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  • Writer's pictureVicky Keston

Gifted or High Achiever

How do I tell the difference, and how does it impact education? 

Parents frequently wonder, is my kid gifted or a high achiever? How do I tell the difference? How should I choose a school to fit my child’s personality and potential? Beyond IQ testing, there are characteristics that can help guide a parent.  


What is Giftedness? 

Before I start, let’s clarify that giftedness does not make a person better or more valuable. It simply makes them different. We have a saying in our house, “Everyone is good at something, and everyone is working on something.” With this said, gifted children often need educational adaptation.

As frequently quoted by gifted schools, including Nueva, expert Anne Marie Roeper states that giftedness "a greater awareness, a greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and to transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional experiences". In other words, gifted people make connections between ideas, delve more deeply into topics, and ask a lot of questions. They often feel very strongly about concepts, such as fairness, and worry about people in other parts of the world, at an age when other children are still focused on their own well being. Existential depression can become an issue when they start consuming news media.

What does this mean in practicality? How can you assess whether your child might be gifted? Deborah Ruf, another gifted expert, defines five levels of giftedness. In detailed reports, she describes level three and above based on spontaneous development of reading, writing, and math, which means without instruction. In other words, highly and profoundly gifted children may start reading before they reach the age of instruction. Similarly, before they are taught arithmetic nomenclature, gifted preschoolers may calculate word problems in their head, for instance, the number of meatballs needed if each of four family members wants three.

In summary, gifted students learn more quickly, with fewer repetition, and want to delve more deeply into the subjects at school. They may ask questions that their teachers at a typical school cannot answer, such as the kindergartener asking about levels of infinity or the subatomic particles in an atom. 

Giftedness has different degrees or “levels”, and those who are in an extreme tail need substantial adaptations to meet their needs, and even those who are mildly gifted often need in-class differentiation to maintain interest and curiosity. When instruction is below their intellectual needs, gifted students often tune out and under perform. They may act out or become depressed. 


High Achievers 

Our society functions thanks to high achievers, who are the majority of our doctors, lawyers, business people, and more. High achievers are among the most successful in our society.

Achievement is different from giftedness. Because programs like Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth use above grade level academic testing to identify students, the confusion is understandable. One of the reasons that these programs use achievement testing is because it is less expensive than IQ testing, i.e., can be administered electronically in a group and does not need a 1:1 setting with a psychologist. However, most private gifted schools do not use achievement as a measure of giftedness because students can be gifted and low achievers or not gifted and high achievers. 


Gifted Testing 

What if you are not sure if your kid is gifted, or your kid is interested in attending a gifted school? My recent blog about IQ testing shares the options, some local testers, and the pitfalls of prepping.


Schools for Gifted Students 

Gifted students need schools that are willing to adapt the work to the student’s capacity. This may mean deeper, more challenging problems at grade level, or it might mean single subject acceleration. Art of Problem Solving is an example of a curriculum for gifted students with substantially more difficult problems for each grade level.

Gifted students are often asynchronous, meaning they are not equally talented at every subject, or they may lag in interpersonal or organizational skills. For example, a gifted child may read and comprehend many years above grade level, but lag in writing essays about the books. Or they may be talented at math, but need help staying organized. Because of their asynchronicity, single subject acceleration may be more appropriate than full grade acceleration for some students.

Gifted children are often sensitive, so focus on the interpersonal skills (social emotional learning) and the whole child can be helpful.

More in depth advice on this topic of gifted friendly schools is in my separate blog.


Schools for High Achievers

High achievers enjoy school, which is usually designed for this type of student. High achievers focus on their school work, learn well, and grow in typical learning environments. High achievers enjoy challenges, but may need scaffolding to learn more difficult topics. 

The best schools for high achievers engage students with interesting projects and discussions, and do not overly stress them to achieve a preset level. In other words, they don’t reward dedicated work with doubling the work expectation, but instead base the expectations on the student’s capacity and limit the amount of homework. It is a common mistake to overload strong students with too much work, when they need time to play sports, learn the arts, and be a kid. Like all kids, high achievers need balance across subjects, as well as time for growing interpersonal skills (social emotional learning), and organizational skills (executive function learning). There is a happy medium between too little challenge and not enough!


Role of a K-12 Consultant 

A consultant can help you craft your school list to be sure of a balanced list with the most likely fit to your student’s learning profile, the student’s interests, and parent’s values. For gifted students, a consultant should deeply understand giftedness, gifted assessments, and the needs of gifted children. Your consultant can review all admissions materials, in particular student and parent essays, to help focus them to each school’s admissions goals. A consultant can directly work with your child to brainstorm, draft, and edit their own essays. The consultant can provide feedback on whether the essays read as genuine and how to shine during the application process. 


Want more input on K-12 schools?

Vicky consults with families to help select, apply to, and communicate with public and private schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Vicky maintains a principle of non-judgment. Hourly, VIP, and Season packages include a discussion to review school options, applications, essays, and key decisions. Vicky offers a limited number of packages each year to assure her availability. 

Vicky’s own children have attended both public and private schools, and have received both accommodations and curriculum changes; her elder is in high school, and her younger in middle school. New clients can email to learn more about her services, or see her website to learn about her packages.


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