishing up an advanced 2nd grade math program which has him doing stuff that the city schools aren't learning until 3rd grade. I would not call him gifted but he is definitely advanced enough that being in a classroom would be difficult for both him and the teacher.
Miranda is in the gifted program in HSV city schools. They tested her on leadership ability more than anything. What they do is to go into the classroom, without any kids knowing what they're there for. They observe the kids that have been tagged as possibly gifted and watch as the class does a project together. They want the kids that have outspoken and creative ideas on the project.
Now, Miranda took to reading like nothing I've ever seen. She skipped her age level entirely and went from picture books to Junie B Jones in about 3 months. That said, Miranda probably has Asperger's like I do, and so that's an expected thing.
But to answer your question... is YOUR child asking questions? If so, that's a good marker of being gifted. If they want to learn... then yeah. It's a good sign.
I don't think the level of a first grader's work has anything (or much) to do with it. In first grade, I think a lot of other factors are still very largely at play (in particular, how the child spent their pre-school years, as well as the child's maturity/development). This is why most "gifted" programs start around 3rd grade.
I would say, at this age, "giftedness" is reflected more in the way they think/learn than in the level at which they perform in various school subjects. So, for example, a 1st grader who has sharp analytical skills would stand out to me more than a 1st grader who can, say, multiply--because I think multiplication is much easier to teach and is more likely to be a reflection of the child's background than their intelligence (although the two are, no doubt, often correlated).
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