There is a large literature on issues related to children who are performing well above grade level.  In order to make it easier for visitors to navigate this site, we have grouped this literature into four different areas:

• General issues in talented and gifted education
• The debate over grouping students by ability versus providing differentiation in the heterogeneous classroom
• Identification and participation of minority students in talented and gifted programming
• The social and emotional needs of students performing well above grade level

Parents and educators may be interested in some of the following resources:

• Just released, August 2004 -  "A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students" a comprehensive two volume report summarizing fifty years of research on academic acceleration.
• The Davidson Institute G/T CyberSource has an extensive collection of articles on issues related to academically advanced students, including parenting, advocacy, education, and social and emotional issues.

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Choice quotes from the literature

• "If gifted children have early contact with other like themselves, they do not come to see themselves as different or 'weird' They are able to make friends with others who think and feel as they do, who communicate on their level and share their interests. Association with true peers at an early age facilitates social development and prevents social alienation" Silverman, L. K. (1998). in  Excellence in Educating Gifted and Talented Learners , Third Edition, VanTassel-Baska, J. (ed.), (p. 151).

• "Acceleration is simply placement according to competence, a principle that goes unquestioned in athletics and in the arts" Benbow, C. (1998). in  Excellence in Educating Gifted and Talented Learners, Third Edition, VanTassel-Baska, J. (ed.), (p. 291).

• "We now know that the belief that the presence of GT students in the regular classroom enhances the performance of the other students is pure fantasy."  Bernal, E. M. (2003). To no longer educate the gifted: Programming for gifted students beyond the era of inclusionism.  Gifted Student Quarterly, 47 , (p. 184).

• "...heterogeneous grouping may have negative side effects both on the gifted students and on the others in the classrooms. Gifted students who are a minority of one or who only have, at best, one or two classmates whose ability level approaches their own find themselves either feeling odd or arrogant. If all the other students watch from the sidelines while the smart one provides all the answers, their perceptions of themselves as competent, capable learners suffer." Fiedler, E. D.; Lange, R. E.; & Winebrenner, S. (2002). In search of reality: Unraveling the myths about tracking, ability grouping, and the gifted. Roeper Review ,  24,  Special Issue: A quarter century of ideas on ability grouping and acceleration. pp. 108-111.
  

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