Giftedness

Gifted Students are 5-7% of the school population.

Gifted students are in the 97th percentile or above on Cognitive Ability Tests. These are tests that measure how you think, not what you know. 

**Schools are given some autonomy to offer gifted services to students who score lower than the 97th percentile. Be sure to check to see what your districts guidelines are for the various programs that are offered. 

Determining Giftedness

Students are labeled gifted and qualify for services using Cognitive Ability Tests.  These tests measures how students learn, not what they know. Testing determines how they process information, how quickly, and what strategies they use to learn, especially with abstract concepts. 

Students can be gifted in one or more areas. They are:

•  Verbal 

• Quantitative (Math)

• Nonverbal (Spatial) reasoning

Below are examples of questions from a cognitive ability test for each tested area:

Once a student is identified as gifted, their potential has been discovered! Teachers, parents, and the students themselves must work to develop the student's gifts and talents to realize their full potential. This may include exploring interests and passions and being appropriately challenged on a regular basis. 

Not all high-achieving students are gifted, but many gifted students are high-achieving academically. Some gifted students who are not academically successful are called underachieving.  Motivation to learn plays a large role in gifted education. Identifying gifted students early and providing academic and social-emotional supports  are crucial to academic success and motivation. 

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

— Steve Jobs, 1997