Teaching Gifted, Talented and Able Children (4-11 years)
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141 pages
Author: Professor Valsa Koshy and Ron Casey
This book focuses on practical strategies for both the identification of special gifts and talents of children and for making appropriate provision for them in the classroom. The authors have written this book in response to a large number of requests from schools and parents for guidance and support for addressing the needs of higher ability children. As school inspections continue to highlight the lack of challenge and policies to address the needs of the most able in schools, the contents of this book provide a comprehensive list of aspects which schools need to consider in supporting their able, gifted and talented children – no matter how these children are described or referred to.
The authors Valsa Koshy and Ron Casey have based the contents of this handbook on their own research and work with teachers and children over 20 years, since they founded the Able Children’s Education Centre at Brunel University. Their experience has led them to develop their philosophy which proposes moving away from labeling children as ‘gifted’ to one of spotting their special abilities and interests and developing them. Teachers have been excited about this shift to ‘nurturing’ and ‘developing’ and designing school policies and practical strategies based on this philosophy.
This book should help the readers:
to enhance their own understanding of aspects relating to high ability, giftedness and talent, so they feel confident in their approaches.
by supporting them in the development of well-informed and robust planning of programmes to develop children’s special abilities.
by providing them with an accessible set of principles for providing high quality learning experiences and guide them on how to provide optimal conditions for learning for all children, by focusing on high expectations for the most able.
by helping them to adopt practical ideas for organising professional development for themselves and colleagues.
to provide evidence of appropriate provision being made for developing children’s special interests, gifts and talents.
to design school policies for nurturing children’s abilities.
Specific emphasis is given to the following principles:
High quality provision must precede identification, as children are more likely to demonstrate their specific aptitudes and abilities if we provide the right conditions for learning.
There are gifted, talented and high ability children in all backgrounds, which may be masked as a result of social disadvantage, lack of confidence and other challenging situations.
Gifts and talents are more likely to be domain-specific. Rarely does a child excel or is interested in all subjects or domains; therefore describing children as globally ‘gifted’ may be misleading and makes the creation of lists of ‘gifted’ children in schools challenging and not very practical.
We must engage parents actively in the process of both identification and the development of gifts and talents of children.
Special features included in the handbook
Brief exploration of recent and relevant international expert views on giftedness and talent.
Case Studies of Children to promote discussion and reflection.
Checklists, including a ‘Multiple Intelligences’ checklist based on Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences which proposes the existence of specific talents.
The special case of talent development in younger children.
Models for classroom planning: The Gateway model and Bloom’s taxonomy, for example.
Organisational structures for maximising learning opportunities.
Developing a school policy, including an example policy which may be adapted and used by schools.
Proformas and questionnaires for talent identification and recording.