Gifted Elementary Students Languishing In Regular Classrooms, Studies Suggest

By Millicent Lawton

Gifted elementary-school students are languishing unchallenged by regular-classroom practices and would be better served if they were freed from covering up to 70 percent of the standard curriculum or were grouped by ability, a federally funded research project concludes.

Such pupils, according to findings released last week, typically are not receiving instruction or curriculum that differs from that presented to academically average students, and they are usually asked to revisit material they have already learned.

"We need to improve the extent to which gifted students receive advanced content and instruction in higher-level thinking skills," said Francis X. Archambault Jr., one of the researchers and the head of the educational-psychology department at...