Thoughts on gifted girls
February 12, 2016
Returning to one of my long-term interests, this time in the context of literature and analysis. This article has really struck a chord, personally and academically.
Academically, gifted girls are usually precocious readers. The National Association for Gifted Children’s (2006) position statement on early childhood states that characteristics of young gifted children include early reading skills and advanced vocabulary, and most of the gifted eminent adult women were precocious readers whose talent was nourished at an early age (Kerr, 1997). … Too often, gifted girls’ precocious reading is discounted as merely memorizing or decoding without comprehension …. Although early entrance to school is frowned on by many (Frey, 2005), research consistently shows that these accelerated children show advantages throughout their entire academic careers (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004). When kindergarten entry policies are based on average boys’ readiness, tradition, or financial considerations, rather than on an individual child’s actual readiness, they are gendered practices.
Source: Barbara A Kerr, M. Alexandra Yuyk, and Christopher Read, “Gendered Practices in the Education of Gifted Girls and Boys” (Psychology in the Schools 49.7), 647–55.
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