Some thoughts on what may even out by third grade are found in these online articles:
1) http://giftedkids.about.com/od/schoolissues/i/even_out.htm
and
2) http://giftedkids.about.com/b/2006/08/09/leveling-of-abilities-in-third-grade.htm

Some thoughts on nurturing, written by renowned author of the French tale "The Little Prince", are found in this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince,
which reads, in part:
“ I sat down [facing a sleeping] couple. Between the man and the woman a child had hollowed himself out a place and fallen asleep. He turned in his slumber, and in the dim lamplight I saw his face. What an adorable face! A golden fruit had been born of these two peasants..... This is a musician's face, I told myself. This is the child Mozart. This is a life full of beautiful promise. Little princes in legends are not different from this. Protected, sheltered, cultivated, what could not this child become? When by mutation a new rose is born in a garden, all gardeners rejoice. They isolate the rose, tend it, foster it. But there is no gardener for men. This little Mozart will be shaped like the rest by the common stamping machine.... This little Mozart is condemned. ” —A Sense of Life: En Route to the U.S.S.R