Educating Your Gifted Child

What would make a dedicated public school teacher decide to homeschool her own children? In her new book, "Educating Your Gifted Child: How One Public School Teacher Embraced Homeschooling," Celi Trepanier shares her journey from a top teacher in traditional schools to a disillusioned parent struggling to get an appropriate and challenging education for her gifted sons. How is the current educational system failing our gifted and twice-exceptional students? How can parents fight for the education their children need and deserve? What options do parents and their gifted children have? Celi addresses these concerns and more in "Educating Your Gifted Child."

Advise on a wide range of topics about gifted children, from the characteristics of and myths about gifted kids to matching teaching and reading styles and handling family dynamics. Includes many of her own experiences and those of other parents, as well as experts in the field. Provides lists of resources and support groups to help parents in making educational choices for gifted children fromp preschool age and up.

The book presents practical strategies to identify and nurture exceptionally high ability in children. These authors promote the "mastery" (rather than the "mystery") model of gifted education and challenge several common practices and assumptions.

LEARN TO MEET THE NEEDS OF YOUR GIFTED CHILD Though academic abilities have always been important in determining whether your child is gifted, talent in the visual or performing arts, leadership qualities, and intellectual curiosity are just as vital. But unless we as parents help nurture those talents, our gifted children can become bored, socially aggressive, or, ironically, underachievers in the classroom. Here is a practical, informative, and authoritative primer for raising and educating our gifted children from pre-school to adolescence. Beginning with sensible strategies to determine whether—and in which areas—your child is gifted, this book takes parents through selecting an appropriate day-care center, a school, and a home reference library. It helps us figure out where our role stops and the school’s role begins, as well as detailing ways to keep our children’s creativity alive and how to cope with sibling rivalry and our own doubts and fears. Also included are a recommended reading list, a special section on the roles of the computer and television in your gifted child’s life, and much more.

A guide to the many issues gifted children face that offers parents and teachers advice on identifying gifted children, helping them get the most of classroom programs, forming parent support groups, meeting social and emotional needs, and choosing the appropriate curriculum.

This guide encourages and enables teachers to identify gifted children as early as age four and create a learning environment that supports all students. Proven, practical strategies and techniques help you teach to multiple intelligences, compact and extend the curriculum, communicate with parents, and more.

With all the talk of failing schools these days, we forget that schools can fail their brightest students, too. We pledge to "leave no child behind," but in American schools today, thousands of gifted and talented students fall short of their potential. In Genius Denied, Jan and Bob Davidson describe the "quiet crisis" in education: gifted students spending their days in classrooms learning little beyond how to cope with boredom as they "relearn" material they've already mastered years before. This lack of challenge leads to frustration, underachievement, and even failure. Some gifted students become severely depressed. At a time when our country needs a deep intellectual talent pool, the squandering of these bright young minds is a national tragedy. There are hundreds of thousands of highly gifted children in the U.S. and millions more whose intelligence is above average, yet few receive the education they deserve. Many school districts have no gifted programs or offer only token enrichment classes. Education of the gifted is in this sorry state, say the Davidsons, because of indifference, lack of funding, and the pernicious notion that education should have a "leveling" effect, a one-size-fits-all concept that deliberately ignores the needs of the gifted. But all children are entitled to an appropriate education, insist the authors, those left behind as well as those who want to surge ahead. The Davidsons show parents and educators how to reach and challenge gifted students. They offer practical advice based on their experience as founders of a nonprofit organization that assists gifted children. They show parents how to become their children's advocates, how to win support for gifted students within the local schools, and when and how to go outside the school system. They discuss everything from acceleration ("skipping" a grade) to homeschooling and finding mentors for children. They tell stories of real parents and students who overcame poor schooling environments to discover the joy of learning. Genius Denied is an inspiring book that provides a beacon of hope for children at risk of losing their valuable gift of intellectual potential.

A gifted education Legacy Award winner, Parenting Gifted Kids: Tips for Raising Happy and Successful Children provides a humorous, engaging, and encouraging look at raising gifted children today. James R. Delisle, Ph.D., offers practical, down-to-earth advice that will cause parents to reexamine the ways they perceive and relate to their children. Dr. Delisle puts forward 10 tips to parents of gifted children—ideas that reflect attitude and approach and allow for introspection and change, rather than quick, do-it-tonight solutions. Some topics of interest include understanding a child's giftedness, working with the school system, dealing with perfectionism in gifted kids, and being adult role models for children. Along the way, stories from gifted children and their parents provide insight into the lives of these individuals. What sets this book apart from other books for parents of gifted kids is its expansion beyond mere platitudes. Dr. Delisle's tips go beyond the basics, focusing on attitude, reflection, and subtle changes, rather than specific, cookie-cutter recipes for action. The 10 tips suggested and expanded upon in this book include: understanding what giftedness is . . . and what it is not; understanding the differences between gifted kids and their agemates; understanding the personality traits of gifted kids, including overexcitabilities; taking charge of your child's education; understanding the issue of perfectionism in gifted kids; examining social nuances and myths related to giftedness; examining the similarities parents share with their gifted children; setting reasonable goals; helping gifted children make a difference in the lives of others; and remembering that gifted children are kids first and gifted second. Educational Resource