Being Smart About Gifted Children: A Guidebook For Parents And Educators

Written for parents and educators - especially those who live and work with gifted/high-ability children - the authors describe ways to develop children's natural abilities.

Introducing the "mystery" and "mastery" models of gifted education, they invite controversy by challenging several commonly held assumptions. They then present practical strategies to help parents and educators identify and nurture the abilities of children with high ability.

This book answers the charges that special programs for gifted children are elitist. The authors demonstrate that it is simply appropriate to provide educational experiences that each child needs at a particular time.

Features include:

"Mystery" and "Mastery" models Identification procedures
Learning issues
Programming options
Social and behavioral concerns
Teacher development processes
Gifted education trends
Parenting strategies

Dona Matthews, Ph.D. is Director of the Hunter College Center for Gifted Studies and Associate Professor of Special Education, City University of New York. Joanne Foster, Ed.D. teaches Educational Psychology as well as Gifted Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, and is the Gifted Education Consultant for a large school board in Toronto. Both have teaching experience, were coordinators of programs for gifted children, and have written and spoken extensively throughout Canada and the U.S.