Designing and Developing Programs for Gifted Students

In this handbook, you will find the inspiration and the practical guidance you need to start your own gifted program!

Gifted programs have the potential to change lives, but they can be difficult to develop and sustain without the appropriate research and guidance. This book gives you the "nuts and bolts" needed to design and implement a gifted program to maximize the benefits to students, teachers, schools, and parents.

In this comprehensive volume, best-selling author Joan Franklin Smutny brings some of the leading gifted educators together under the aegis of the National Association of Gifted Children. Lending editorial guidance and her own contributions, Smutny directs the individual expertise of each contributor, with chapters that include guidelines for:

• Designing and implementing curriculum for pre-K through middle school
• Identifying and selecting the best teachers
• Creating the vital support networks among parents, school, and community
• Assessing the program′s impact on children, parents, and teachers
• Developing special programming for the disadvantaged gifted students

 The book offers several examples of different learning experiences that fall under the definition of a "gifted program," as well as a chapter that outlines all of the essentials for starting a gifted program, including sample forms and letters.

Joan Franklin Smutny is founder and director of the Center for Gifted, a Northern Illinois University Partner. She directs programs for thousands of bright, talented, and gifted children in the Chicago area annually. She also teaches creative writing in many of these programs as well as courses on gifted education for graduate students at the university level. She is editor of the Illinois Association for Gifted Children Journal, contributing editor of Understanding Our Gifted, and a regular contributor to the Gifted Education Communicator, Parenting for High Potential, and the Gifted Education Press Quarterly. Smutny has authored, co-authored, and edited many articles and books on gifted education for teachers, parents, and administrators, including Challenging High Potential Spanish Speaking Students (2012), Teaching Advanced Learners in the General Education Classroom (2011), Manifesto of the Gifted Girl (2010), Differentiating for the Young Child, Second Edition (2010), Igniting Creativity in Gifted Learners, K–6 (2009), Acceleration for Gifted Learners, K–5 (2007), Reclaiming the Lives of Gifted Girls and Women (2007), Designing and Developing Programs for Gifted Students (2003), Underserved Gifted Populations (2003), Gifted Education: Promising Practices (2003), Stand Up for Your Gifted Child (2001), The Young Gifted Child: Potential and Promise, an Anthology (1998), and Teaching Young Gifted Children in the Regular Classroom (1997). In 1996, she won the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Distinguished Service Award for outstanding contribution to the field of gifted education.