One of the first steps of advocating for academically talented students is identifying that their educational needs aren’t being met in the classroom. Obviously, there are numerous ways this can be done. One compelling way was recently reported in a recent Gifted Child Quarterly article that showed the range of reading scores of elementary school students. The study measured the number of words students could read in a minute (commonly referred to as oral reading fluency). For example, some fourth grade students read as few as 17 words per minute while others read as many as 221 words per minute—a factor of 13! For context, this is like an Olympic sprinter running the 100 meter...
Digest of Gifted Research
Welcome to the Digest of Gifted Research (formerly Duke Gifted Letter), published by the Duke University Talent Identification Program. The Digest is a trusted resource for research-based information about raising and educating academically talented children.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - 11:33
Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - 08:29
Researchers in the field of giftedness face a major struggle: they can’t agree on a definition of giftedness. If you were to ask 10 giftedness researchers for a definition of giftedness, you’d likely get 11 different answers! This becomes problematic within the field when we try to determine who is gifted and what we should do for them. And from outside the field, this disagreement on things as “simple” as definitions makes us look like we don’t know what are talking about. After all, physicists don’t disagree on the definition of gravity!
Some of the top researchers in the field of giftedness recently took on the Herculean task of synthesizing previous research, and they proposed...
Thursday, October 11, 2012 - 12:03
Will participating in this program make my child feel good about him/herself? Will it help him/her academically? Or could it do both at the same time? These are important and valid questions that all parents should consider when making decisions about their child’s academic experiences.
Academics and Self-Concept
Many parents think of asking about the academic consequences of participating in a program, but gifted programs can influence students more than just academically—they can influence how gifted students feel about themselves. These self-perceptions are often called “self-concepts,” and they are important because they can be strong predictors of future behaviors like...
Friday, July 20, 2012 - 11:26
Few would argue against people knowing more about the world as adults than when they were children, but whether people become smarter as they age seems less universally accepted.
Research reports about IQ changes in individuals and across entire populations has been discussed in the mainstream media, but the numbers often lead to confusion and controversy.
The Research Findings
A recent study published in the prestigious journal Nature showed that verbal and nonverbal IQ can change over time in teenage participants. The authors conclude that their findings are good news for people whose IQ has the potential to grow and a caution for those...
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - 14:06
All parents worry about their children becoming involved with alcohol use. But what about parents of academically gifted students? Do they have less to worry about because their children do well in school? A recent study asked this exact question and the results may surprise you.
In 1965, Americans were 17.5 years old on average when they tried their first alcohol. Forty years later in 2005, that age had dropped to roughly 14 years old. In fact, nearly 40 percent of US eighth grade students have tried alcohol at least once. For some this may be only a single drink, but over half of high school seniors and 18 percent of eighth graders report having been drunk.
Such findings...