Skip To Main Content

Gifted Instruction

A group of adults smiling and engaged in conversation indoors, with one person wearing a red hat.

Gifted Education at GMSD

At GMSD, gifted students are identified as those whose intellectual abilities, creativity, and potential for achievement are so outstanding that their needs go beyond the general education curriculum. Giftedness is considered part of exceptional education, ensuring these students receive specialized instruction or support services that help them thrive academically and personally.

To meet the diverse needs of gifted learners, GMSD provides a range of dynamic services, including in-class supports that enhance and enrich learning, specialized pull-out programs for targeted instruction, and accelerated learning classes at the middle and high school levels. These services are designed to challenge and engage gifted students, empowering them to reach their full potential.

The Standards for Special Education Evaluation & Eligibility for Intellectually Gifted students outline the process and criteria for identifying and supporting students whose exceptional abilities require specialized instruction beyond general education. Effective since July 1, 2017, the standards ensure evaluations are thorough, unbiased, and sensitive to cultural, linguistic, and environmental factors.

Read more about Gifted Evaluation and Eligibility

Characteristics of the Gifted Child

Definition: “Intellectually Gifted” means a child whose intellectual abilities, creativity, and potential for achievement are so outstanding that the child’s needs exceed differentiated general education programming, adversely affects educational performance, and requires specifically designed instruction or support services. Children from all populations (e.g., all cultural, racial, and ethnic groups, English Learners, all economic strata, twice exceptional, etc.) can be found to possess these abilities. 

Identifying Intellectually Gifted Students: 

Below are examples of characteristics of giftedness, but more information can be found on the state's official website.

Tennessee Department of Education Website

 

National Association for Gifted Children

  • Unusual alertness, even in infancy
  • Rapid learner; puts thoughts together quickly
  • Excellent memory
  • Unusually large vocabulary and complex sentence structure for age
  • Advanced comprehension of word nuances, metaphors and abstract ideas
  • Enjoys solving problems, especially with numbers and puzzles
  • Often self-taught reading and writing skills as preschooler
  • Deep, intense feelings and reactions
  • Highly sensitive
  • Thinking is abstract, complex, logical, and insightful
  • Idealism and sense of justice at early age
  • Concern with social and political issues and injustices
  • Longer attention span and intense concentration
  • Preoccupied with own thoughts—daydreamer
  • Learn basic skills quickly and with little practice
  • Asks probing questions
  • Wide range of interests (or extreme focus in one area)
  • Highly developed curiosity
  • Interest in experimenting and doing things differently
  • Puts ideas or things together that are not typical
  • Keen and/or unusual sense of humor
  • Desire to organize people/things through games or complex schemas
  • Vivid imaginations (and imaginary playmates when in preschool)

 

Frasier – TABs and Definitions

  • Motivation: Evidence of desire to learn.
  • Interests: A feeling of intentness, passion, concern, or curiosity about something.
  • Communication skills: Highly expressive and effective use of words, numbers, symbols, and so forth.
  • Problem-solving ability: Effective, often inventive, strategies for recognizing and solving problems.
  • Memory: Large storehouse of information on school or non-school topics.
  • Inquiry: Questions, experiments, explores.
  • Insight: Quickly grasps new concepts and makes connections, senses deeper meanings.
  • Reasoning: Logical approaches to figuring out solutions.
  • Imagination and creativity: Produces many ideas, highly original.
  • Humor: Conveys and picks up on humor.

Torrance – Characteristics of Creativity

  • Fluency: The ability to think of, or produce many ideas or products.
  • Flexibility: The ability to think of many different kinds or categories of responses to a stimulus.
  • Originality: Unusual or infrequent responses compared to same-aged peers.
  • Abstractness of thought: The ability to capture the essence of something by going beyond what is seen or heard by telling a story, giving dialogue, revealing thoughts, or suggesting meaning in an abstract way. 
  • Elaboration: Imagination and exposition of detail.
  • Resistance to closure: The ability to delay closure long enough to make the mental leap that makes possible more original ideas.

If you suspect your child's education is adversely impacted due to an educational disability under the eligibility of Intellectually Gifted, please visit our Intellectually Gifted Evaluation page