Primary Grade Gifted Instruction in Public School

Welcome to the Vanguard Gifted Academy educational blog. I’m Dr. Susan Sokolinski, and I serve on Vanguard’s Board of Trustees. This is installment two in our series, Selecting the Best School for Your Gifted Child. Today, I’ll be giving you a glimpse into what services for high-achieving and gifted children in kindergarten, first, second and third grade look like in the Chicago suburban public school district I worked in for 26 years.

During the last three years of my teaching career, I served as an enrichment math instructor for third-, fourth- and fifth-grade high-achieving and gifted students. I also served as an enrichment coach working with classroom teachers to support these advanced learners in their regular classrooms.

Enrichment is a term used by my former district to identify services for high-achieving and gifted students as a single group. Elementary enrichment instructors and the district have experience working with these types of students. However, they may not necessarily hold certification or degrees in gifted education. Each enrichment instructor provides services at two elementary schools. The instructors travel back and forth between their buildings every other day and use technology to deliver math instruction to fourth- and fifth-grade students at both schools simultaneously.

Kindergarten teachers in the district use data generated from classroom assessments and other work to identify children who may benefit from enrichment as part of their classroom instruction. Similarly, first- and second-grade teachers use standardized data from the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test to identify students for enrichment support in their regular classrooms. Schools also consider soft data, including work ethic, curiosity, the pace at which the child grasps new concepts and their ability to persist when challenged in determining which students will receive enrichment support.

Enrichment teachers do not provide direct services for high-achieving and gifted students in the kindergarten, first and second grades. Enrichment teachers may collaborate with classroom teachers to support these students. However, the classroom teachers provide the vast majority of the daily enrichment instruction at those levels.

In addition to the classroom support children in kindergarten, first and second grade receive, trained volunteers — many of whom are former educators — deliver lessons from the Primary Education Thinking Skills program, commonly referred to as PETS. Volunteers typically provide that support once, but sometimes twice each week for approximately 30 minutes per session. PETS lessons introduce the children to convergent and divergent thinking strategies within a series of engaging hands-on activities. Participation in PETS is not a gateway into the intermediate enrichment program in the district. Students who receive enrichment support in kindergarten may not receive it in the following years. Conversely, students the school does not identify for enrichment support in kindergarten may receive it in later elementary years, depending on standardized assessment data trends. Guided reading and guided math are models the district’s elementary schools use in regular classrooms to differentiate small-group and individualized math and reading lessons for all students. All instruction has a foundation in Common Core state standards.

The district provides a plethora of materials and resources to support teachers as they differentiate and personalize their instruction. High-achieving and gifted third-grade students work with the enrichment instructors in their buildings two to three times each week for 30 to 40 minutes per session. During these sessions — which occur outside of the classroom — the enrichment instructors support the math classroom instruction with problem-based instructional resources, including an online program called Defined Learning. Children identified for enrichment reading instruction receive that instruction from their classroom teachers with Junior Great books and Jacob’s Ladder resources. In addition to the enrichment coaches, classroom teachers have access to support services provided by school psychologists, social workers and ELL teachers to support their work with gifted learners.

The information I presented in this blog comes from my experiences and may not reflect the gifted services available in other public schools. However, I hope this information helps you formulate questions as you work to identify an educational setting that is best for your child and your family.

Thank you for reading Vanguard’s educational blog. Please return for a discussion on my experiences as a gifted instructor and coach working with fourth- and fifth-grade students. Before then, investigate Vanguard’s Blended Model to learn about how we approach gifted instruction.