Teaching Gifted Students: Strategies for Teachers

All students have the potential to be gifted and talented. It’s important to nurture every child, helping them identify their strengths and build academic resilience. When a child excels academically, cognitively, creatively, socially, and emotionally, we need to take specific steps to harness those strengths productively and positively. I’ve had students in class showing extraordinary comprehension in reading, writing, math, and social-emotional skills at just six years old. These students were ready for more challenges and engagement than schools typically provide at their age. Teaching them at Genie Academy has been rewarding, as has watching their love of learning soar as they strive to be their best. This article serves as a guide to understanding, identifying, and teaching gifted students. We will explore characteristics, assessment tools and methods, effective teaching strategies, and programs to help your child realize their full potential.

Understanding Giftedness

What is a gifted student? How do you know if your child is gifted? According to the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, gifted students are “children who demonstrate an advanced ability or potential in one or more specific areas compared to others of the same age, experience, or environment. These gifted individuals excel in their ability to think, reason, and judge” (Davidson Institute, 2021). Giftedness typically encompasses cognitive, creative, academic, leadership, and social/emotional maturity. I’ve written many success stories of children displaying these traits who, with additional support from Genie Academy, gained admission to programs like the Johns Hopkins Gifted and Talented Program, achieved top ranks in Math Kangaroo, and entered prestigious charter schools. As an educator, witnessing these successes through the right challenges and dedicated effort has been fulfilling.

Characteristics of Gifted Students

Gifted students often exhibit advanced problem-solving skills, high curiosity, and intense focus. In my classroom, students often share fascinating, thought-provoking ideas. Their curiosity and meticulous responses teach me as much as I teach them. Their intrinsic desire to excel drives their continuous pursuit of understanding.

Cognitive Development:

• High IQ scores
• Rapid comprehension and retention
• Strong logical reasoning

Academic Indicators:

• Exceptional proficiency in one or more subjects
• Extensive knowledge and understanding of specific topics
• Independence and self-direction

Creativity:

• Original, out-of-the-box thinking
• Strong artistic skills in areas like music, drawing, and painting
• Ability to make novel connections between concepts

Leadership and Social Development:

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Ability to motivate and unite others
• Confidence in decision-making and taking responsibility

Identifying Gifted Students

To determine if your child is gifted, look for these signs:

Early Reading:

• Interest in books before formal schooling
• Excellent retention of story information
• Natural grasp of language and reading fluency

Advanced Verbal Skills:

• Extensive vocabulary
• Complex sentence construction
• Clear articulation of thoughts and ideas

Exceptional Memory:

• High detail retention
• Ability to quickly recall information

Deep Curiosity:

• Frequent, insightful questions
• Genuine interest and passion in various subjects

Advanced Problem-Solving and Creativity:

• Innovative approaches to problems
• Critical thinking and creative solutions

Assessment Tools and Methods

If you're unsure whether your child fits into a gifted and talented program, consider these assessment tools and methods:

• IQ Tests: Measure cognitive abilities through various tests to indicate potential giftedness.
• Performance Assessments at School: Evaluate practical tasks and projects that demonstrate skills in real-life contexts, including progress, project planning, thinking, and creativity.
• Teacher and Parent Observations: Assess how your child performs compared to peers and whether they exceed grade expectations.

Effective Teaching Strategies for Gifted Students

If you’ve identified your student is gifted, then there are specific things you can do to make sure you’re nurturing their talent and helping them grow more and more. 

1. Differentiated Instruction

It’s important to make sure your students are getting the challenge they need and deserve. Making sure their diverse needs are met is a key aspect of cultivating their success. In my classroom, I have students across the board at different levels. I want to make sure each student gets what they need to succeed; to do that, each student has a modified curriculum that best suits their diverse needs in content, process, products, and learning environment.

• Content: We want to make sure the content is advanced with higher-level texts that exceed the current curriculum. 
• Process: It’s important that the learning process methods vary with some independent work, collaborative work, and creative work. 
• Products: Similar to the learning process, there are variations; the learning products should vary through projects, papers, reports, etc.
• Learning Environment: It’s so important for all students, especially gifted students, to be in a classroom environment where curiosity, critical thinking, independence, creativity, and collaboration are encouraged. 

2. Enrichment Programs

Every child should have enrichment opportunities that go beyond academics. That being said, we want to make sure that gifted students do activities that go beyond the standard curriculum, such as independent projects, extracurricular activities, and mentorship. It is so critical that children get stimulation from things that aren’t just academics. 

• Independent study projects where your student focuses on devoting time and energy researching something that matters to them. Working on personal goals that they like and want their energy to be valuable. For example, I have had students come to me with their personal journals showing me drawings they’ve been learning how to do. 
• Extracurricular activities can make students learn more about themselves and the world around them, so it’s important to encourage your students to venture into that world.

Watching my students tell me about their cultural dance practices, tennis games, wrestling matches, and art lessons, I see how their eyes light up as they describe every detail in excitement. Lastly, if there are opportunities for mentorship for potential career advice and understanding, it can make all the difference to how your gifted student views their future. 

3. Build In Flexible Learning Groups: 

It’s useful for educators to create small groups with flexible learning that considers your students’ readiness level, strengths, and interests. Small groups can help us identify students' strengths and weaknesses, which helps us pinpoint what we can nurture. It’s important to have all of your students socialize and work together. A strategy I have used multiple times is grouping up students of different levels to help each other. Either way, your gifted student is learning from someone or helping teach another student. 

4. Acceleration Options:

• Grade Skipping: Advance to a higher grade if your child is ahead in all aspects.
• Subject-Specific Acceleration: Allow advancement in specific subjects where your child excels.
• Compact Curricula: Remove mastered topics to make room for more advanced material.

5. Embrace Creativity/ Creative Questions

It’s important we give our students the space to embrace their creativity and ask creative questions. Gifted learners are typically curious and have lots of questions and ideas. We want to make sure we encourage them to keep asking questions and keep thinking outside the box. Implementing genius hours, divergent thinking challenges, and debates can help expand their creativity and curiosity. 

• Genius Hour: Similar to an independent project, is a time for students to research and work on passion projects. This is when you really see your students' eyes light up and wheels turning because they really care about what they are doing. 

• Divergent Thinking Challenges: Ask “What if?” questions related to the subject. Having this flow of what if alternative scenario discussions can really stimulate creative responses and ideas. 

• Debates: Debates do a great job of incorporating research, developing strong reasons to build an argument, and get challenged by peers. This is one of the best ways to get your students thinking outside the box. 

6. Encouraging Social and Emotional Development

Nurturing the emotional needs of gifted students is as important as their academic growth. Many gifted students struggle with perfectionism, placing undue pressure on themselves to perform flawlessly. 

Combat this by:

• Providing positive encouragement
• Praising effort rather than perfection
• Promoting a growth mindset that values learning from mistakes

Overcoming Common Challenges

Some common challenges that gifted students face are: 

• Lack of Challenge: We want to make sure our gifted students are being challenged, typically in school, if your child is excelling beyond their peers, they may feel bored in school and not challenged. 

• Overcoming Boredom: It helps to implement differentiated instruction tailored to your child’s ability. 

• Fear of Failure: Students could have high self-imposed expectations that could result in more mistakes, discouraging risk-taking and effort. 

• Overcoming Fear of Failure: It helps to encourage a growth mindset that welcomes mistakes and praises effort. You can help do so by praising your child for always trying versus only for getting good grades. 

• Insufficient Support: Without proper guidance, gifted students may need help navigating academics and social challenges. 

• Overcoming Insufficient Support: It helps to connect your child with good support from mentors, teachers, and, of course, yourselves. Reaching out to tutors for specialized support. 

Need Additional Support? Genie Academy Can Help

Genie Academy offers customizable curricula tailored to your child’s pace. We provide workbooks for reading, writing, math, abacus, common core, and coding, fostering a positive learning environment that keeps your child engaged and enthusiastic. Our Success Stories highlight many students who have entered Gifted and Talented Programs thanks to Genie’s support. One specifically, who recently got into the South Plainfield Gifted and Talented program. She scored in the 98th percentile at 9 years old with the help of Genie Academy’s Reading & Writing, Common Core, and Abacus program. In this process we all worked together to nurture her strengths.  With six locations in New Jersey – Plainsboro, East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Hillsborough, South Plainfield, and Marlboro—Genie Academy is the perfect place for gifted students to thrive.

Conclusion

This article covered identifying giftedness, assessment tools and methods, effective teaching strategies, enrichment programs, accelerated learning, social and emotional support, overcoming common challenges, and the support provided by Genie Academy. As an educator, I believe every student can strive to enter a gifted and talented program. It’s crucial to ensure that students excelling beyond their peers receive the challenges they deserve. I encourage my gifted students to believe in themselves and embrace the learning process rather than settling for good grades. Parents can boost their child’s confidence by teaching them that it’s okay to make mistakes but not to stop trying or being curious. You can do this, and if you need assistance, Genie Academy is here to help uncover the genius your child was born to be.