Academics

Cornerstone

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence."

-Abigail Adams
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Cornerstone #2

ACADEMICS

Believe it or not, the most successful adults aren’t necessarily the ones who scored the highest on IQ tests when they were young. Studies have shown that it’s actually the kids who develop the most resilience in childhood who are better equipped to identify, engage, and ultimately overcome life’s hardships.
Our comprehensive resources are designed to activate intellectual resiliency by integrating reading, writing, math, science, social studies, speaking, listening, and critical thinking. Pardon the brag, but learners of all types and abilities have achieved quantifiable growth using our comprehensive learning processes.
Together, we champion challenge, cultivate curiosity, and celebrate cultural diversity!

The adaptability of the human brain over time

It's never too late to improve your child's well-being, but the sooner you can start the better

Source: Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2016). From Best Practices to Breakthrough Impacts: A Science-Based Approach to Building a More Promising Future for Young Children and Families. http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu

Let's Seize the moment!

     A child’s brain possesses more malleability than it will at any other point in its existence. This endows the developing mind with an uncanny ability to form new neural connections to rapidly process information. Providing robust academic challenge at home is the perfect way to prime your child’s mental resiliency and start building that mental framework. Because no matter what school your child attends, learning conditions for your child will vary from year to year depending upon the teacher, district, or ever-changing state mandates. But that doesn’t mean your child’s growth has to stop.

     Across more than 30 years of teaching, I’ve witnessed firsthand the difficulties young gifted learners can face if they are not provided appropriately accelerated challenges, and I’ve spent my lifetime working to rectify that problem. Together we can navigate what to do with or without adequate support at your child’s school to ensure your child’s ravenous mind stays well fed.

     And whether you realize it or not, you are the ideal conduit for your child to accomplish this! Science has shown us again and again the more time and active attention you invest into nurturing your little one’s early development, the more positive dividends it pays in every facet of his or her lifetime. All this from simply giving your focus and encouraging your child’s creativity, integrity, resilience, and empathy. That means the learning process is a 24/7 emersion by modeling, enforcing, and reinforcing desirable behavior at the home.

     Don’t worry though: that doesn’t mean you’re expected to be perfect! And thank goodness, right? Part of modeling resilience in the home means being able to acknowledge your own mistakes and then demonstrate the ability to use setbacks as growth opportunities. Strong communication builds relationship and bolsters the genetically coded connectivity in your child’s brain. Remember, aptitude can’t be actualized without daily effort. 

Together we can navigate what to do with or without adequate support at your child’s school to ensure your child’s ravenous mind stays well fed.

     So, how can you reinforce these principles of resilience while simultaneously expanding your child’s intellect? Well, throughout my career I began pre-surveying my students to discover what topics might excite their curiosity. From there I incorporate scope and sequence (aka the depth of content/principles covered and what order that information should be learned based on the requisite skills required). After then factoring in the school’s requirements, I craft integrated materials based on student interest. Integrated learning combines multiple disciplines, like STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), language arts, social studies, reading, writing, listening, and speaking, to toughen up the brain from every angle. And kids love the challenge because the material consists of the wonderful array of topics that interest them, such as: Grimm’s Fairy Tales, space, the deep ocean, the Salem Witch Trails, dangerous creatures, the Jungle Book, the Titanic, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, the Civil Rights movement, “the Wizard of Oz”, and oh so many more.

     Fortunately, you and your gifted child are capable of facing those challenges, and K5 Gifted absolutely has your back. It’s time to expand our brain’s limits beyond what we thought possible!

Calling all adventurers

Questions & Answers:
The Academics of Gifted Kids

Click on each question below to find out more!
If the gifted testing process shows that he/she is exceptional in reading, you should expect that your child should be reading at least a year above level. If you have a first grader, you would expect a reading level of at least second grade. Your child might be able to word call at a higher level than that. You want to make sure the child is choosing reading that he/she can also comprehend. This may not be true for kindergarten. Your child may need instruction in phonics and decoding before taking off with reading. Kindergarten children make rapid progress when taught reading skills. Also encourage them to write using phonetic spelling. Then allow your child to read back to you what he/she wrote. It is called writing to read.

Ask questions about the text. Encourage your child to go back and show your where he/she found the answer. I call it being a good reading detective. This can be used with informational as well as fictional texts.

I would encourage you to read along with them. That way you can talk about what the child is reading. Reading aloud or through shared reading with you or the family gives you a chance to talk about unfamiliar vocabulary and issues that arise in the stories or texts.
Reader’s theater is a great way to involve everyone in the family. Assign parts and allow everyone to have shared reading time. What better way to spend the evening instead of social media or television?

Research shows that children can benefit from oral reading through middle school. You won’t be off the hook for a long time. Even 10 or 15 minutes a day would be great. The rest of the time, it is acceptable for your child to read silently for pleasure.

They should have a balance. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and “Captain Underpants” can surely be read simply for the joy of reading. However, help them find some classics or informational text to find a balanced healthy reading approach.

Yes, if your child tests gifted and is considered exceptional in the area of math, he/she should be able to complete math problems at least a year above level. That doesn’t just mean memorizing math facts. Your child also needs to be able to use the facts he/she knows to apply the skills and use reasoning to solve contextual (word problems).
This also applies to real world problems. Cooking in the kitchen can help your child learn reasonableness as well as to work with whole and fractions. Apply math skills in the car when traveling and in the grocery store. Math is everywhere. Get your child thinking like a mathematician.
Some gifted children enjoy the written language process more than others. Some enjoy creative writing. Some enjoy writing about their thinking as they solve math problems in unusual ways. Some like writing non-fiction after reading texts. Some enjoy letter or journal writing. Some enjoy narratives and write very clever mysteries or other type stories.
Very young gifted children can start the writing process through pictures telling their stories. Then they begin to write using some conventional spellings and some phonetic spellings. That is great. There is no reason to correct any of it at this early stage of writing.
Your children may want to write by hand while others will work on the computer. Both are great.
 
STEM activities are great because they tie science, technology, engineering and math and allows hands-on experiences where you child can learn resiliency from trying multiple methods, multiple times, without fear of failure to find one of many methods to solve the challenge.
Reading is also a way for your child to find advancement in science, whether it is learning about space or dangerous animal species.
Again, reading is a great way for your child to research or read to learn. Your child can find maps online. If he/she loves a good paper map, there is so much to learn from picking up state maps as you travel and stop at rest stops. This allows your child to mark on the maps and make notes of questions he/she finds through observation. I would encourage you to read along, as historical events can be difficult for children as they learn about world wars, slavery, and violence toward Indigenous people.

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