Gifted Children and Homeschooling

An Interview with Kathi Kearney

If parents have a gifted child, should they look at homeschooling as an option?

Not every parent should consider homeschooling for a gifted child and not every gifted child should be homeschooled. That said, homeschooling is an excellent alternative for many gifted children at some point in their development.

Homeschooling is an especially important option in situations where a child’s school can’t—or won’t—provide appropriate services and, as a result, the child’s social-emotional development, behavior or school achievement starts to deteriorate.

Homeschooling works well for many gifted children because the very same strategies and curricular approaches that more than 100 years of research show work well with the gifted—acceleration, self-pacing, deep investigation in areas of personal interest, the project method and integrated curricula—are all present in general homeschooling curriculum (although often under different names).

How many students today are being homeschooled?

No one knows for sure how many homeschoolers are in the United States. Estimates range from 800,000 (the U.S. Department of Education) to more than 2 million (independent researchers). It’s difficult to calculate an exact number because each state has its own definition of a homeschooler. In some states, such as Kansas and Texas, homeschools are considered private schools so homeschoolers in those states are lumped in with private school students.

Is the number growing?

Yes. The number seems to be growing the fastest among gifted students, students with disabilities and African-American students.

Do parents need to know about gifted education to be successful home schoolers?

It helps but it isn’t necessary. Most parents notice pretty quickly if one of their children is moving at a particularly quick pace.

Parents who do want to know more about giftedness can participate in a listserv or read articles on the Davidson Institute’s (www.ditd.org) or Hoagie’s web sites (www.hoagiesgifted.org) to learn both about characteristics of gifted kids and also various teaching approaches, such as acceleration.
I find it interesting that a lot of the teaching methods that work well for homeschooling are similar—or identical—to the best practices for gifted children that have been promoted over the past 20 years. The big difference is in terminology. What the field of gifted calls “integrated” or “interdisciplinary study,” for example, is called “unit study” in homeschooling. What gifted names “independent study” isn’t called that in homeschooling because all of the learning is fairly independent already. Acceleration is “moving at your own pace” in homeschooling. If parents read gifted listservs, they’ll know the appropriate words to use when looking for the best curriculum for their homeschoolers.

How does homeschooling a gifted child differ from homeschooling a child achieving at average levels?

Four basic ways: First is level and curriculum pacing. Second is the amount of depth and type of enrichment activities that can be offered. Imagination is the third, and the fourth is timing.

As you might assume, many gifted kids proceed at their own pace. In fact, I just received an email from a friend whose 12-year-old has enough credits to graduate from high school right now. The parent is researching facilities where the child could take college-level courses. The plan is for the child to take a couple of these courses. If she does well on the ACT or SAT, the parents are considering having the child attend college the next year. When they started homeschooling four years ago, the parents never imagined that their child would be ready for college at 14.

How should parents choose a curriculum for a gifted child?

Choosing curriculum means finding a match between the child’s learning style and what the parent is comfortable with in terms of a teaching style. In some situations an unschooling approach—life is school and school is life—could work. But if either the parent or the child is uncomfortable with that approach, it won’t work. As scholar John Holt said, “Homeschooling is self-selecting and self-correcting.”

Parents will make adjustments if something isn’t working. For example, they need to make sure that their child is at the correct reading and math level—which can be determined by placement tests. Parents can also go to local schools or universities and study the texts that they are using. Or they can research their options at home school conventions and conferences and/or by connecting with state or local homeschooling groups.

What parents need to remember is that every student is different, so determining which approach to take often requires a bit of trial and error. Some curricula are very structural and linear and a number of children respond to that method very well. Other kids need a more exploratory, self-directed approach.

Don’t gifted children need the resources of a well-equipped school to achieve their academic potential?

You might ask, “Don’t students in conventional schools need a well-equipped world?” A lot of time is spent in conventional schools breaking down the world outside to bring it into the school. With homeschooling, you just go outside and learn.

That being said, some states have great resources, particularly those with the public school access law, where homeschoolers can participate in public school activities. The most popular for homeschoolers are lab sciences, foreign language, and team sports. In states without a public school access law, individual districts grant permission. Homeschooling groups in these states regularly lobby legislators to enact the public school access law in their states.

Are there pitfalls to homeschooling? If so, how can parents avoid them?
With gifted kids, the greatest pitfall can be not starting homeschooling soon enough. Sometimes parents are reluctant to make the change. This can leave students in an inappropriate learning situation which can cause long-term damage.

Another pitfall is for parents to attend a homeschooling convention and purchase what they think is a curriculum that will last for a year and then they find out it lasts for only two months. Gifted kids often speed through material so parents should be prepared to spend extra money on curriculum.

Do homeschooled gifted children have trouble finding intellectual peers with whom to socialize?

This is an issue for every gifted kid, isn’t it? The more gifted the child is, the more likely the child will have difficulty finding intellectual challenges; and the brighter the child is, the harder it is to find a peer.

It’s an important issue and I recommend that parents apply to the Davidson Institute Retreat and the Parents of Gifted Children Retreat offered by the Gifted Development Center in Denver. (For up-to-date information on the availability of this particular program go to .) I also encourage them to participate in listservs to find other peers in the area. Parents need to address this issue and do what they can to help their children.

Are homeschooled students competitive applicants for selective colleges and universities?

Absolutely. In fact, Stanford University has an entire page in its brochure explaining to homeschoolers how they should apply; Harvard has one person specifically dedicated to admitting homeschoolers. To date, homeschooled children have been just as successful at elite schools and graduate programs as their conventional school peers. l

About the author:

Kathi Kearney, M.A.Ed., currently teaches gifted students at the Noble VI School in Berwick, ME. She is also a Professional Associate with the Gifted Development Center in Denver, CO. She is the founder of the Hollingworth Center for Highly Gifted Children, a national resource and support network for exceptionally gifted children and their families.

Kearney was an instructor in talented and gifted education at Iowa State University in Ames, IA for two years. She has also worked with children as a teacher and administrator in a wide variety of urban and rural settings and in public, private, religious and home schools. She is the Past Chair of the Conceptual Foundations Division of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and has contributed scholarly journal articles on such topics as assessment, the highly gifted child, rural and distance learning, minority groups in gifted education, and Leta Hollingworth’s work on children with IQ scores above 180. Her most recent research project involved conducting validation studies of the new Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (5th Ed) for Riverside Publishing.

Reprinted from: Center for Talent Development, Northwestern University, 617 Dartmouth Place Evanston, IL 60208
Phone: 847-491-3782 

http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/index.htm