Just in Case Your Gifted Child is Doing Poorly Academically.......
(Read on!)

   1. Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read.
   2. Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school.
   3. When Thomas Edison was a boy, his teachers told him he was too stupid to learn anything.
   4. F.W.Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21. But his employers would
         not let him wait on a customer because he "Didn't have enough sense."
   5. A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had "No good ideas"
   6. Caruso's music teacher told him "You can't sing, you have no voice at all."
   7. Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college.
   8. Verner Von Braun flunked 9th grade algebra.
   9. Admiral Richard E. Byrd had been retired from the navy, as, "Unfit for service"
         until he flew over both poles.
  10. Louis Pasteur was rated as mediocre in chemistry when he attended the Royal College.
  11. Abraham Lincoln entered The Black Hawk War as a captain and came out a private.
  12. Fred Waring was once rejected from high school chorus.
  13. Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade.

Myths About Gifted Kids

# Gifted kids can accomplish anything they put their minds to, they just have to apply themselves.

# Gifted kids have fewer problems than others; they do not need or deserve extra time and attention.

# Gifted kids are self-directed, they know where they are heading.

# Gifted kids are independent learners, they don’t need parental guidance.

# Gifted kids always do well in school.  They are usually straight A students.

# Gifted kids don't need help from their parents with study skills; they can manage on their own.

# All gifted kids are high achievers; they really don’t have to work for grades.

# Gifted underachievers just need to try harder and get organized.
 

Truths About Gifted Kids

 # Some gifted kids are perfectionists and idealistic and may equate achievement and grades with self-esteem and self-worth. This can lead to fear of failure and can interfere with their achievement in and out of school.

# The social and emotional development of a gifted child may not be at the same level as their intellectual development. (Note:  Just because they TALK like adults, doesn’t mean they are yet!)

# Gifted kids may experience heightened sensitivity to their own expectations and those of others, producing constant guilt over achievements or grades.

# Some gifted kids are "mappers" (sequential learners), while others are "leapers" (spatial learners). Leapers often can't say how they got a "right answer." Mappers may get lost in the steps leading to the right answer.

# Gifted kids may be so far ahead of their chronological age mates that they know more than half the curriculum before the school year begins! Their boredom can result in low achievement and grades. (Note:  While this may have been true in elementary school, it is generally NOT true at the middle school level.)

# In school, gifted kids may need real problems to work on in order to achieve at high levels. Gifted students often refuse to work for grades alone. (Note:  Just as with other children their age, it’s up to parents to “raise the bar” and let their child know what they consider an acceptable level of performance. Teachers of gifted students believe that ALL of their students are capable of making Bs in academic classes.)

# Gifted kids often think abstractly and with such complexity that they may need help with study and test taking skills. For example, they can justify ALL the answers in a multiple choice question, or they skip reading test instructions because they are impatient. 

# Gifted kids who do well in school may define success as getting an "A" and failure as any grade less than an "A." By early adolescence they may be unwilling to try anything where they are not certain of guaranteed success. On the other hand, some gifted students are quite confident in their own intellectual ability and simply have no interest in maintaining good grades.

(These common myths and truths about giftedness are from the Council for Exceptional Children and the combined experience of HG teachers with many years experience teaching gifted children.)