Category: All Posts
For Parents Curious About Gifted Child Social Skills
… in which I answer questions about gifted issues Over the years I have taken on many different roles to stay connected with gifted children and their families. One such role was that of Gifted Children Program Coordinator for American Mensa for five years and answered letters from parents of gifted children, and sometimes about […]
An Interview with Dr. Deborah Ruf
Hows and Whys about the Five Levels of Gifted In a chilly Minneapolis, Minnesota, in November 2018, I hosted — and shuttled to sessions at our convention center less than 15 minutes from my home — the brilliant, wonderful, multi-faceted Femke Hovinga-Tiller, and her equally wonderful husband, Pieter Tiller, at my home. One of our “side excursions” that delighted […]
How Smart Is My Child?
Using the Ruf Estimates™ of Levels of Gifted Many parents wonder how their children compare to other children. They worry about how to select the best school for their young children and wonder if they will not only learn up to their potential but be happy in their school environment. But, before parents can make […]
How to Partial Homeschool: A Quick Overview
If you have a gifted child whose needs aren’t being met… When children simply don’t fit the school they attend, you might be able to find a workable solution. What is Partial Homeschooling? Partial homeschooling — which we can also describe as “emanating from the home schooling” or “the parent’s role as educational manager” — involves keeping the child […]
Gifted People Are Still People
… and many of our feelings are shared by others. Anyone old enough to remember watching Cheers in 1982—and you can still watch it in reruns—will remember when Nicholas Colasanto, who played Ernie ‘Coach’ Pantusso on the first couple years of the series “Cheers,” said some very magic words to his daughter, Lisa. She was […]
Why Do So Many Smart and Gifted Kids Think They Don’t Like Math?
It may have something to do with the different personality types between the teachers and some students. My closest girlfriend since grade school became a math teacher. To her, math was great and made sense. Our IQs and basic standardized test results are virtually the same. To me, math was a problem for a long time…. […]
Early Childhood Screening for Giftedness
Deborah Ruf, PhD ©2022 Gifted programming generally isn’t available for the youngest gifted children. But that doesn’t mean that the classroom teacher or parents can’t provide appropriate instruction and social interactions for students who are ahead of classmates in preschool, kindergarten, or the earliest grade levels of school. Generally speaking, both screening and individualizing for […]
The Relativity of Giftedness
When I think of giftedness, I sometimes think about why we want to know about it and how it affects people. To start with, I see high intelligence and giftedness as being about how some people are. Whereas different identification processes are often helpful when trying to support the learning needs of an unusually intelligent […]
Gifted and Humble: How Does That Work?
Most intellectually gifted adults don’t think of themselves as gifted. Smart enough maybe, but not so special as to be gifted. After all, they were lucky, or worked hard, or didn’t get the best grades, or … whatever. Because of this reality, it is that much harder for advocates to get the systems in place […]
