Meeting the Needs of the Bright and Gifted Students

Yesterday, we had RTI (Response to Intervention) meetings all day. I attended three of the four meetings, the ones for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. The district asked one of the people that work in curriculum development to facilitate the meeting. What an intelligent, articulate, and knowledgeable young woman! Through a series of activities and discussions, she led each group to consider what they already do for the students on the higher end of the learning scale and what they could be doing. We began by considering the profile of many of our gifted students. Almost every group concluded that many of these students prefer to work independently, often challenge the teacher in multiple ways, sometimes lack social skills, and frequently have problems with organization.

The facilitator then asked teachers to consider a list of ways that they differentiate to meet the needs of these students. Most of the teachers were already doing several things on the list such as meeting in small groups, providing alternative assignments, and providing enrichment work. Of course, many of the teachers are used to modifying instruction for struggling students. Conversation revealed that teachers often spent so much time meeting the needs of the struggling learners, that little was left for those students who require a challenge. The facilitator provided several simple, practical ways to provide more balance in this area:

• Talk frankly with gifted students. Let them know you realize they are smart, but that you still have things you can teach them. Let them know that you will work with them to determine ways they can demonstrate mastery and move on with more challenging work.
• Use pre-assessments. If students already understand and have met the objectives of your lesson or unit plan, consider ways to enrich or move them into a new study.
• Allow students to develop projects; Once you approve them and create a rubric, they can work on their own.
• Give choices. The areas of process and product can be varied in many ways. For example, students can decide if they want to work independently, with a partner, or in a small group. Students can demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways (products).
• Help students learn good social skills if they are lacking in this area.
• Use Bloom's Taxonomy when planning lessons. It is essential to develop higher thinking skills, especially with bright or gifted students.
• Don't always rely on these students to help others or act as "teacher's aides". These students need to have an equitable learning situation. They should always be engaged in learning, not merely helping others learn things they already understand.

Once again, our RTI meeting was productive and enjoyable. Our facilitator showed ways to manage the needs of the brighter students without spending an inordinate amount of time doing it. In April, we will work together to create lessons that differentiate with these students in mind.

RTI

Today I attended the RTI meetings for first and second grade teams. Although I only have a few RTI groups at these levels (I support primarily 4th to 6th grades), I look forward to witnessing this amazing process. Each grade level meeting includes our Instructional Support Teacher, who facilitates the meeting, our school counselor, our district school psychologist who has synthesized all the data, our reading specialists, grade level teachers, and usually the principal and/or vice-principal. The purpose of todays meeting was to review all the data gathered from mid-year DRA's and Dibels testing. We look closely at individual students who are in Title 1, Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 (Reading Recovery in grade 1). Everyone has a chance to comment and we use our collective expertise to move students into the appropriate supports. I teach in a school with close to 1200 students. It is gratifying to see so many professionals working together to make sure no child slips through the cracks. It is also amazing to see the progress that children make when there are appropriate supports in place. I always leave these meetings motivated to do my best. The dedication and professionalism of the people with whom I work is inspirational.

Poetry Academy

At times, everything is in line for a new program to begin. In the September, 2008 issue of the Reading Teacher, an article written by a Reading specialist who created and established a "Poetry Academy" in her school, appeared. I was so impressed with the simplicity of her plan and the resulting data, that I copied the article and put it aside with the hopes of trying it sometime in the future. As luck would have it, one of our Title 1 Aides had a twenty minute block of time open up. I suggested that we consider initiating a Poetry Academy with a small group of fourth graders who could benefit from fluency support and instruction. Coincidentally, all the reading specialists from our school attended the Tim Rasinski workshop last week so we were feeling very positive about the benefits of fluency instruction. After discussing the idea with administators, we got the green light and our "Poetry Academy" will begin next week.

The beauty of this concept is that it requires very little time and according to the author of the article, Lori Wolfong, the students made significant gains. Briefly, this it how it works:

• A teacher or an aide works with individual students for about 10 minutes per week.


• Instructor selects an appropriate poem and reads it aloud to the student.


• Student and instructor read the poem together.


• Instructor discusses meaning and unfamiliar vocabulary with the student.


• Student reads the poem aloud.


• Instructor provides a copy of the poem and instructs the student to practice reading it aloud to other throughout the week. Student is to have anyone who has listened to them read the poem sign off on it.


• The following week, the instructor hears the student recite the poem, tracks number of signatures, and the whole process begins again.


• At the end of a determined number of weeks, students are invited to choose some of their favorite poems and share them in an open forum that includes parents and others. It is a celebration of their participation in "Poetry Academy".

This week we will test targeted students and choose eight whom will benefit from this program. We will pre-assess using a one minute read, retelling, short comprehension test, and attitude survey. Our program will last for ten weeks. At the end of the ten weeks, we will re-assess the children to compare data. Hopefully, this intervention will result in improved fluency and comprehension for the selected group of students. Should be interesting!