The answer isn’t straightforward because gifted services vary by state and by district and few states have gifted services requirements.
During the 1980s, ability grouping and tracking fell out of favor.[i] Americans educated prior to the early 1980’s cannot easily understand how radical a shift this has been.[ii] For more information on the origins of the demise of ability grouping and tracking, a change that made educating gifted students without much fanfare much easier, see these sources: Oakes, J. (1986), Kulik, J. & Kulik, C. (1992), and Rogers, K. (1991).
Since the 1980s, schools have generally taken one of two primary approaches to address the different academic needs of gifted students in a same-aged classroom, and they are:
- Individualized, enriched instruction at grade level. In this approach, all children are grouped heterogeneously by age and the more advanced learners periodically receive enrichment. This method is popular but tends to be burdensome for the teacher and is often delivered inconsistently. For example, it requires considerable planning and can be frequently omitted from the day’s schedule. The approach does not usually accelerate instruction or learning; it adds more at a similar level.
- Gifted Classes. Where special gifted programming exists, it usually places all gifted children in the same program as though all gifted children are alike and of the same ability. One popular type of gifted program pulls children out of regular class for one or two hours a week to offer enriched instruction with other gifted children. A problem with this type of program is it is often not enough, and sometimes the children are required to make up work missed in the regular classroom. It, too, is often not designed to move children ahead of the core curriculum of the grade level.
The above approaches appease many parents who assume (at least at first) the gifted program will work for their children. And the social aspects for brighter children to spend time with other children closer to their reasoning, problem-solving, and humor is a positive. However, neither approach is likely to provide an overall good fit for most of the children selected to receive it.
Gifted classes weren’t at all common prior to the 1980s and that’s one reason so many of adults in school before then never were openly officially identified as gifted. They were smoothly integrated into the groups and “tracks” where they appeared to fit. Teachers had developed ways to evaluate student readiness and almost all schools administered group ability tests by 2nd or 3rd grade. They still do. Test results, however, are obfuscated so parents and teachers find it hard to get the big picture, especially if the child is highly gifted.
There were also opportunities for students to be placed in different tracks depending on the subjects where they were weaker or stronger. At the same time, children of all ability levels spent time together and got to know and understand each other, as well. Can you tell that I prefer the tracking and grouping approach for core subjects?
The Five Levels of Gifted became a way to describe abilities without relying on test scores
The Levels are not a test, measurement instrument, or questionnaire but a descriptive, progressive list of interests and behaviors in young, bright children. Many people, including educators, view children as gifted or not gifted. But that’s not the case. People’s intellectual abilities vary, as do their strengths and weaknesses. It’s possible to be gifted in only one or two domains and less so in others. For instance, some people excel in math and science and have far lower verbal skills. Others are especially strong in their verbal abilities. The main point is it is not enough to look at a final IQ score when selecting children for a gifted program or to figure out how smart someone is.[iii] It’s more complex than that.
A colleague who helped with the shaping of the final version of The Five Levels of Gifted: What They Tell Us (2023) book had an “ah-ha” moment as she read the part about IQ scores not being enough. Because she is a math specialist for kindergarten through graduate school teaching, she shared her thoughts about how single value IQ scores affected student placement:
This is the idea behind looking for additional clues beyond the scores for minority/underserved populations! Historically, most gifted/advanced classes are predominantly white in the U.S., and I suspect elsewhere with diverse populations also. Why? As I see it, it is because of hidden, cultural bias in the testing instruments, the disparate educational experiences students in different elementary and middle schools receive in most districts, our focus on grades as a measure of ability, and additional factors you have discussed and examined here. Even in the district where I consult, the advanced classes have mostly white students, despite the district being about 95% black.
Which brings us to another topic:
What Do Schools Do For the Gifted Who May Not be as Prepared to Do Well in School?
In the early 2000s, it was not obvious to me that some families were not part of my subject or client pool because they did not have the money to work with an independent — that is, not connected to a school or insurance-covered — specialist. An earlier process of my gathering information for the Five Levels study depended to some extent on at least one parent or other caretaker staying home with the young children. At least one person, almost always a parent, had to be so intimately involved with the child that they could provide all the early milestones, interests, and behaviors of the child at different age ranges in their early years leading up to full-time schooling.
Children who do not routinely interact one-on-one with adults may not have the opportunities to show anyone what they were thinking or preferring or doing during their earliest months and years. It is much like that old question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Without an audience, a child receives less attention, mirroring, or sense of personal agency, and may develop or appear to develop more slowly. I add this observation as support for my contention that there are many more gifted people in the world than just those who are nurtured and recognized for their gifts.
When children had no parents at home full-time, the family sometimes could not share enough information to be beneficial to the study. It resulted in my study omitting families where the parents are not the primary caretakers.
This means the information gained from the families who did participate in my longitudinal book study must be interpreted to include what many can see is a supportive start that includes lots of opportunities and options for the eager-to-learn gifted child.
It is possible, of course, that good preschools and childcare options also provide equally good support, but this is not the study that can in any way prove or disprove that.
A wonderful change happened as a result of the 2020 void pandemic: everyone stayed home and many parents, and the workplaces they inhabited, quickly figured out that working from home worked well! Entrepreneurial gifted parents chose to spend more time at home and more time, both mom and dad, with their children! This is a fantastic change for gifted families.
In subsequent posts I discuss what gifted children from Levels One to Five experienced throughout their school years. All of their early milestones and standardized test scores are available in detail in the 2009 book 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options. In the 2023 book, I provide updated material so that it isn’t as necessary to read the first book. But it’s there if you need it.
[i] Tracking is a form of ability grouping for instructional purposes. See Oakes (1986).
[ii] Ability Grouping. Teachers create smaller groups of students so that advanced children are taught together and the children who are behind or who take longer to understand the material are instructed together. The children who are at grade level form the third group. By junior high school, such grouping was called “tracking.”
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