Providing challenging curriculum in a literacy classroom of students whose reading abilities range widely can be a challenge. Integrating interdisciplinary book selections into a self-selected reading program, however, provides students with challenge by engaging them with big ideas. This article describes methods of integrating advanced…

The process of talent development with children and young adults who have participated in programs based on the Enrichment Triad and the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) has been the focus of research by Renzulli and Reis, as well as other scholars and colleagues, for over four decades. Periodic summaries of this extensive research have been…

Providing challenging and engaging learning opportunities is one way to motivate students to learn. In this article, we discuss the contributions of the gifted education field to the development of enrichment pedagogy and identify several different types of these engaging instructional strategies, including interest-based learning pedagogy,…

The diversity of skills, talents, and interests of students that we serve in our schools requires a remarkable range of teachers' skills, time, and resources. This brief article focuses on differentiation and the ways that teachers can adapt and differentiate the regular curriculum to meet the academic needs of all of their students. Challenges…

This article describes current attempts and steps to expand both services and research about gifted education and talent development programs and educational opportunities for academically talented students in Italy. The laws, procedures, and policies that have been essential to this process are described, as is the outcome, which is the…

Remarkable advances in instructional communication technology (ICT) have now made it possible to provide high levels of enrichment services to students online. This paper describes an Internet-based enrichment program based on a high-end learning theory that focuses on the development of creative productivity through the "application" of knowledge…

Academically talented students in many urban areas in the authors' Northeastern corner of the county have limited access to gifted and talented programs due to lack of funding and attention focused on students who are achieving well below grade level. In the city of Hartford, for example, no gifted program has been available for more than a…

This myth that the gifted constitute a single, homogeneous group is addressed by the authors in this article. They respond by saying that there is no single homogeneous group of gifted children and adults, and giftedness is developmental, not fixed at birth. Research in the past few decades has pointed to the ways in which gifts and talents vary,…

This article examines learning opportunities for gifted and talented students. Districts and states have developed innovative programs that include mentorships, Saturday programs, after-school enrichment activities and summer internships. However, recent experiences suggest strongly that this attention has decreased in the years following the…

Over the past four years, educators and researchers from the University of Connecticut have worked with urban high-poverty schools to implement an alternative reading instruction program called the Schoolwide Enrichment Model in Reading (SEM-R). Based on Renzulli's Enrichment Triad Model, the SEM-R works through planned enrichment experiences to…

A recent summary of research produced by a task force of psychologists and educational researchers associated with the National Association for Gifted Children and the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented indicated that high-ability students are generally at least as well adjusted as any other group of youngsters. This research also…

Using the first 4 waves of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K), this piecewise 3-level (time-student-school) growth-curve model provides a portrait of students' reading growth over the first 2 years of school. On average, students make much greater reading gains in 1st grade than they do in kindergarten.…

Describes application of Renzulli's School Enrichment Model in one Connecticut elementary school. The program uses enrichment clusters in which nongraded groups of students come together to pursue common interests during designated time blocks. Program development and implementation, cluster sharing, teacher reactions, and parent/student reactions…

The application of knowledge in authentic learning situations involves steps like finding and focusing on the problem, gathering information, critically analyzing and effectively communicating the results. The change in the teacher's approach and encouraging use of enrichment clusters system among the students is discussed.

This book offers guiding principles for culturally diverse environments and curricular choices to support multicultural inclusiveness. Case studies provide examples of exemplary gifted education programs, emphasizing the aspects of the program that best respond to diverse student populations. Subsequent chapters on gifted and general education…