Many school districts offer special programs for gifted or potentially gifted children. The important questions are why and when is the testing done?
Why Test for Giftedness?
The answer to why families and schools test students to determine if they exhibit characteristics of giftedness largely centers around having the student receive a modified and accelerated educational program that includes differentiated education to meet the needs of each individual student.
In some schools, this testing begins as early as Kindergarten, while other schools delay testing until third or fourth grade. It is critical that gifted children be identified as early as possible for a number of social and developmental reasons.
Once the children are identified, the school needs to create the kinds of education programs that will challenge them to perform at the appropriate level for their abilities. Whether these programs are pull-outs, push-ins, homogeneous classrooms, or whatever it is important that gifted children receive these services. One reason this is important is because sometimes very gifted children perform at levels far below their abilities because they are bored, or for a host of other reasons.
If the school does not offer appropriate GATE programs, then the responsibility for meeting the child’s needs falls to you as the parents, which can cause difficulties within the family. We will talk more about these kinds of problems in future Blogs.
