Designing and Implementing Interactive, Collaborative Family Literacy Events

Shared experiences through school-hosted events, such as family literacy events, can afford opportunities to support and extend academic learning while fostering positive home–school relationships. This article describes the importance of developing primary-grade students’ literacy skills through a talent development lens and explains several ways to nurture students’ literacy skills and recognize potential, gifts, and talents during family literacy events. This article features one of the activities from the family literacy events, Environmental Print Bingo, a modification of I-Spy and Bingo which uses rich and varied environmental print resources. A description of this activity, necessary resources, and implementation tips are provided. Options for differentiating this learning activity to provide more challenge for gifted learners are suggested. Throughout the article, the application of a pedagogy for early childhood gifted education and Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence as a framework are discussed; these approaches informed the design of all family literacy activities. A brief overview of nine additional family literacy event activities is also shared. Welcoming and involving families of English learners is an important consideration in many communities, and therefore, preparation tips and considerations for facilitators that will help maximize the participation of all families are included. Finally, reflections and helpful advice for implementing family literacy events in your school communities are presented, including advice for implementing online family literacy events. Ultimately, this article should help readers conceptualize, plan, and implement family literacy events in their school communities.

From Managing Stigma to Forming Friendships: Introducing a Model of Friendship Development

Parents, teachers, counselors, and others are rightfully concerned about how to support students with gifts and talents in making friends while maintaining their interest in learning. Building on decades of research, the authors describe the model of High-Ability Students' Friendship Development Process. This process is described in a flowchart and clarifies points of intervention. When those who work with students with gifts and talents are aware of the importance that differences in ability make in their friendships, they can guide them toward building healthy relationships.

Screening for Giftedness Using a Reading Curriculum Based Measure

The psychometric integrity of a curriculum-based measure to screen for academic giftedness (Monitoring Instructional Responsiveness: Reading [MIR:R]) was evaluated by examining its ceiling, item gradient, and predictive capacity using 460 fourth grade students. Eighty fourth graders (17.39%) scored one standard deviation above the MIR:R mean. Ten fourth graders (2.17%) scored two or more standard deviations above the mean, indicating an adequate ceiling. Item gradients were sufficient, that is, one raw score change produced less than one-third of a standard deviation change in standard deviation units. The MIR:R accurately screened students who performed in the “advanced” range on an end-of-the-year measure (i.e., Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program [TCAP]). Results of a chi-square indicated that 78.3% were identified as non-gifted by both the TCAP and MIR:R and 5.9% were identified as gifted.

The Journey of a Word: An Action Research Intervention of Morphemic Analysis and Etymology for a Middle School Gifted and Talented Class

Sixth-grade students who had been identified as gifted and talented participated in a literacy intervention designed and implemented by the first author as part of an action research project. These students were meeting the grade-level standards in literacy, so the project aimed to push their vocabulary knowledge further in order to prepare them for the complex vocabulary they encounter in their independent reading and assigned content units. This daily intervention directly taught students the origins and histories of words and word parts from Latin, Greek, Germanic, and French languages, introduced morphemic analysis strategies, and gave them techniques to analyze the words’ meanings based on that information. Content-specific vocabulary, as well as general vocabulary knowledge of the participating students increased significantly. Throughout the intervention, students’ confidence in vocabulary knowledge improved, and they gained a deeper understanding of the nuances of language as their ability to apply this knowledge in other contexts grew and facilitated better understanding of the words they read.

Making 20% Matter Most: Meeting the Needs of Gifted and High Ability Students Through Type III 20Time (T4) Projects

A 9th grade Honors English class creates and publishes original poems, art, fiction, and nonfiction products through an activity called “Type Three – Twenty Time = T4.” The instructional method merges elements from Renzulli’s Type III process with elements from Brookhouser’s 20Time Project-based learning model. Each student researches an interest passion topic and creates a related original product or service for a real audience. Upon reflection on the experience, the author identifies evidence-based practices including compacting ELA course content to create time for the T4 process; enhanced student engagement; active learning versus passive learning; improved writing skills; quality presentation skills; higher level creative and critical thinking; and upgraded 21st Century skills.

A Sociological Examination of Parenting Practices and Gifted Education

This literature review uses a socio-cultural lens to explore how income, race, culture, and parenting practices interact to cause, complicate, and further exacerbate the gap in gifted student identification. The article reframes the aforementioned factors using Annette Lareau’s work on concerted cultivation and natural growth models as a theoretical explanation. The authors recommend the following to address gifted education enrollment inequity: enhanced preparation and training of gifted student identification for educators, education about culturally relevant teaching practices, and improvements to the curricula in schools serving minority and low-income students.