Gifted students of all ages deserve enriched experiences

“Already reading? She’s ahead of the game.”

Everyone who saw Gracie, one of my kindergartners, read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to her classmates, said something similar. Gracie  was never without a book. Not only was she already reading, but she was also writing, and doing math and science. It was obvious that Gracie was a gifted student.

The Arkansas Department of Education has specific  rules for the identification and screening of gifted and talented students to which districts must adhere. Today, approximately 10%  of students within our state  have been identified as gifted. While there is no specified grade for identification, most gifted and talented programs focus on students in grades 3-6.

But what about students like Gracie who are showcasing advanced abilities much earlier?

Students who need interventions to address learning gaps have access to time and resources to help their progress, and rightly so. K-2 students who are excelling beyond grade-level skills deserve the same enrichment opportunities, such as access to content-specific  research projects and collaborative discussions.

Without this additional enrichment, early achievers like Gracie may hit a plateau.

I’ve witnessed firsthand how this lack of enrichment during the elementary years leads to student boredom, disengagement, and missed opportunities for optimal growth. Because Gracie can read and use context clues so well, she is already bored with our general reading instruction. The grade-level material I share in class is not challenging her enough, and this results in a lack of academic stimulation.

While teachers can offer daily enrichment through small groups and differentiation, it’s not always sufficient. Excelling students require more in-depth exposure to content they are interested in. Here are a few ways we can do so:

Change the  age at which students can be identified as “gifted.”

In the district I previously worked at, identifying students began as early as the beginning of their  second grade based on their academic records from the previous year. In my current district, the identification process doesn’t begin until the end of the first quarter of third grade. Without specific grade-band criteria, identification, and screening determinations are left in the hands of the district’s gifted and talented coordinator.

The Arkansas Department of Education should revise the criteria surrounding identifying and screening gifted students to include a detailed checklist specific to each grade band from kindergarten to sixth grade. This will alleviate any confusion for school districts when implementing their gifted and talented programs, and allow for a more cohesive approach to providing services across the state.

Develop an early elementary branch of the gifted and talented program.

This program should be tailored to identifying, screening, and enriching students who are exceeding academically as early as kindergarten, and allow them the opportunity to continue to excel through age-appropriate, weekly enrichment pull-outs. Such a program would  also provide professional learning opportunities and resources for kindergarten-second grade teachers to assist in differentiation strategies for  gifted students who need more rigor.

Ensure  gifted and talented programs are of the same duration as weekly academic intervention pull-outs.

Gifted students need the same amount of time to accelerate their learning as students who are provided instruction to ensure they are at grade level. Most intervention pull-outs take place several days a week for approximately an hour each, yet gifted and talented enrichment has at most an hour and a half of pull out one day each week. This subconsciously creates a culture focused primarily on helping students who fall below where they should be, while simultaneously not prioritizing students who are exceeding the expectation.

Ultimately, this leads to fewer students exceeding expectations because there is little to which they can look forward. By allowing both the enrichment and intervention pull-outs to be on the same schedule, Arkansas would exemplify its commitment to equity in instruction.

Young students like Gracie who are reading books, writing sentences, and solving two-digit addition and subtraction problems deserve to not only be seen but also served as excelling students.

Even the highest achieving students still have room to grow and we need to be there to support them.