How To Teach Kids

When I taught Gifted and Talented students, they were in a regular classroom (first or second grade).  I had a mix of regular students, gifted and talented students, ESL students (sometimes students starting the year speaking no English), and children with learning disabilities or physical handicaps.  How is a teacher able to meet the needs of gifted students?

Here are some suggestions:

• Stretch every lesson where possible with Higher Level Thinking Skills.
• Teacher’s manuals will often have suggestions for gifted students.
• Have the gifted students work on projects they can do by themselves.
• Just because a student is a gifted student does not mean they are an independent worker or a self-motivator.   Pair these students up with a partner who is an independent worker.
• Utilize resources.   I had one exceptionally bright first grader who would go to the library and do research on topics of his choosing with minimal supervision from the librarian.   He would either write about it or illustrate and make a poster about his research.
• Encourage students to enter extra activities offered by your district such as Science Fair, History Fair, Invention Convention, Art Contests, etc.   One year, I had a gifted second grader (an ESL student) who excelled in art and entered a district contest.  He won an award!
• Have students work on a class newspaper that they publish once a week or once a month.
• A lot of times, you can see where certain students excel in one or more of the Seven Areas of Giftedness.   Develop centers or projects for these areas.

Brainstorming stretches the children’s minds.  This skill will be useful in something as simple as writing a sentence all the way to creative writing, in reading skills, in math, social studies and science skills, and also in higher level thinking skills.  It is used in problem solving and the creation of solutions.  Creative people brainstorm.   This will be a skill used throughout one’s life.

PART ONE – BRAINSTORMING FROM WHAT IS VISIBLE:

The first step in teaching children how to brainstorm is for the teacher to model brainstorming, show them how you yourself brainstorm.  Take something they can see such as one of their classmates.   Think out loud and write on the board everything about that student.  For example:

• Her name is Sally.
• She’s in first grade.
• She has blonde hair.
• She has long hair.
• She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
• She wears glasses.
• She has a big smile.
• She has a picture of a dog on her T-shirt.

Another example would be to take a book, preferably a big book so all students can see easily.   If I had the book about Goldilocks and the Three Bears, then this is what I would write on the board from what we could see in the picture on the front of the book:

• There are three bears.
• One bear is really big.
• One bear is little.
• One bear is in-between size.
• The bears are brown.
• There is a girl.
• She is little.
• She has blonde hair.
• She is wearing a dress.
• Here dress is blue and red.
• There is a house.
• It has a door and two windows.
• There are lots and lots of trees (a forest).
• There are flowers beside the house.

After you have modeled for the students, then brainstorm together with the students.  After that,  have the students practice brainstorming with a partner, then by themselves.  We will proceed in Part Two to brainstorming ideas.

First graders, as you know, come with varying levels of skills.  Some students will be clueless on how to even begin writing a sentence.  That’s when the teacher needs to brainstorm with those students. Here are some ideas that are good with first graders, ESL students, or students with learning disabilites:

• Pick a topic to write about that is of high interest.  It’s close to Valentine’s Day, so I will pick Valentine hearts.
• Discuss with the students, “Now what do we want to say about hearts?”  Let them share their ideas and write them on the board.
• Pick one idea that is not a complete sentence such as “pretty and red.”
• Explain that a sentence is about someone or something.  Ask, “What is it that is ‘pretty and red?’  Our sentence has to tell us.”   Hopefully, someone will say “a heart.”
• Write the complete sentence on the board:  A heart is pretty and red.  Underline the two main parts of the sentence and show that the sentence is about “a heart” and “is pretty and red” tells about that heart.
• Another student may have said, “a pink heart.”  So the teacher would ask, “What about a pink heart?  The sentence has to tell us something about this pink heart.”   The end result might be:  A pink heart is on the table.
• Go through the other student ideas and work together to make sentences out of them.
• Then give each student a heart-shaped piece of handwriting paper and let them try writing their own sentence.

Some students will be able to sound out words to write their own sentence, and some students will not be able to do that.  With those students, you need to work one-on-one:

• Ask what their sentence is about.
• Start with the first word, sound it out slowly for the student, and go sound by sound while having the student write the sound they hear.
• Do this with each word until the sentence is finished.

Soon, when the students feel more competent in writing a sentence, discuss with them the following:

• Sentences always start with a capital letter.
• Sentences always end with a period or something else.  Nearly all their sentences will be telling sentences at this point.

Always praise their work and find something positive to say about it.  Make them feel proud and take ownership of their work.   Those who are fearful of writing should eventually get to the point where they can write their own sentence.