Your Guide to Homeschooling Gifted Students
What is a gifted child? It’s easy to say everyone is gifted, and it is true that everyone has strengths and areas in which they shine. But “gifted” is a clinical definition which relates specifically to having an abnormally high intelligence. While at first that can sound wonderful and amazing, it also comes with it’s own set of challenges.
The Columbus Group defines Giftedness as…
asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual capacity. The uniqueness of the gifted renders them particularly vulnerable and requires modifications in parenting, teaching and counseling in order for them to develop optimally. (The Columbus Group, 1991).
Gifted is Intense and Asynchronous
Along with intelligence, giftedness can also be defined by asynchrony and heightened intensity. Asynchrony is when a child’s mental, physical, emotional, and social abilities develop at different rates. You see them when a 6 year old has an exceptional vocabulary to hold a conversation with an adult, but still throws a tantrum when they drop their toy truck. Their mental abilities appear equal to that of an older child, but their emotional abilities are lagging behind and have only developed to the level you would expect for a preschooler.
The intensity of giftedness can show up in a variety of ways. It can look like big emotions or a need to move, a driven desire to learn everything about something or imposter syndrome. It can look like being a little extra. This intensity is not something that can be medicated away, it is just a part of the gifted personality profile.
With all this background in mind, how can you adapt to homeschooling gifted students, knowing that each one is completely unique?
Five Strategies to Teaching Gifted Students.
#1 Ignore Grade Levels
Students who are asynchronous have a hard time fitting in a grade level box. Sometimes you will even discover learning disabilities along side giftedness making grade levels even harder. I find the most success in my children’s education when I choose for each subject for each child, then i can pick materials that fit their needs at the moments.
#2 Skip the busy work
Gifted kids often master new material faster than their peers. This means they need less repetition and homework with the material. Don’t feel bad about not assigning all the worksheets in the lesson. One activity we do prioritize is to take intentional notes as we study materials because the act of writing helps move the information we see and hear into our memory. We did this when we studied Native Americans. We wrote big ideas worth remembering about each people group but skipped the fancy coloring pages and crossword puzzles: they were going to be a recipe for boredom and frustration.
#3 Year Round Learning
Gifted kids need constant mental stimulation. Their minds have an appetite to learn and do. Our family has found it helpful to maintain some level of school year round. We use a morning time format to study as many subjects as we can together. I plan our learning in 6 week blocks and make adjustments for holidays and seasonal learning. In the summer, it’s usually the basics and we let other activities override our schooling. It also allows us to take breaks during the year that fit our family instead of feeling interrupted by the national holidays or artificial breaks of a traditional calendar year.
#4 Deeper Not Faster
Gifted Learners often want to learn more about a subject, not just learn more material faster. They like to know the WHYs. This makes it important to consider going deeper in your learning instead of just faster. We have found using Unit Studies for our science to be a good fit. We choose 4-6 topics over the school year and study them in depth at each child’s level. We use lots of library books and then have each child write essays based on their areas of interest within the topic area. You will be surprised what younger students can come up with. And don’t rule out putting your plans on hold when something catches your student’s interest and you all dive in to follow the interest!
Read about us following their interest in the Space Race
#5 Student Led Creativity
Create space for the student to follow their own interests that don’t fit neatly in a school subject. Embrace the flexibility of homeschooling to follow your kids’ creative interests. Helping them find books at the library or local community events to attend. Our family has enjoyed being part of a 4-H club which encourages personal study and growth and we have also begun publishing our writing assignments in a newspaper so family and friends can read it with us.
Homeschooling Gifted Students
Gifted kids can be intense and a challenge. Because we homeschool we can tweak and adjust their curriculum choices to accommodate their many grade levels across subjects.
I remember my first few years of homeschool to tweak the box curriculums to fit our needs but the more I go rogue from the pre-planned material the better fit I find for our family. The less I follow someone else’s teaching plan the more I can embrace what works for my family, and that is the beauty of homeschooling!
Just keep asking yourself, “what does THIS child need right NOW to keep learning?”
