In her article on the Seidlitz Education Blog, Macry Voss shares that though it may be difficult to identify ELs as gifted, it’s not impossible. This link will take you to The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) where you will find a list of all the states and numerous other resources. I encourage you to take a look at what your state has to offer. Florida Department of Education offers a well detailed, eight-page document that aids teachers in assessing ELs for eligibility for gifted programs. NYCDOE nicely placed links to Pre-Registration Checklists in nine different languages on their site for families. I visited a number of other city and state education webpages and found varying levels of support for teachers and families of ELs. Some states are highly supportive of identifying and serving ELs while others are just not there yet. Furthermore, each state has its own screening criteria and programs for students that qualify. many states follow their own definition. “Students, children, or youth who give evidence of high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who need services and activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities.” Although there is a federal definition of gifted and talented. The cause of such a gap? While a number of reasons exist for the under-representation of ELs in gifted programs, it has been determined that identification procedures and policies are two of them.Īdditionally, a survey by the Education Week Research Center reported that gifted and talented programs are failing to reach many populations, including ELs.Īs a whole, we aren’t all on the same page when it comes to the term gifted or the criteria and programs. NPR reports that across the USA only 2% of ELs are in gifted programs, as opposed to 7.3% of non-ELs. How likely is this family to come to school and let us know that they think their child might qualify for the gifted program? Or maybe they had their own bad experiences with school. Maybe in their home country the norm was not to approach the school or teacher about instruction. Family members may not speak English well yet. Imagine a family that notices a child may have unusual gifts. Many times it’s parents that first realize that their child may be “gifted.” Think about that for a moment.
And it’s also true that some may come with an extra helping. I have always taken that approach with my own children and each of my students as well.Īll our students come to us with strengths and skills that they are highly capable of applying. If you’re a glass-half-full person like I am, you might consider all of your students as gifts and gifted in some way. Last summer when Tan Huynh and I asked Twitter followers to suggest topics for on our shared MiddleWeb column, several readers (including Emily Golightly, an ESL teacher in North Carolina) voiced interest in reading about under-representation of ELs in gifted programs.
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