Being Smart about Gifted Education. A Guidebook for Educators and Parents (2nd edition)

Written for both parents and educators, the book presents practical strategies to identify and nurture exceptionally high ability in children. These authors promote the “mastery” (rather than the “mystery”) model of gifted education and challenge several common practices and assumptions. They assert that if children are to learn optimally, teachers must provide them with educational experiences that are appropriate for each individual child’s level of readiness. An important step in the process of determining a child’s level of learning is pre-testing before starting a new unit of instruction to discover the correct level of classroom instruction necessary for each child. The authors also advocate achievement testing for the same reason, and they explain how this works in the classroom.Topics include: “Mastery” vs. “mystery” models of gifted education How giftedness develops Relevant brain research Use and misuse of assessment Programming options Social and behavioral concerns Teacher development processes Parenting strategies