Students With Special Gifts And Talents

Gifted children are defined as students who possess demonstrated or potential abilities that give evidence of exceptionally high capacity with respect to intellect, creativity, or the skills associated with specific disciplines. They may have abilities in more than one area and intensify their focus in their particular areas of interest.

They might have some disabilities and are not expected to have strengths in all areas of intellectual functioning.

Students who are gifted show a wide range of specific aptitudes, abilities and skills.

They might have behaviour problems, due to uneven precocity, interpersonal difficulties, underachievement, nonconformity, perfectionism, and frustration and anger.

A good assessment technique to determine performance capability of students is a portfolio assessment.

Students who are gifted or talented need strategies to help them achieve their highest potential. This can be done with differentiated instruction and with curriculum adaptations and accommodations. Teachers can allow them to work independently, giving them an opportunity to work independently and let them choose their individual projects depending on their interests and abilities. Students that are gifted need to expand their creativity and participate in extracurricular activities or other grade level activities where they can express their creativity and knowledge. Teachers can also ask them to tutor their peers so they feel valued but they can’t forget to challenge them as well. But teachers need to remember that these students don’t excel in all areas so they need to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses.

Every child is unique and has different abilities and talented students don’t like to be bored or do easy talks, so teachers have to challenge them with new and more complex work so they feel valuable and don’t start showing disruptive behavior.

This is all about children and teachers should always think about the students and how to help them achieve their highest potential.

Activity to be done with a student that is gifted or talented:

• If one of their strengths is writing, teachers can ask them to re-write the end of a story book that they have read before, or even create a sequel to the story.

A good book for parents with gifted children:

• “Parenting Gifted Children 101: An Introduction to Gifted Kids and Their Needs” by Tracy Inman, Jana Kirchner

Facebook challenge activity:

- How creative are you? For this activity use your imagination and do a painting. If you prefer, write a poem... Show it to someone and be proud of getting out of your comfort zone.

Resources:

https://www.education.udel.edu/

http://www.ascd.org/

https://www.google.com/