Why Does Giftedness Matter? Understanding the Importance of Early Identification
A little background on how most schools are set up
Most parents assume that when they’re really bright, maybe gifted or genius child, starts school, he or she will learn. The school will notice and do something. Ha!
The customary method of grouping children in schools is by age and grade levels. When a bright or gifted child is not similar to the majority of the other children in learning ability, this is a big problem. Further, within that structure of grade levels by age, schools primarily use heterogeneous (mixed ability) grouping and “whole class” instruction. Despite considerable evidence that the achievement span among children of the same age can be — and usually is — significant (Lohman, D., 1999), children are typically grouped with others their age. Lohman, co-author of both the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) and the Iowa Tests of basic skills, both widely used by public schools for their elementary school students, asserts,
The typical public school first-grade classroom already has 12-grade equivalencies of achievement in it.
Indeed, grouping children by age for instruction makes about as much sense as grouping them by height. In all of world history, this kind of grouping for instruction has only been around for roughly the last 100 years. And yes, through most of history there were no public schools at all and no universal system for educating children. Research shows typical age-based grouping is an effective approach to teaching children only when the children have been selected to have similar ability levels and learning needs. Research from experts, including Terman (1925), Hollingworth (1931, 1942), and Kell, et al. (2013), shows that, when given the chance, highly intelligent children learn faster — and to a greater depth — than same-aged students with lower intellectual abilities.
As David Lohman said, the range of students’ intellectual abilities within each classroom is often vast, just as you would find for weight, height, hair, and eye color. Age grouping for instruction with no consideration of learning readiness and ability is simply awkward. Such grouping creates more problems than it solves, including classroom management difficulties and disruptive behaviors. Age grouping can work when the participating children are initially evaluated and then grouped by their readiness to learn new material.
In the typical age-based school system, however, goals are set for all students to reach the academic average-for-their-age proficiency levels. A large range of students’ learning abilities in one classroom almost guarantees that no matter how good the instruction, many children will learn little new while a similar number will continue to struggle because their readiness to learn the material is not at the needed level.
Children need true peers, people who get their jokes and who understand and share many of their interests and ways of being. Remember, the social and emotional needs of gifted children — and not just their academic needs — are at the root of what matters for a good fit for them. If they are outliers in their classrooms, they will often not only be lonely, but also more likely will have little opportunity to learn and practice the social and effective communication skills needed for when they move into the greater world and interact with others in their intellectual abilities range.
In my opinion, most of what gets done to support students who have differences from their age and grade groups is like palliative care and a bandage approach when it is the systems that feed into how we organize schools and school districts, where the funding comes from, and who has control of the overall approach to meeting the needs of all students. There is no good reason to group by age or to create as wide a range of learning abilities in the same classrooms each year as is currently done. To help readers see new solutions, my writing continues to show readers that we need to take a whole new look at how we educate our education.
Here is one primary reason why and how our current school set-up continues to marginalize many students. There is something I call the “critical mass” when it comes to how a teacher or school chooses the learning materials and pacing for its teachers to use in the classroom. It aims for the average learning and achievement range of the majority of students in each grade and age level, the critical mass. In reference to gifted children and educational institutions effectively addressing their needs, the ways we sort school children by age and grade level pretty much guarantees there will rarely be a critical mass of gifted students in any one classroom. It makes especially clear that the highly, exceptionally, or profoundly gifted children will almost always be on their own in such settings.
When students don’t fit what’s offered or readily available in their school, the students themselves see that their only option is to fit in anyway, or parents, teachers and other experts recommend medication or a cumbersome learning plan that makes the child look and feel different. The grouping this way is intended to help children socialize. However, improved socialization rarely happens for most gifted children. When there is more grouping by ability, readiness to learn, or flexible multi-age teaching and learning (honestly, the one room schoolhouse of old did a better job than we are doing now), more children feel like they belong and learning what they are ready to learn. I write to keep reminding gifted adults how this constant of needing to fit into systems that don’t work well for individuals causes ripple effects that are personal, generational, and an ongoing burden both to the individual and to their family to adjust to the critical mass in the middle. It sets up attitudes, feelings, and goals that can have a negative result, and, you will see, these outcomes often get their start during the school years. Children can’t change the systems, but maybe you can. Maybe enough of you will start making organizational waves.
In a somewhat helpful example on the topic of why we group by age in most of the so-called developed world, Zoe Cronin, in a peer-reviewed paper (2019), notes how seldom it is that anyone considers moving through one’s education as one is ready to do so. We simply aren’t set up for it and it is one of the primary drivers for the difficulties gifted children have, especially in elementary school. She writes:
This supports Anderson and Pavan’s (1993) assertion that “there is not, and there has not been, any philosophical or research-based support for continuation of graded structure” (p. xi) and it still has not changed twenty-five years later.
And since I published my book in 2023, I realized I don’t have all this next information in one place anywhere, so here it is:
How rapidly could —if given the opportunity—the gifted child progress through the academics of grades Kindergarten- Grade 6 lessons and objectives?
Level One (moderately gifted) ~ in about 4 years (or about 2/3 of the standard time)
Level Two (highly gifted) ~ in about 3 years (or about ½ the standard time)
Level Three (exceptionally gifted) ~ in about 2 years (or about 1/3 the standard time)
Level Four (exceptionally to profoundly gifted) ~ in 1–2 years or less (or about 1/6 the standard time) particularly in their strength areas
Level Five (profoundly gifted) ~ less than 1 year
When does each Level reach Mental Age 12:
Level One (Moderately Gifted): about age 10
Level Two (Highly Gifted): about age 9
Level Three (Exceptionally Gifted: about age 8
Level Four (Exceptionally to Profoundly Gifted): about age 7
Level Five (Profoundly Gifted): age 6
Frequencies of each Level of Gifted Child in a classroom or grade level
Table 1: Standard IQ Score Ranges for the Levels
The Descriptions of the Levels
For each Level of Gifted summary description that follows, I use the typical elementary school class size of about 25–28 students to give an estimate of “how many” gifted children from a Level are likely to be there. The range I give considers the different Types of Schools’ settings listed in the previous section. Here is a list of common behaviors, interests, and characteristics of all Levels of Gifted children and how often you might find them in a classroom:
Level One Gifted:
• Approximately 87th-97th percentiles on standardized tests
• Terms Superior to Moderately Gifted on IQ tests
• IQ scores of about 117 to 129
• Generally top one-third to one-fourth of students in a typical public mixed ability classroom in a Type II school; more in high socioeconomic Type III schools
• Many in this Level do not qualify for gifted programs (i.e., scores don’t meet school criteria)
• Predominant gifted program population due to higher frequency compared to Levels Two through Five
• Start kindergarten with end-of-year skills already mastered
Level Two Gifted:
• Mostly 98–99th percentiles on standardized tests
• Terms Moderately to Highly Gifted or Very Advanced on IQ tests
• IQ scores of about 125–135
• As many as one to three in typical mixed-ability classroom in Type II school; more in high socioeconomic Type III schools
• Qualify for gifted programs
• Second most common in gifted programs
• Master most kindergarten skills one to two years before kindergarten (by age 4)
Level Three Gifted:
• Approximately 98–99th percentiles on standardized tests
• Terms Highly to Exceptionally Gifted or Very Advanced on IQ tests
• IQ scores of about 130 to 140
• One or two per grade level; more in high socioeconomic Type III schools
• Qualify for gifted programs — above level of most other participants and material
• Unless gifted program includes more than one grade level, student may be only one of the same high ability in gifted class
• Master majority of kindergarten skills by age 3 or 4
• Most spontaneously read with or w/o previous instruction before kindergarten
• Most read simple chapter books by age 5–6
• Most intuitively use numbers for all operations before kindergarten
Level Four Gifted:
• Primarily 99th percentile on standardized tests, although this understates the person’s ability; it is qualitatively different from a Level Three 99th percentile.
• Also called exceptionally to profoundly gifted
• Full scale IQ scores of about 135 to 141+ or a 145+ on either verbal or nonverbal or a specific domain, e.g., spatial, or quantitative reasoning
• One or two across two grade levels; two or three per grade level in high socioeconomic Type III schools (e.g., 100 students in grade level)
• Master a majority of kindergarten skills by age 3
• Question concept of Santa or Tooth Fairy (or some similar concept) by age 4 to 5
• Majority at 2nd-3rd grade equivalency in academic subjects by early kindergarten
• Majority at upper high school grade equivalencies by 4th-5th grades
• Show concern for existential topics and life’s purpose by early elementary school age
Level Five Gifted:
• Primarily 99.9th percentiles on standardized tests, if such differentiation is reported
• Profoundly gifted range or Highly Advanced on IQ tests
• Full scale and domain scores at 145+ (slightly lower if tested after mid-teenage years)
• High intellectual profile across all ability domains, great inner drive to learn across domains (although not necessarily demonstrated in the regular classroom)
• Nationally at least 1:250,000, a higher proportion in metropolitan areas and high 50 socioeconomic background schools
• Majority have kindergarten skills by about 2½ years or sooner
• Question concept of Santa or Tooth Fairy (or some similar concept) by age 2 to 3
• Majority spontaneously read, understand fairly complex math, have existential concerns by age 4–5 with or without any instruction
• Majority have high school level grade equivalencies by age 7 or 8 years old, mostly through their own reading and question-asking
It is rare that you would have such a child in your school or classroom after the first one or two years of kindergarten and perhaps grade 1. However, some do stay in the school, including some subjects in this book study. They can, after all, show up anywhere.
Finally, here is an un-paywalled post that I will keep un-paywalled because so many people need it. Feel free to use and share as you wish: https://deborahruf.substack.com/p/preschool-behaviors-in-highly-to?r=2xq6n
Plus, because you need this one, too, because the systems for educating children haven’t yet changed, share this. I just un-paywalled it, too: https://deborahruf.substack.com/p/the-dos-and-donts-for-teachers-of?r=2xq6n
And if you want to both watch and hear me try to answer the question “Why Does Giftedness Matter? Understanding the Importance of Early Identification” here it is in podcast format. It is from a 2022 podcast in a conversation with Julia Krysztofiak-Szopa explains why recognizing giftedness in young children is so important. It’s about 5–1/2 minutes long.
Why Does Giftedness Matter? Understanding the Importance of Early Diagnosis
References and Further Reading
Cronin, Z. (October 2019). To mix or not to mix: a critical review of literature on mixed-age groups in primary schools. Cambridge Open-Review Educational Research e-Journal, Vol. 6, pp. 165–179. znc20@cam.ac.uk, (https://cerj.educ.cam.ac.uk/archive/v62019/CORERJ-Journal-Volume6-10-ToMixOrNotToMix.pdf)
Hollingworth, L.S. (1931). The child of very superior intelligence as a special problem in social adjustment. Mental Hygiene, 15(1), 3–16.
Hollingworth, L. (1942). Children above 180 IQ. World Book Company.
Kell, H. J., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2013). Who rises to the top? Early indicators. Psychological Science, 24(5), 648–659.
Lohman, D. F. (1999). Minding our p’s and q’s: On finding relationships between learning and intelligence. In P. L. Ackerman, P. C. Kyllonen, & R. D. Roberts (Eds.), Learning and individual differences: Process, trait, and content determinants (pp. 55–76). American Psychological Association. And from an in-person conversation with David Lohman in 2003 and re-confirmed by phone in 2015. His publication of this was in 1999.
Marshall, J. Dan. 1994. Nongradedness: Helping It To Happen by Robert H. Anderson and Barbara Nelson Pavan. Lancaster, Penn.: Technomic, © 1993. 235 Pages. ISBN 0–87762–980–3.” The Educational Forum 58 (3): 324–25. doi:10.1080/00131729409335349.
Terman, L. M. (1925). Genetic studies of genius Vol. I: Mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted children. Stanford University Press.
My Work:
The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-levels-of-gifted-children-grown-up-phd-deborah-l-ruf/1143719859?ean=9798988323709. This is an 18 year longitudinal study follow-up about the original gifted child subjects in 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009).
5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009). https://www.giftedunlimitedllc.com/store/p12/5_Levels_of_Gifted.html
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