I have copied the article here, just in case the link gets broken or the article gets moved (EVERY link in this article was broken - that's why I copy and/or print stuff that I think is important). This is NOT my work.
Saturday, June 02, 2007 - by Carol Fertig
Do you have a child who is an excellent reader, but is not picking up books on her own? Do you wish you had a way to help your student choose books that will enrich his life? Do you want to give a gift of a book to a precocious reader, but don’t know where to start?
In many districts, school librarians no longer exist. In efforts to cut costs, aids with little training often replace these import figures in student education. Yet librarians, parents, and teachers are so important in guiding precocious readers to appropriate choices. In order to maintain interest in reading, students often need help in finding books that inspire them.
Debbie Abilock points out in Lighting the Gifted Reader’s Journey—the Parent-Librarian Partnership (*link and text below) ways in which parents can support and encourage school librarians and how the librarian’s knowledge of books can be used to point young readers in the right direction.
Rita Soltan advises other librarians how to advise gifted readers in her article titled Precocious Readers (**link and text below). She recommends that first librarians find out areas of interest to the young person. Next, those interests should be matched to books that contain at least some of the following criteria:
Language that is rich, varied, precise, complex and exciting
A story that is open-ended and inspires contemplative behavior
A book that will leave the reader with as many questions as answers
Fiction complex enough to allow interpretive and evaluative behavior
Non-fiction that helps a student build problem-solving skills and develop methods of productive thinking
Characters that are portrayed as intelligent, talented, resourceful, and/or inventive
In Challenging Gifted Readers (***link and text below), Patricia Austin discusses reading elements that challenge strong readers, including language, structure, perspective or point of view, ambiguous endings, and content. Reading well-written books about professional role models is also important, especially if the books enable readers to view the work of a scientist, historian, activist, or other contributor to society. In addition, books with gifted protagonists help bright readers better see their own lives, struggles, and feelings mirrored in the characters. While gifted readers may not naturally gravitate towards these books, adults can certainly steer them in that direction. Austin goes on to elaborate on each of these elements and also provides an annotated bibliography of suggested books. Suggested grade levels are provided.
Bertie Kingore has some excellent reading discussion questions for young people—even very young learners in Reading Instruction for the Primary Gifted Learner. These questions will help students to think about their thinking.
What can you tell me about your reading?
What did you think was easy to do and hard to do?
What changes would you want to make?
What is the most important thing you learned from this?
What do you do when you are reading and you find a word you do not know?
When might it be a good idea to reread something?
Why do you think that is so?
How did the author cause you to infer/conclude that?
What evidence can you use to support that?
If you did not know, what would you do to get the most information?
*Debbie Abilock: Lighting the Gifted Reader’s Journey—the Parent-Librarian Partnership
Link: http://www.geniusdenied.com/articles/Record.aspx?NavID=13_32&rid=10584
Text: I was browsing the children’s section at my local Borders when I heard, “Not this—you’re too advanced for these,” and watched an earnest young mother close an oversized picture book and point her preadolescent daughter toward the teen section. As the girl slowly turned her eyes from Harriet Tubman’s expressive stare and walked toward the splashy display of edgy young-adult novels, I resisted an impulse to pull her back. To lay open those dramatic double-spread paintings of Tubman’s determined face and to read aloud the lyrical story of a courageous journey to freedom by the light of the North Star. I paused. The girl obeyed her mother. I left as she immersed herself in a mélange of gossipy girls and crossover adult titles.
But the moment sticks. For, as one independent bookstore after another closes and schools divert funds from their libraries so they can focus their resources on test failures, the reading guidance available to parents and children is more often from a paperback’s back cover than from an educator’s knowledge of the just-right book for a particular reader.
Increasingly, remarkable readers are guided on their intellectual journey by the consensus of social networks, marketing directors selling formulas novels with media tie-ins, or generic award lists. An educator’s expertise is being replaced by anecdotal opinions on Amazon, tips from My Space “friends,” mass-retailers’ display shelves of high-volume titles, and impersonal “best” lists issued by various education organizations.
Some self-sufficient gifted readers find and read books across many genres and topics while others soak up everything about a particular topic, such as dinosaurs or the Civil War. As a long-time school librarian, I’ve seen books returned all soggy because they could not be put aside for a bath, and watched a boy navigate a crowd, without lifting his eyes from a compelling book. Such independent readers rarely ask adults for help, yet they can flounder silently. They usually exhaust their classroom’s offerings within the first months of school and, without guidance or opportunity, turn to rereading favorites or to Internet browsing. While both have merit—rereading can deepen understanding and increase fluency, and the Internet does contain a variety of treasures—a steady diet of shallow, predictable reading deadens sensibilities and curiosity. Online text bytes lack extended logical analysis and are devoid of the fully developed characters and lyrical language that feed curious, imaginative minds.
The reading habit tends to decline with age. A recent national Yankelovich survey of parents and primary guardians reports that high-frequency readers (reading for fun every day) declines from 40 percent of 5-8 year olds to 29 percent of 9-11 year olds, and that the percentage continues to decline through age 17. (www.scholastic.com/aboutscholastic/news/reading_survey_press_call_2.pdf).
Aliterate gifted readers (those who can read but choose not to) are an emerging phenomenon. However, families have an important ally within their school and in the community—the librarian. In the Yankelovich study, high-frequency readers cite librarians and parents as the two most important influences on their reading choices. With professional training in children’s and young-adult literature, librarians have the expertise to match your child with just the right book. They serve as your co-advocate in today’s inhospitable climate of flawed skill-and-drill reading instruction. Unlike the classroom’s textbooks and controlled-vocabulary chapter books, which have been selected to support average and struggling readers, the library’s selection policy favors wide-ranging resources for diverse learners of all ages—an ideal intellectual playground for the highly able reader. The school librarian can be a source of information and inspiration for gifted students and their parents. Here are some tips on how you can work with the school librarian to ensure that your child selects challenging reading material at a developmentally appropriate level.
Create connections. If you are able to volunteer in the library, do it. Budget cutbacks may have resulted in the loss of support staff; your services shelving or mending books frees the librarian to spend quality time with children. If you cannot volunteer during the day, consider staffing a book fair before school, joining a Friends of the Library group, or helping organize an author visit one evening. Volunteering also gets you access, which can open doors to advocacy.
Milk the moments. When you have the librarian’s ear, describe your child’s reading preferences and ask for suggestions. If your child visualizes connections and constructions, suggest that the school library acquire adult books about Rube Goldberg, architecture, patents, and inventions. Ascribed reading levels are less important than motivation; librarians know that contraption-loving kids will pour over books way beyond their age-level. If your child puzzles over patterns and problems, look for authors like Paul Fleischman, Dianna Wynne Jones, and Ellen Raskin. Even if you don’t read adolescent novels, become familiar with and learn to discriminate among authors; hand your teenager Cynthia Voigt’s Bad Girls rather than an inferior copy-cat book on bullying or other hot-button issues. Again, your librarian can name highly regarded authors.
Value mastery. When children drive themselves to master a particularly difficult reading selection, they readily focus, persist, and make an effort for pure pleasure. If asked, even young readers may be able to articulate the metacognitive strategies (rereading, reading ahead, questioning the text) that have enabled them to understand a challenging passage. The reward is in unlocking the meaning. However, if a child is taught that the reward for reading is achieving a good grade, winning points, or receiving doting praise, then his or her effort and focus will drop when the pay-off is achieved. Therefore, parents should emphasize mastery for pleasure and be prepared to voice concern if a teacher or librarian over-emphasizes the quantity of books read or if the school institutes competitive reading-incentive programs.
Investigate enrichment. Librarians around the country have instituted special activities to serve gifted readers, such as mentoring an after-school poetry club and an in-school literature discussion program using both volunteers and classroom teachers. Anticipating the drop among male readers during middle school, still another librarian created an online book blog in which boys, their fathers, and male teachers discuss their favorite books (www.aptosjr.pvusd.net/guysread/). Your school librarian will be interested to learn about programs in other schools that can enrich the lives of highly-able readers.
Support curricular programs and services. School librarians are long-time advocates of curricular modifications such as interdisciplinary learning and independent research projects that nourish gifted students. While these well-known programs require additional teacher-librarian planning time and administrative support, even small modifications in the library schedule can support passionate readers. For example, research shows that sustained silent reading (SSR) periods of 15-30 minutes advance the motivation and skill of all readers, especially when students choose their own reading material. And, with your help, your school librarian can institute a “flexible access” period during which individual students from any class can browse and exchange resources on any day, not just once a week at library time. Five to ten parent volunteers can staff the library on a rotating basis during the first or last half-hour of each school day to facilitate open access to the library’s resources.
Develop a strong relationship with your school librarian—your goals are aligned. Together you can light the journey of your gifted reader with the constancy of the North Star.
Debbie Abilock, a consultant, speaker and author, has over 25 years experience with gifted students as a school librarian, curriculum coordinator and school administrator. She is the Editor-in-chief of Knowledge Quest, the print journal of the American Association of School Librarians, and co-founder of NoodleTools, Inc., which develops teaching software to assist students and support teachers and librarians throughout the process of library research.
**Rita Soltan: Precocious Readers
http://www.mlaforum.org/volumeI/issue1/precocious.html
Text: Rita Soltan, Head of youth Services, Baldwin Public Library (Birmingham), soltanri@baldwinlib.org
MLA Fall Conference November 7, 2001
Recommending children's literature and providing readers' advisory is a constant responsibility for youth services librarians. We take on this role in a variety of ways, from creating and producing recommended reading lists by grade level, subject matter, and curriculum needs to working one on one with our young patrons and their parents. More often than not, we are on the lookout for reluctant readers, be it children who read well but aren't interested or children who struggle to get through a chapter. However, in providing service to a complete community, we also must remember the gifted child, one I like to call the precocious reader. What criteria can we use to offer the best reader's advisory for this child? How does a gifted child learn and develop interests that we can nurture through his/her reading? Roxanne Reschke, Consultant in Learning Services Differentiated Instruction for Oakland Schools provided a clear overview on the learning needs of the gifted child and strategies for selecting literature for this part of the community we serve.
It must first be noted that Michigan, unlike other states, does not mandate gifted education in its public schools. This eliminates the requirement to identify gifted students and has created three islands of thought on how to approach or address these children in a curriculum. The first "island" is that of doing nothing because these children will make it by means of their own abilities, regardless. The second "island" is that of using the standardized IQ exam for identification where scoring beyond a certain point level is a requirement. The third "island" involves the understanding of what Howard Gardner calls "the theory of multiple intelligences" - that we can possess intelligence in eight different ways: verbally, mathematically or through logic, visually, kinetically, musically, through an understanding of nature, and with two emotional intelligences: self-intelligence and interpersonal intelligence.
Gifted children possess certain characteristics that will affect their reading interests and needs. They generally show a wide overall knowledge or some advanced interest in one or more fields. They very often possess a large vocabulary, read well and widely, and display a long attention span. This fosters exposure to a breadth of reading material that will develop critical reading skills and the opportunity to pursue a subject in depth. Gifted kids tend to be more sensitive and feel more comfortable with their true peers, people not necessarily of the same age but of the same interests. It is also important to remember that while most gifted children share the characteristics mentioned, each child is also unique in terms of experience, interests, personality, and expression of abilities.
So what can we as children's librarians do specifically for the precocious readers and parents who enter our libraries? First, try to get an idea of what the child's interests are as you would with all readers' advisory requests. Next, try to incorporate some of the following criteria for selecting literature for a gifted reader.
Language should be rich, varied, precise, complex and exciting
Story should be open-ended and inspire contemplative behavior
Book should leave the reader with as many questions as answers
Fiction should be complex enough to allow interpretive and evaluative behavior
Non-fiction should help students build problem-solving skills and develop methods of productive thinking
Also remember that these youngsters love to read about people to whom they can relate. Characters that are portrayed as intelligent, talented, resourceful, and/or inventive within a well-developed plot sequence will be more intriguing to the child. Biographies of people with the same interests and who were considered gifted before and during their accomplished lives are also good suggestions. Try a wide variety of non-fiction exposure for the child interested in an in-depth study of a topic. When appropriate, suggest participation in discussion groups either through the library or their community, or by joining an author study group. In addition, websites designed for the gifted and talented and their educators can provide suggested reading lists, such as that at the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University (http://www.jhu.edu/~gifted/).
Suggested Bibliography
Baskin, B.H., & Harris, H. (1980). Books for the gifted child. New York: R.R. Bowker.
Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University (http://www.jhu.edu/~gifted/).
Clark, B. (1997). Growing up gifted. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.
Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: Basic Books.
Hauser, P., & Nelson, G.A. Books for the gifted child (Vol. 2). New York: R.R. Bowker.
National Research Center for Gifted & Talented at University of Connecticut (http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt.html).
***Patricia Austin: Challenging Gifted Readers
http://www.ala.org/ala/booklinksbucket/giftedreaders.pdf
Text: Gifted children tend to live in a world of ideas. They often have amazing stores of knowledge that leave adults asking, “Where did you learn that?” Chances are they learned it from television, the Internet, and from books. Several elements are at play in a book that will challenge a gifted child. Those elements include language, structure, perspective or point of view, ambiguous endings, and content. Books that provide professional role models and books with gifted protagonists may also hold appeal for the bright child.
Children will not necessarily gravitate toward books that contain these elements, however. Teachers, parents, and librarians often need to steer young people toward books that will cognitively challenge them. In evaluating language as a criterion for books for gifted readers, the vocabulary should be rich, precise, and varied. When considering structure, the challenging book does not necessarily go from beginning to middle to end. Rather, time sequences may be juggled, and the process of reading becomes the art of constructing the whole from the puzzle pieces provided.
Perspective or point of view can offer challenges with gifted children will want to provide them with professional role models, especially pertinent in the areas of science and history. Reading well-written accounts that enable readers to have an inside view of the work of a scientist, historian, or activist may open doors for their future.
Besides titles with role models for potential future occupations, gifted children need to read books with gifted protagonists. Although some of these titles are not difficult to read from a structural or language standpoint, they will nonetheless attract bright readers who may see their own lives, struggles, and feelings mirrored in the characters. What is important to acknowledge is that good books are good books.
(You can copy/paste the link into your browser to see the books she recommends)
****Bertie Kingore: Instruction for the Primary Gifted Learner
http://www.bertiekingore.com/readinginstruction.htm
Text: Differentiating reading instruction to match the individual differences and readiness levels of all children is a demanding task facing teachers. Advanced and gifted readers have the ability to read beyond grade level, and thus, they risk receiving less instructional attention when concerned teachers struggle to meet the needs of students performing below grade level. While it is critical that all children receive the support necessary to read at least at grade level, students who have achieved this goal must be challenged to continue developing advanced proficiencies. We would be remiss if we failed to make appropriate provisions to accommodate the needs of at-risk readers. We are equally remiss if we do not offer appropriate instructional differences that respond to the needs of gifted learners.
Teachers require support and strategies to challenge advanced readers at their highest readiness level and most appropriate pace within the diversity of a classroom that includes a wide range of abilities. The Advanced Academic Division of the Texas Education Agency created a task force to investigate the reading needs of gifted students and produced a publication, Reading Strategies for Advanced Primary Readers, designed to provide teachers with alternatives and replacement tasks to use in differentiating lessons for advanced readers. This book of interactive, practical strategies includes compacting, tiered assignments, flexible grouping, graphic organizers, thinking prompts, and vocabulary techniques assembled from teaching experiences based upon research and responses to the nature and needs of gifted learners. (Contact Evelyn Hiatt or Ann Wink at
For decades, educators assumed that children who read early or at advanced levels had been pushed by a well-intending adult.The accompanying conventional wisdom has been that these students plateau and read at grade level by third or fourth grade. Indeed, advanced readers who are limited to a grade-level reading program can regress in their pace of progress. However, when advanced readers are taught with resources and instruction commensurate with their needs and abilities, regression need not take place. By eliminating work on skills already mastered and progressing through the language arts curriculum at an accelerated pace, students generally continued to extend their reading proficiency (Gentry, 1999; Kulik & Kulik, 1996).
The lack of challenging materials is one factor that discourages the continued reading development of advanced readers. However bright students may be, they are less likely to demonstrate advanced or gifted performance if learning experiences are limited to the regular, grade-level reading curriculum. Duke (2000) found informational texts almost nonexistent in first grade classrooms, yet gifted readers demonstrate a voracious appetite for nonfiction. Chall and Conard (1991) continue to research the match of text difficulty to reader readiness. They found that the reading texts for advanced readers "...provided little or no challenge, since they were matched to students' grade placements, not their reading levels." Chall, who also researched text difficulty in 1967 and 1983, noted that "This practice of using grade-level reading textbooks for those who read two or more grades above the norm has changed little through the years, although it has been repeatedly questioned" (111).
Another factor that discourages the continued reading development of advanced readers is educators' attitudes regarding gifted students right and need to learn differently. Adjusting instruction to match the needs of gifted readers involves more than flexibility in methods and materials; it requires a belief that each child has the right to progress as rapidly as he or she is capable. Teachers must be committed to responding to the reading interests and needs of learners that extend beyond grade level. Indeed, Jackson and Roller (1993) commented that the most sophisticated, enthusiastic, and precocious readers are those children who have driven their parents and teachers to keep up with them. Consider the Staff Discussion Questions posed here. The insuing information may prove enlightening and productive toward change.
Staff Discussion Questions: Advanced Readers
Schools determined to meet the needs of their brightest readers may find these questions a useful focus when assessing attitudes and most appropriate strategies.
1. What does the term "advanced reader" or "gifted reader" mean to you?
2. How do we identify advanced readers or advanced potential in reading?
3. What instructional needs do you think are unique to advanced children?
4. How do we challenge advanced children academically in this school?
5. Which social and emotional factors are crucial to consider when challenging advanced readers?
6. What are the classroom management implications?
7. What grouping considerations do we need to address?
8. What human and material resources can we draw upon?
9. What additional resources are needed to ease implementation?
10. How might we appropriately inform and involve parents of advanced readers in this learning partnership?
Assessment
Assessment is a key component when instructing advanced readers. Assessment guides advanced instructional objectives and documents that an appropratie pace and level of learning has occurred. Reading instruction that matches the individual differences and readiness levels of all children involves preassessment, authentic analysis of reading comprehension, students' self-assessments of learning, and the development of portfolio products that substantiate advanced performance.
Preassessment. Preassessment is vital when addressing advanced reading needs. Results from preassessments must be employed to guide teachers' use of curriculum compacting, tiered assignments, and flexible groups. Preassessment is needed to accomplish the following:
• Determine students' instructional reading levels and skill needs.
• Group students flexibly by readiness and the skills that need to be learned.
• Analyze students' application of reading strategies.
• Provide information for selecting and pacing appropriate instructional materials.
Types of assessment that can be used as preassessments are:
• Checklists,
• Interest inventories,
• Observations,
• Performance tasks,
• Process interviews,
• Reading tests,
• Records of independent reading,
• Running records,
• Students' self-evaluations,
• Teachers'-selected reading samples, and
• Writing samples.
Reading comprehension. Comprehension of the gifted primary reader should largely be assessed authentically. A test in which students list the name of the main character and bubble-in the main idea limits the gifted student's opportunities to demonstrate more advanced interpretations. Comprehension tasks are more likely to engage high-level thinking when they require students to generate responses rather than choose among descriptors, as in a forced-choice response. Oral summaries via tape recorders, creation of a hyper-studio stack for use by other students, reading/writing logs, and other creative, open-ended options provide broader opportunities to demonstrate comprehension depth and complexity.
Metacognition. As children read in school, they need to be guided in their development of metacognitive or self-monitoring strategies so that these important skills become an internalized part of their regular reading behavior (Cecil, 1995). Metacognition is referred to as thinking about thinking. It invites children to bring their thinking to a conscious level and provides a window that increases adults' understanding of students' behaviors. A parent reported that her gifted second-grade daughter did not want to participate in a discussion about a book she had immensely enjoyed, because "I have already discussed it with myself." Since gifted readers are so consciously involved in introspection, teachers should continually analyze students' behaviors and talk with them to make sense of what is occurring in learning situations. (Abilock, 1999)
Teachers prompt metacognitive responses through reflective questions, such as the following. Children respond orally to these metacognitive questions or write brief responses to explain their thinking. The last four questions approach a more complex interpretation particularly appropriate for advanced and gifted students.
Metacognitive Questions
• What can you tell me about your reading?
• What did you think was easy to do and hard to do?
• What changes would you want to make?
• What is the most important thing you learned from this?
• What do you do when you are reading and you find a word you do not know?
• When might it be a good idea to reread something?
• Why do you think that is so?
• How did the author cause you to infer/conclude that?
• What evidence can you use to support that?
• If you did not know, what would you do to get the most information?
Self-assessment through rubrics. Rubrics increases students' responsibility for their own learning when they assess their work before it is graded or shared with others. Rubrics are guidelines to quality. They provide a clearer view of the merits and demerits of students' work than grades alone can communicate. Rubrics show students how they are responsible for the grades they earn rather than to continue to view grades as something someone gives them.
The criteria on a rubric should inform students what attributes to include in a product to demonstrate their understanding of the information they acquire. Each level should communicate to students what to do to achieve at a higher level. Criteria must accent content rather than just focus on appearance and how to complete the product. With advanced and gifted learners, the emphasis should include depth and complexity, as exemplified by the following chart. Teachers fill in their preferred grade scale or an evaluation scale, such as less than expected, appropriate work, very well done, and outstanding work as the level of proficiency develops from low to higher.
Complexity
Too simple or not appropriate
Simple information; limited critical thinking
Information showscritical thinking; compares and contrasts
Beyond expectations; analyzes from multiple points of view
Content depth
Needs more information or more accurate information
Needs to add depth or elaboration
Covers topic well; develops information beyond facts and details
Precise; in-depth; supports content
Teachers continue to be pleasantly surprised at the accuracy of students' self-assessments. When clear targets are provided through rubrics, most students understand what to do to achieve. After modeling and successful experiences with multiple rubrics, some gifted learners may be able to develop their own rubrics and other methods to assess their independent reading and study projects.
Portfolios. Portfolios offer a concrete record of the development of students' talents and achievements during a year or more. In classrooms where all students develop portfolios, the portfolio process enables each student to be noticed for the pace of learning growth and the level of products he or she produces. In this manner, portfolios increase inclusion instead of exclusion by providing multiple opportunities for children from every population to demonstrate talents and gifted potential. Portfolio assessment allows schools to honor the diversity of students and discover the strengths of each learner.
Primary-aged children can learn to be responsible for organizing and managing a portfolio of their work that documents agreed-upon criteria. Children learn to file their selected work in the back of their portfolio so it approximates a chronological order and clarifies growth over time. Increasing emphasis on students' self-reflections and making judgments about their products is one of the values of portfolios for all children.
Values of Portfolios for Advanced and Gifted Children
• Products can be assessed for a level of depth and complexity appropriate for advanced-level products.
• Products can demonstrate all areas of giftedness.
• The portfolio can be shared with parents or other professionals to document the growth and achievements of gifted students.
• Portfolios provide examples of superior work for gifted students to share among themselves as models to challenge ever-increasing levels of excellence.
However, portfolios will not document achievements of advanced and gifted children if they are limited to grade-level tasks. Only to the degree that portfolios include children's highest levels of performance on a wide array of challenging, beyond grade-level tasks can the portfolio process substantiate gifted-level work. Negotiate together a short list of response products advanced students can select among to demonstrate their interpretation and understanding when they finish reading fiction or nonfiction text.
Gifted Readers Like...
A classic study by Dole and Adams (1983), surveyed gifted students to elicit their perceptions of the most important attributes of good reading materials. A summary of those findings is included here.
• Sophisticated beginning-to-read books
• Nuanced language
• Multidimensional characters
• Visually inventive picture books
• Playful thinking
• Unusual connections; finding patterns and parallels within and among books
• Abstractions and analogies
• A blend of fantasy and non-fiction
• Extraordinary quantities of information about a favorite topic
• Books about gifted children
Use this information as a guide to prepare questions for surveying gifted students in your class or even all of the gifted students in your school. What do they most like or dislike about reading? What do they most want in books and stories? What makes them pick up a book and want to read it? We can better customize reading instruction to challenge advanced readiness levels and motivate gifted learners when we understand how to more closely match their preferences and interest.
The result of ignoring gifted readers is educationally and emotionally unjust to these children. The Gifted Reader's Bill of Rights is posed here to prompt your thinking about the reading rights and needs of gifted students.
The Gifted Reader's
Bill of Rights
The right to read at a pace and level appropriate to readiness without regard to grade placement.
The right to discuss interpretations, issues, and insights with intellectual peers.
The right to reread many books and not finish every book.
The right to use reading to explore new and challenging information and grow intellectually.
The right for time to pursue a self-selected topic in depth through reading and writing.
The right to encounter and apply increasingly advanced vocabulary, word study, and concepts.
The right to guidance rather than dictation of what is good literature and how to find the best.
The right to read several books at the same time.
The right to discuss but not have to defend reading choice and taste.
The right to be excused from material already learned.
___________ References ___________
Abilock, D. (1999). Librarians and gifted readers. Knowledge Quest, 27, 30-35.
Cecil, N. (1995). The art of inquiry: Questioning strategies for K-6 classrooms. Winnipeg, MB, Canada: Peguin Publishers.
Chall, J. & Conard, W. (1991). Should textbooks challenge students? The case for easier or harder textbooks. New York: Teachers College Press.
Dole, J. & Adams, P. (1983). Reading curriculum for gifted readers: A survey. Gifted Child Quarterly, 27.
Duke, N. (2000). 3.6 minutes per day: The scarcity of international texts in first grade. Reading Research Quarterly, 35, 202-224.
Gentry, M. (1999). Promoting student achievement and exemplary classroom practices through cluster grouping: A research-based alternative to heterogeneous elementary classrooms. Storrs, CT: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.
Kingore, B., Ed. (2002). Reading Strategies for Advanced Primary Readers. Austin: Texas Educational Agency. In press.
Kingore, B. (2002). Assessment: Time-saving procedures for busy teachers, 3rd ed. Austin: Professional Associates Publishing.
Kulik, J. & Kulik, C. (1996). Ability grouping and gifted students. In Colangelo, N. & Davis, G., Eds. Handbook of gifted education, 2nd ed. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Bibliographies of Books for Gifted Readers
Halstead, J. (2002). Some of my best friends are books, 2nd ed. Dayton, OH: Ohio Psychology Press.
Kingore, B. (2001). Gifted kids, gifted characters, & great books. Gifted Child Today, 24 (1), 30-32.
Polette, N. (2001). Non fiction in the primary grades. Marion, IL: Pieces of Learning.
Polette, N. (2000). Gifted books, gifted readers. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, Inc.
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