Homeschool Gifted Verse

Characteristic Of A Gifted Child

Since it is widely agreed upon in the educational and child development communities that early recognition of the characteristics of a gifted child, is a key factory in successfully developing the child, it is important for the parent to have at least a general understanding of these gifted characteristics.

First of all in order to be classified as a gifted child, the child must have the ability to perform at a level that is significantly beyond other children of like age. O.K. So, for a parent, what might this look like or what should I look for in my child?

The following are some guidelines to help your awareness when it comes to recognizing the characteristics of a gifted child. Keep in mind that there are varying levels of giftedness, as you view the guidelines.

Cognitive Skills (thinking or though processing)

Ability to master new skills with extraordinary speed.
A deeper knowledge than other children the same age.
Extraordinary memory and recall of events, facts, and/or figures.
Advanced creativity and ability to improvise.
Acute alertness to their surroundings.
Advanced or more complex sense of humor.

Learning Patterns

Great and constant curiosity along with high level of motivation to learn.
As a result of the previous, being bored easily if not challenged
Advanced ability to stay focused or lengthy attention span. Even with more difficult topics.
Advance organizational or planning skills.
Advance logic and problem solving skills.

Speech and Language

Well developed word vocabulary and language compared to children of the same age.
Creative uses of words and sentence structure and again, sense of humor.
Ability to adapt their use of the language to a given level to fit the situation.
Ability to understand and carry out complex instructions.
General advanced ability in reading, writing, and working with numbers.

Social

Sensitivity to other’s feelings
Use of their advance language skills to resolve conflict or debate.
Organize and direct behavior of other children (may seem bossy to other children).
Many times will feel more ‘at home’ with older children.
May have high expectations of themselves (and others) that can lead to frustration and even anger.

Other

A generally high aptitude for logical problems, games, puzzles, or any type of problem solving or activity that requires creative thinking and reaction.

Final Note: Although these characteristics of a gifted child may provide you with some initial insight and understanding, it is important to seek a formal assessment of your child in this area if you feel that your child exhibits several of these characteristics.

Author, Mary Joyce, is a former educator, successful homeschool parent, and the primary contributor to the Homeschool-Curriculum-4u website. Please visit http://www.homeschool-curriculum-4u.com for more of Mary's articles, resources on homeschool, ideas, and curriculum information. Also tips guides and how-to's to help you successfully teach your child at home.

School Grades Verse

Three Steps You Need To Know To Improve Your Learning And Have Better Grades

"I'm a failure" "I'll never make it." That's the kind of affirmation we hear people say. To overcome this feeling of worthlessness you need to make 3 little steps that will help you discover the genius within you.

1. You need to motivate yourself.

First of all, remember that great people learned a basic and essential quality you need to acquire: persistence. Very successful people failed many times, like most of us. But they get up right away and they begin again and again until they eventually succeed.

We can motivate ourselves by seeing the result in our mind as if it has already occurred. Feel what you would feel if you have better grades. Name this feeling. Amplify this feeling until it becomes very pleasant. Now, you are going to add some new feelings upon this first feeling. Do you remember a time when you were really excited about something? When you have this excitemant in you, add it to the first very pleasant feeling as if you put a coat of excitement over the coat of 'very pleasant state'. Let this feeling of excitement diffuse in you and notice how you feel.

Notice how feel very motivated, calm and confident. And for a moment, you know that you will succeed in school. But something holds you back. You need to make this second step...

2. You need to get rid of the beliefs that hold you back.

Consider the law of belief: whatever you believe becomes your reality. Once you understand and appropriate this belief in yourself, you discover that you can do many things and especially have better grades.

Throughout your life you learn. It's a never-ending process. School is just the beginning of this process with its special rules and rewards, which can sometimes seem unfair.

You begin to change by being aware that you are a potential genius and that you CAN do better and you WILL. What do you learn from having bad grades? Consider that it is an opportunity to learn. And most important, it's a chance to learn that you're not the problem; it's only your strategies. That's why you need to take the last lesson... You need to learn how to learn

3. You need new strategies.

If something doesn't work, do something else. First, be aware of your learning style. Are you visual, auditory, kinesthetic? Remember that you have multiple intelligences and when you use them as much as possible you increase your chances of having better results.

Have the end in mind. Act as if you already had the solution. Now you only need to fill in the blanks. If you already know where to go, your brain will help you find the solutions. Use mind maps, movement and imagination. Learning how to learn is a necessity for children and adults to perform better in life.

These three steps are important to succeed in school. One step takes care of your beliefs, another of your emotions and the other one of your strategies to have better grades and to perform better in life.

Written by Emmanuel SEGUI - Author of "Moving from Vision to Action". STOP having average grades and discover how you can empower your learning and your life through NLP. Click
http://www.nlp-and-learning-review.com.

Homeschool Serenade

Parenting A Gifted Child

When it comes parenting a gifted child, there are a number of considerations. Probably the most common, is the fact that, as a parent you just are uncertain as to how to respond to the gifted child’s unique development and personality traits. This also entails a difficulty in your expectations of the child. Also, one of the unique difficulties in parenting a gifted child stems from the fact that many times, although the child is gifted with advanced cognitive abilities, is still quite on level par with other children of their age in the areas of emotional and physical development. Greater challenges can even arise if you have a gifted child in a family with more than one child. But aside, from all the challenges, parenting a gifted child can be extremely rewarding and joyful because it is truly a very unique experience.

As any parent would ask… How can I best be helpful for my gifted child? Well, first and foremost, do what you do best as a parent and love and care for your child’s needs regardless of their specially abilities. Although many of your gifted child’s characteristics may be at an advance level when compared to their age group, the basis of parenting really isn’t that much different.

* Keep available to your gifted child many areas of opportunity to learn and be challenged.
* Encourage your child to remain engaged in a broad range of activities and skills beyond those which they are naturally gifted.
* Be supportive
* As your child gets older, speak with them about their talents and some of the challenges that they face and why they are special.
* Constantly teach and fine tune their social skills so they remain comfortable socially.
* As a proud parent... don’t push or show off your child.
* Don’t expect your child to be ‘gifted and talented’ in everything.
* Above all... don’t forget that your gifted child is still very much a child. Still needing all the love, caring, and support that any child needs and thrives on.

Mary Joyce is a former educator, successful homeschool parent, and the primary contributor to the Homeschool-Curriculum-4u website. Please visit http://www.homeschool-curriculum-4u.com for more of Mary's articles, resources on homeschool, ideas, and curriculum information. Also tips guides and how-to's to help you successfully teach your child at home.


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2nd Reading Serenade

As you think about or look at a reading,
And I think this is all very crash!
Jumping and dying, they burn fur feeding
They didn't feel quite so fresh...

Reading Activity For 2nd Grade

As you think about or look at a reading activity for 2nd grade keep in mind that about the 2nd grade reading level is an area of reading transition for the young reader. As you begin to make the transition into a 2nd grade reading level with your child, its important to keep notes for yourself at to what arrears need improvement or more work and where you will start your activities the next time in your overall reading activities for your second grader. With 2nd graders, your reading activities that you have planned have to be fairly flexible. Again, this is a transition time for kids this age. Their reading material is going from shorter to longer sentences; of course the degree of difficulty rises… And the dreaded pages with none or not many pictures are becoming way too frequent! Indeed this transition time can cause bad days at the old reading shop. And when this happens you won’t get accomplished what you wanted to that day and tomorrow you’ll have to spend time going back for review and practice. And you’ll have to adjust plans as needed. Many times it’s just a matter fine tuning the allotted time you have planned for each reading activity.

Don’t let these minor difficulties set you back. Many kids as they enter the 2nd grade reading level have these occasional difficulties. It is important for you to understand that this does occur and isn’t at all uncommon at the second grade reading level. Don’t panic. Be cognizant of your child’s attention. Take breaks if you begin too notice rising frustration levels or read something funny or fun that the child likes.

Do a bit of research on some reading activities for the second grade in order to determine some baselines areas such as how many words per minute should you be looking for and be sure to track the progress. What degree of difficulty are the words and the sentence structures they form. Once you’ve books that you are comfortable that they are at the right reading level, then it’s just a matter of practice, and a plan of continuous improvement.

Remember the second grade reading level is an age of reading transition essentially making the step from bigger letters, shorter words, less emphasis on the phonics, to fewer pictures, more words, vocabulary building, and longer sentences. It is at the second grade reading level that you should begin monitor and track the areas of reading fluency and see a steady progress in the words per minute your child can read and comprehend.

Mary Joyce is a former educator, successful homeschool parent, and the primary contributor to the Homeschool-Curriculum-4u website. Please visit http://www.homeschool-curriculum-4u.comfor more of Mary's articles, resources on homeschool, ideas, and curriculum information. Also tips guides and how-to's to help you successfully teach your child at home.


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