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I promised to share some of our curriculum choices on this blog, and it’s about time I got started. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the number of products that are available out there. If you have something that is working for your children, don’t feel compelled to switch to something else that promises to be even better. (Now, if I could only follow my own advice!)

This review is intended for those who are just embarking on homeschooling gifted children and want some direction; or, for those who are in a rut with their current program and feel the need to make a change. Seasoned homeschoolers of gifted children will no doubt already be aware of this product line; indeed, it was those folks who pointed me in the direction of Michael Clay Thompson when I first started homeschooling.

Michael Clay Thompson gets gifted kids. He really does. In a speech delivered at a gifted conference in 1998, he tackled the “All Children Are Gifted” mantra and pointed out the very real needs of the gifted population:

Need. What kinds of instructional differentiation do gifted children need? They need instruction that responds to their extra curiosity, to their urgency for meaning, to their advanced vocabularies, to their interest in complexity, to their fast comprehensions, to their vast memories. Gifted children need choice– individualized and self-regulating experiences that are appropriate to their self-motivated independence. They need higher-order thinking activities that give their abstract minds a workout. They need Socratic, the energies of their inherent, constant questioning. They need advanced levels of subject matter because they can learn them and short instructions because they will understand them immediately and quick paces through difficult material because they don’t need many things repeated. Gifted kids do need research; they don’t need many workbooks. They do need a variety of learning experiences; they don’t need just more amounts of the problems in the textbook.

And Michael Clay Thompson, with the support of Royal Fireworks Press, has delivered a curriculum that meets those needs.

The first level in his Language Arts curriculum is Grammar Island. The quirky text, unusual graphics and dramatic fonts seem foreign at first, particularly if one has been using a more traditional curriculum.

Don’t be alarmed by the seemingly silly story lines and characters in these books. They are all designed to engage the student and, judging by the eagerness with which my math-oriented 9-year old laps up his grammar lessons, they have succeeded. For a visual-spatial learner like SciGuy, the lack of “workbooks” is much appreciated, although there is a practice manual to work through which reinforces the four-level analysis of a sentence, introduced in Grammar Island.

Even though there aren’t traditional workbooks, the material is so engaging that it stimulates discussion about grammar and language that helps to solidify the concepts. We enjoy snuggling together on the couch to read aloud from the books, and I am always asked to read further than I had planned.

In addition to Grammar Island, which introduces the parts of speech, and Sentence Island, which is the first step in the journey to writing academic papers (which is where your student should be at the conclusion of all six levels), there is Building Language. This is the vocabulary component of the program and focuses on Latin roots in the English language.

The layout of the book is lovely and the text is both informative and challenging. While there is no workbook associated with it, the student is asked to write poems or other mental exercises as a follow up to the stem lesson. These require some real thought (as opposed to simply filling in the blanks, as many vocabulary programs require) and you may be surprised by what your child can produce.

The final segment of the program is poetics. Again, the layout of the book is inspiringly beautiful. I couldn’t believe how much enjoyment my children were getting out of discussing poetry, and they even wrote some lovely pieces on their own following a lesson from Music of the Hemispheres, pictured below:

Some people wonder whether this program can stand alone. I would say that it probably can, although I have felt compelled, at this point, to supplement with an additional creative writing program (we are using Writing Strands). I also think it’s helpful that the child have some familiarity with the parts of speech before embarking on the program. Although it is comprehensive, Grammar Island does move quickly and if the child is having trouble keeping the different elements straight it may be beneficial to get that sorted out first (although using the Practice Island manual will certainly give him lots of practice in identifying them).

Grammar Island is recommended for gifted children in grades 3 or 4. While it is marketed to the gifted population, I see no reason why it could not be enjoyed by any child. I would not rush a child younger than 3rd grade into this program, unless they are profoundly gifted in language, as it is more complex than the simple graphics and pleasant stories would make it appear.

Following Grammar Island, the child moves into Grammar Town and Grammar Voyage, which are the next levels of elementary grammar. Each has complementary writing, vocabulary, practice and poetics texts. Magic Lens, levels 1-3, follow for middle school and early high school.

One final point: Royal Fireworks Press sells each of the six levels in your choice of homeschool package – complete or basic. The basic package includes only the teacher’s guides. While I have chosen to purchase the complete package, with student texts for each subject, it is not necessary to do so. The teacher’s guides are essentially the same book as the student text, except that they have a few notes in the margins to stimulate discussion. These can easily be hidden from the child while you read together.

For the record, I am not affiliated with RFWP or MCT — just a happy customer. There are lots more of us at the Yahoo group dedicated to users of these materials.

Today, Gifted Exchange welcomes Katharine Beals, author of the new book Raising a Left-Brain Child in a Right-Brain World. Beals, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, argues that "bright, quirky, socially awkward children" are at a distinct disadvantage in today's schools, which emphasize group learning and class participation. While certainly not all gifted children fit that description, the stereotypical "nerd" does -- and Beals argues that such children need help from parents and schools to best make their way in the world. Her book also contains a section on parenting mildly autistic children; if you've got a twice exceptional child, that is well worth checking out.

Gifted Exchange: Describe what you mean by “left-brain children.”

Beals: I’m using the term “left-brain” not in a neurological sense, but in the everyday sense that has permeated our language via popular psychology. So by “left-brained,” I mean those who think abstractly and logically, analyze and systematize, process things linearly (or one at a time), attune themselves to verbal rather than nonverbal communication, and prefer to work independently.

GE: What do you make of books like Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, which claim that what you label a “left-brain” style has previously been dominant, and the new economy will be based on a “right-brain” style? Do you think left-brainers are actually in the minority? Have they always been?

Beals: I agree with Pink that the “left-brain” style no longer dominates in terms of what most Americans consider important. As I argue in my book, this is especially true in our K-12 classrooms. But I believe left-brain thinking has always been essential to our economy, especially when it comes to scientific and technological advancement, and I find it rather alarming that Pink thinks we can comfortably outsource all of this to India.

I’m no expert on nature vs. nurture, but I suspect that the left-brain disposition is largely innate, and thus independent of societal trends. Whether or not left-brainers are in a minority really depends on where you draw the line. How social you are, and how linear a thinker you are, is really a matter of degree. Also, you might be fairly social but extremely analytical, or vice versa—in which case some, but not all right-brain trends will be problematic for you.

GE: Is there any relationship between giftedness and being “left-brained?”

Beals: I think there’s quite a strong relationship, particularly when it comes to academics. Strong analytical skills lead to aptitude for math, science, foreign language, and expository writing. The problem, though, is that fewer and fewer educators appreciate this connection. Today’s schools increasingly de-emphasize analytical skills in favor of social and organizational skills and visual creativity. The unfortunate result is that many bright left-brainers are no longer recognized as gifted.

GE: How can parents and schools teach left-brain children to cope with social situations?

Beals: Many unsocial children need more structure than the typical peer group environments offered by schools, which are often unstructured and unsupervised. Much more ideal is a social skills group run by a trained specialist—e.g., a developmental psychologist or speech/language therapist. Some schools offer this, but typically parents must look outside the schools to private clinics.

In my book, I also recommend several textbooks that focus on conversation rules in particular. Though these books were written for students learning English as a foreign language, and American culture as a foreign culture, much of what they say is also helpful to left-brain Americans.

GE: Has the increased use of text-based and virtual communication (email, texting, online games, etc.) opened up new ways to interact for socially awkward kids?

Beals: Yes, it has, and this is a very promising development. Many unsocial left-brainers are much more comfortable with text-based than with in-person communication. With text, all the social cues are right there, written out in front of you, and there’s more time to figure what to say and how to say it. Online games like Second Life, where you customize a two-dimensional “avatar” to stand in for yourself, have been a godsend to many shy or socially awkward kids--a non-threatening way to make friends and practice social skills.

GE: What makes math “reform” (making it more social and right-brain friendly) appealing to educators? Can a good teacher do it (or the other ideas, like Writing Across the Curriculum or Project-Based Learning that you criticize) right? Or is it inherently problematic?

Beals: Reform math appeals to educators partly because education schools have been pushing it for years, partly because it aligns with state math tests, and partly because it involves a lot less drill than you find in traditional math programs. But because it diverges so drastically from the structured, linear, explicit teaching environments that left-brainers depend on, and because the actual math is so much less challenging than it used to be, it’s hard to imagine how it can be successfully adapted to left-brain learners. An excellent alternative to Reform Math is Singapore Math: rigorous math without the intensive drill that turned off many students to math a generation ago.

Writing Across the Curriculum and Project-Based Learning are different. What makes these practices problematic is when the assignments are open-ended or large in scale—both of which can overwhelm left-brain learners. The way around this is for teachers or parents to break assignments down into smaller pieces and make the instructions more explicit, spelling them out step by step. Also, teachers need to be more flexible about the projects’ “creativity” requirements, recognizing analytical in addition to visual creativity.

There’s one element of Writing Across the Curriculum from which left-brainers should be exempt, however, and that is the requirement that they explain their answers to math problems verbally. Many left-brainers do arithmetic automatically in their heads in ways that can’t be explained in words.

GE: The main message seems to be that all kids are different. Is individualized education the answer?

Beals: To some extent it is. The easiest way to make school more hospitable to left-brainers, especially in the short run, is to let these kids work on their own, at their own rates—especially since left-brain students typically thrive when working independently. This also allows their more social classmates to continue working in groups. However, an argument can be made that certain subjects, especially math and science, need to be more left-brained and rigorous for everyone—indeed, that the future of our country depends on it.