Teachers often do not have the time or the resources to help a gifted child maximize their potential. The question is, given the constraints you may have as a teacher, how can you identify and encourage the educational development of a gifted child in your class?

What Are Some Characteristics of Gifted Students?
Is there a child in your classroom who seems bored? Does your student seem to always complete their homework before they go home? Does your student seem to put in minimal effort while always scoring well on tests? Is there a chatterbox in the classroom or a class clown? Can disruptive behaviour in the classroom mean that your student is gifted? Yes, some gifted children may exhibit these behaviours.

Gifted children do not only excel in their studies. They can be gifted in other ways, too. A gifted child may excel in sports or music. Gifted children will often find a way to develop their talent through expression, especially artistically. Disruptive behaviour from a gifted child is often a method of self-expression in a restrained environment.

Are IQ Tests Necessary?
IQ tests are usually done to determine if a child is indeed gifted. However, according to educational psychologist David Palmer, Ph.D., IQ tests aren’t necessarily the best way to do that. “IQ tests typically have timed subtests, meaning that the faster a child responds or correctly completes a task, the more points she earns,” Palmer explains to Psychologytoday.com. “However, gifted children who are perfectionists may respond more slowly than others, taking their time, working carefully and methodically, and checking their responses for accuracy. A gifted child with a high energy level who has a hard time focusing attention on structured tasks may also be at a disadvantage when it comes to performing in the rigidly structured atmosphere of an IQ test.

What is Your Role as a Teacher of a Gifted Student?
Teachers are not the only ones expected to identify gifted students. Parents usually know if their child has a certain talent or knack for learning. Children who are gifted tend to show off their skills at early stages of development – before ever stepping foot in a classroom.

However, sometimes children’s talents don’t begin to take shape until school begins. A teacher’s role in helping students develop their academic gifts can be simply recognizing it, understanding it and nurturing it. If you think a student in your class is gifted, discuss your thoughts with the parents and get their take on it. While you alone may not be able to help that child reach their maximum potential, you can definitely help them fit into the traditional classroom better.

Encourage them to develop their talent just like any other child. Praise a normally disruptive child when they exhibit positive behaviour to encourage more of it. Ben Johnson, author and educator, believes praising one student over another is a good idea. “In this age of equality, teachers feel that praising a student above others is detrimental to the other students. This could not be further from the truth. Students have a need to exceed and innately understand that each exceeds differently. The detriment of this mentality is that the truly gifted students are shackled and not allowed to explore their gifts, or even worse, accept them,” Johnson says.

Gifted children can often feel out of place in a traditional classroom setting. Making your gifted student feel like everyone else, or making them feel comfortable with their abilities, can make all the difference in how that child continues to develop. A positive environment can help a gifted child thrive and reach their true potential.