Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Differentiation within Gifted Program?

As a matter of options open to serve a gifted kid, differentiation into acceleration should be a continuum. But be aware that in edu-speak, differentiation and acceleration are very different things.

We've seen skillful differentation and successful acceleration within (and in parallel to) gifted services, each leading to positive outcomes. The most skillful differentiation our kids have had have nearly forced subsequent acceleration. We've also used acceleration in places where the differentiation was not implemented, implemented on the curriculum side and NOT on the instruction side, or was otherwise damaging.

No.

ETA: My daughter is in a FT gifted magnet and there is no differentiation. All children do the same curriculum (however, in terms of reading, they do a lot of self-chosen independent reading). It is a weakness.

My son is not in the magnet yet (too young) but receives gifted pull-out services (not differentiated) several times a week AND is differentiated for by his classroom teacher, who gives him his own individualized work (not by mandate but because she is great). So, he is differentiated more than his sister, who is a FT GT program. Ponder at will. He was also part-time accelerated last year. He was received a much more individualized education in the general education program at a very poor Title 1 school than dd got: #1) at a very coveted charter school known for its high test scores and personalized attention or #2) at the gifted magnet. I think he made a case for himself by being very obvious and that he got lucky with great teachers. But...he is an interesting example. Virtually no one I know would ever think to enroll their gifted K student at his school.

They didn't offer acceleration, either. We had to find a way to foist it on them.

They just offer the G/T daily pull-outs, but that's not nothing. It's just that in my HG DD's case, that's a good start, what else ya got?

My experience is that many schools don't offer acceleration as a matter of course; it requires significant advocacy and a compelling case, including data. Accelerations are a scheduling nightmare (and don't let anyone tell you it gets easier in middle school & high school), and risk-adverse administrators are weary of testing consequences. As teacher evaluations are increasingly dependent upon student test scores, many teachers are also proving unwilling to have a top student leave the room, and many are unwilling to risk having an accelerated kid score poorly and therefore count against them.

I've had good luck on advocacy by being aware of the problems and working as best we can to prove testing won't be a problem and to work within the system on scheduling.

We were asking them to move her from Grade n to Grade n+1. No scheduling challenges. Of all the interventions available, none could be easier.

Our school system has some bizarre beliefs about the importance of age segregation, and they go to absurd lengths to preserve it.

That's kind of where we are at...um, thanks, but...school is still too much review and SLLOOOWWWW for her. I really thought that we'd finally be at the point where she'd be doing most of her learning at school.

We've read the IAS, and we could probably make the argument for acceleration. IMO, acceleration would need to be into the G&T program, NOT into regular classes, that would possibly be even easier one grade up, KWIM?

I guess what I'm starting to see is that if their approach is insufficient differentiation (and I realize that it may be difficult to do), we might need acceleration. Asking for accelerated G&T classes, though, will probably be an uphill battle. Honestly, I wish they could just teach her well where she is at (and, again, I'm not claiming that this is easy).

Have most of you then been able to get your DC into G&T classes, once accelerated?

We homeschool, but the public school gifted program is a full-time self-contained gifted program which does allow kids to move at their own pace. For example, I know of a 1st grader doing 4th grade math, and a 7th grader doing pre-calculus.

The public schools here are overall horrendous, and you have to venture into high crime areas to get to the gifted programs, and have your kids used as score pawns, so we abstain from the whole system.

Yes, with no resistance, but that's not surprising when you consider that we had basically seized all the bargaining power in the relationship. They still very much wanted a talented student to buoy their test scores and fill a seat in their G/T class (classified as special ed here, and each seat receives 1.5x the normal rate), and we had demonstrated that we could take them or leave them, with the latter being a preference.

The way we foisted the acceleration upon them was we withdrew DD from 2nd grade, registered her as a homeschool child as a 3rd grader, had her sit for achievement testing at the end of the year as a 3rd grader (our state test, plus the SB10), and showed up to re-register her as a 4th grader the following year.

That was the second time we had withdrawn her and homeschooled her (first was K, when full GT services were not available, and returned her for 1st grade, which DD muddled through thanks to a caring but overwhelmed homeroom teacher), so, while we didn't quite phrase it this directly, we made it very clear that this was their third and final opportunity to get it right. They would take her as a 4th grader with full G/T, or they'd never see her again.

We went to a meeting with the G&T coordinator to make that argument when DS was in 1st. She made the suggestion before us. So, DS skipped 2nd specifically to get into the G&T program starting in 3rd.

Very, very interesting.

I don't think DH would be in favor of pulling either DC out of school, but seeing how much they recently accomplished on sick days just "playing" with academics at the "correct" level at home has left me wondering a bit whether I should be sending them to school.

We do have very high test scores on our side, Dude, but it is a big school - not sure how much they care about loosing one child's test scores at a larger school.

DS is in 1st. His situation is probably worse than DD's. No G&T programming until 3rd/4th. I'm not sure if the school really understands what he is capable of - he is quiet, but I did "out" him by having him tested, and he is now a DYS.

Zen, I'm assuming your school's 1st & 3rd grades are housed in the same school? Problem for DS is that his SCHOOL has no G&T coordinator, because G&T is housed in another school with the higher grades.

22B - that is actually super-impressive that a 1st grader is allowed to work on 4th grade material. I am sorry that the schools didn't work out, though.