The Primary Program
Position Statements

Education Needs for Children with High Ability and Special Talents

Children with high ability and special talents thrive in a child-centered environment that supports continuous progress. The primary program removes the barriers of narrow learning tasks and objectives for all children thereby providing opportunities to choose extended, open-ended, focused pursuits of personal learning preferences and interests. The child who loves to read is able to extend time with a favorite book or writing project when reading is not limited to a “period” of the day. Another child may choose to expand a whole class science experience by drawing, writing about, and constructing a model of the science observations. At the sand table, still another child may measure and compare amounts of sand as well as move sand in a multi-sensory experience.

In a recent comparison (Javits Nebraska Project) of children’s activities in child-centered and teacher-directed classrooms, both quantitative and qualitative differences in children’s activities were described. In the area of literacy, findings in the child-centered classroom were: more discussion, sharing, writing, and collaborating; more individual choice work; more silent reading, personal reading time, and listening to others read; more sign and symbol study, elaboration of ideas, and decision-making. In contrast, in the teacher-directed classroom, findings included: more teacher directions, silent work, assignment work; more cut-and-color activities, large group teacher-led activity, out loud reading, and illustrating.

Children with high ability and special talents, particularly those who enter school already reading, writing, drawing, and understanding content, benefit from having choices regarding learning, thinking, content, and the use of time. Evidence supports that, given the option, children will use self-selected time and activities well. The primary program environment also provides opportunities for indicators of special talents and high ability to emerge. These indicators guide the design of individual learning goals throughout the child’s educational experience. As children are engaged in learning experiences, the teacher observes behaviors and learning preferences. The ongoing assessment process in the child-centered learning environment allows children to explore and express their abilities and teachers to identify those abilities and interest.

Working with children of high ability and special talents can be gratifying for teachers. It is critical, however, to recognize that giftedness comes in many different forms and not all achievements will look the same. The varying needs of all young children must be considered and appropriate experiences facilitated to accommodate those individual differences (Garnett Chitwood, 1992).