Where to look for challenging work for gifted students?

Dear teachers,

Many times, you write about the importance of gifted children having challenging work. I would like to give some additional suggestions. Online availability of class work is perhaps the most under-utilized format to help gifted children.

Parents should also realize that many universities love to have gifted children involved with them. If parents of a gifted child live near a university, it could be worthwhile for them to contact a professor, or perhaps the chair of the department, in a given field their child shows a particular penchant to get his input on where to go for academic stimulation and see if the professor would mind having the student sit in on some of his classes or perhaps even mentor the child. As professors themselves were often precocious as young people, they frequently are somewhat empathetic to gifted children. – Want to Be Helpful

Dear parents,

So many parents of gifted children seem to think the only way to provide gifted children with the academic challenges that they need is by skipping grades. For the teacher or parent who wants to keep these children with their age groups, online websites present great materials. Furthermore, many states now offer schools a wide variety of online courses. It definitely is possible for a talented math student in eighth grade to take high-school-level courses within her classroom.

Furthermore, parents should not place the entire burden on finding stimulating work for their gifted children on the children’s teachers. Great summer-school programs are available throughout the country. Some are in local colleges, and others may be in their own school districts.

Parents should also visit the American Psychological Association’s website at www.apa.org and search for “related gifted education websites.” These sites offer an abundance of ideas on meeting the needs of gifted children.

Two helpful mental math strategies

Dear teachers,

Do you have any mental math strategies that I can teach my children to use in adding two-digit numbers? I’d like them to have another approach to solving problems like 42 + 14 besides the usual procedure. I think it would make their lengthy math assignments more enjoyable. – Need Math Strategies

Dear parent,

When children attempt mental arithmetic, they have to forget how they did problems with pencil and paper procedures and learn a new set of procedures. You may want to try the following strategies before introducing them to your children.

Front-end addition: When adding with their minds, children should start on the left side of the numbers. For example, to find the sum of 35 + 22, they should first add the 3 tens and 2 tens. Now, your children know that the sum must be 50-something. Next, the 5 ones and 2 ones are added to equal 7. The sum is 57. Have your children try this with the following sums: 23 + 31, 52 + 26, and 37 + 41.

When using front end addition, the children should always check the ones digits to see if their sum exceeds 10. If the sum is greater than 10, then the sum of the digits in the tens place must be increased by one. For example, for the sum 57 + 36, the 5 tens of 57 and the 3 tens of 36 result in 8 tens. But 7 ones plus 6 ones adds to 1 ten and 3 ones. Thus there will be 9 tens and 3 ones (93).

Make a nice number. Here’s a strategy that can be used when one of the numbers to be added ends in an 8 or 9. Children should borrow one or two from one of the numbers being added to make the other number a multiple of ten. For example, for the sum of 98 + 17, two can be borrowed from the 17, making it 15. Then the 2 can be added to the 98 making it 100. Now, it’s easy to add 15 + 100 and get 115.

A possible attention problem

Dear teachers,

My stepdaughter is an only child. At home, she’s very relaxed and skilled at entertaining herself. We can’t see any attention problems. However, her first-grade teacher is convinced that she has an attention problem. What do you think? — Worried

Dear parents,

You certainly need to have more information from her teacher than that your stepdaughter has an attention problem. Find out from her teacher specifically when she isn’t paying attention and whether it is seriously affecting her learning. It would probably be helpful to go to school and observe how the child is behaving in the classroom.

One reason that you may not see any attention problems in your home is because there are fewer distractions there than there are in a classroom with children involved in different activities.

Many young children have to learn how to focus in the classroom and are inattentive at times. You can find out more about the symptoms of attention problems at these two excellent websites: www.chadd.org and www.additudemag.com. Generally speaking, a serious attention problem needs to be manifested in more than one setting.

Parents should send questions and comments to [email protected] or ask them on the columnists’ website at www.dearteacher.com.

© Compass Syndicate Corporation, 2013.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate