Purpose~ Potential~ Promise
Parenting the High Ability Child
Hey Parents!
UAGC Special Event
The Utah Association for Gifted Children invites all students ages 8+ and their parents to a FREE Meet the Author event! This virtual event provides an opportunity for students from across the state to meet together with author J Scott Savage, engage in his entertaining presentation and participate in a question/answer session.
Meet the Author Event: J Scott Savage
When: 13 Nov 2021 10:00 AM
Where: Virtual
EVENT DETAILS:
Join us to meet J. Scott Savage, the author of the "Farworld" and the "Case File 13" series! Find out about his new books and learn about the process of creating stories during this fun, interactive event for students ages 8-12! Adults are welcome.
Scott is the author of 19 published novels. He has been a teacher and presenter at writing conferences for adults and youth and has developed Common Core-aligned projects for elementary school writing curricula. He has presented at more than 3000 schools across the country, inspiring students to read, write, embrace their own creativity, and change the world. Check out his books at https://www.jscottsavage.com.
To register, visit www.uagc.org and click on Meet the Author Event.
We hope to see you there!
Best regards,
The UAGC Board
Turkey Freebie From the Gifted Guru
The Gifted Guru on Books for Strong Young Readers
I get so many questions about this issue that I thought it was worth an entire email.
I posted about it on Instagram yesterday (you can see the post here), and I thought I'd expand a little and share more ideas.
What's the problem?
When working with gifted kids, a common issue arises when students' reading levels are stratospheric, but the books written at that level are full of things that are not at their emotional maturity level or have a lot of adult "themes."
Let's be clear about what we mean by reading level
One thing that's important to consider is what we mean when we say "reading level."
We usually mean decoding and comprehension, but it can also mean the ability to analyze.
Many people conflate these two ideas, and that causes problems.
Just because a child can understand the words, doesn't mean they understand the themes or are able to truly process the reading. Pushing them into challenging texts simply because they can decode at that level is problematic.
Reading level and interest level are not always aligned
Sometimes we struggle because a student or child likes to read books that are difficult to find for kids. If your child is interested in astrophysics, no problem. Dystopic fantasy? Well, you're going to find more sex and violence than you are comfortable recommending to an eight-year-old.
So what do you do?
Some ideas
I've got three primary go-to's for these kids.
1) I've curated a lot of suggestions (with help from Lynnette Breedlove) that I share on the page Amazon lets me have.
2) When I was the Youth & Education Ambassador for Mensa, I developed the Excellence in Reading program in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Humanities. This program is really, really good. There are grade level bands of recommendations for readers, and readers can earn a free tshirt by reading a list. You can learn more about it here.
3) Non-fiction is my go-to for strong readers. The content-specifi vocabulary makes the reading itself more challenging. The advent of creative non-fiction means that there is much, much more non-fiction to explore. I'm especially keen on the young readers adaptations.
I've written about reading
I've written quite a bit about reading, and here are some articles you may like if this subject resonates with you: