5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options

As a mother of a gifted son I can tell you I have read so many books on this subject and none have educated me to this degree or depth. I downloaded the book and devoured it. I quickly ordered a copy for the director of his school and teacher. This is a must read for anyone struggling with what/where is the best educational setting for their child.Due to our sons asynchronous Psych evaluation we were left with so many more questions.... your book filled in so many gaps. My only regret is that I didn't read it sooner. Thank you Dr. Ruf!

I had hoped that this book would present a useful classification system, but it leaves unclear what concrete procedures have been or could be used for that purpose. Oh, sure, it has presented a general concept that there are 5 levels of gifted, but the case descriptions have primarily been those submitted by parents, whose memories may be faulty. There are author comments included in the midst of lengthy quotes from these parents (at least half the book is oriented around those descriptions), but when the summary guidelines and comments are compared with the descriptions, there isn't a great match. It remains unclear, as written, how the actual diagnostics were performed and could be performed by others. So there are 5 sets of children who have mystically been classified as "level 1," "level 2," etc. without any real explanation for how this classification was accomplished. To be of use in psychology, there needs to be some description of how the induction process has actually occurred and led to a 5-level classification procedure, and which therefore could continue to be applied by others.Despite the circular feeling of the classification framework, the book does at least provide a pretty good amount of information for readers' consideration. Credit must be given for coming up with and presenting the general idea of different categories of giftedness, even if it is left up to future theorists (or a paid consultation, perhaps?) to actually flesh out the idea in more practical and replicable terms. Enterprising readers just might find enough data in this book to accomplish this theoretical task on their own. I cannot be sure why the author hadn't explained her reasoning more concretely and systematically.If another edition of this book is published, a clearer description of the induction process really needs to be included. In addition, it should be made explicitly clear to readers why each "level" is distinct from the others. It is very clear that level 5 is profoundly different from lower levels. But it is not clear what distinguishes level 4 from level 3, etc. The guidelines in each section are written too broadly to explain these distinctions and to match them clearly with the descriptive data about the sets of cases provided.For example, language such as (page 159) "Almost all [Level 4 gifted] read youth and adult chapter books independently by age six to 61/2" is insufficient, and doesn't match well with the descriptions actually given - - there is simply too large of a difference between youth chapter books and adult ("chapter") books. At that age, prolific reading of adult books would be consistent with what is described for Level 5 cases, but the actual descriptions of Level 4 gifted from ages 6 to 7 describes only the following: one student reading a Harry Potter book, another who read books "for children four to eight years old," a third who "was reading at sixth-grade fluency," and a fourth who "read very fast at about third- to fourth-grade level and improved daily." The four other descriptions provided do not even mention the reading level, and the remainder of the 19 cases classified at Level 4 are not mentioned here. This is an insufficient basis for the generalizations seemingly made from this data - an insufficient basis for confidence in the existence of and definition of the different levels. If we compare with the section on Level 3 gifted of the same age range (ages 6-7), the classification problem is very clear: a student who "was reading at fifth- or sixth-grade level" and loved Ramona books, another who read Harry Potter, another who read The Hobbit... and insufficient information about the reading abilities of the vast majority of the remaining cases who were classified as Level 3.Therefore, the Ruf classification system needs a great deal of refinement for it to be defensible. Readers simply have to guess or trust that the classifications were correct, and then try to reconcile the inconsistencies that arise between the hundreds of descriptions offered as illustrations of actual children at each level. After about 150 pages of that treatment of the subject (although it often does make for interesting reading), there is a chapter called "What These Kids Are Like" which doesn't bother to refer to the Levels described in the previous 5 chapters. The readers have to take it upon themselves to go back to the tables in preceding chapters and find the name of each case in those tables (which are not sorted alphabetically) to try to further explore the framework which the title of this book suggests as the author's main accomplishment.I "like" the book, overall, and therefore I've chosen a 4-star rating on Amazon, but the main reason why this book compares well with others is because it does offer a new data set, and not because of the quality with which that data set was analyzed. In that latter respect, the book is rather disappointing.

I really respect what Ruf has to say. I have enjoyed her work that is available elsewhere and found it to be helpful. I believe she is or should be one of the icons in this field, along with Renzulli and Dabrowski. You should know that the subtitle of this book is a bit misleading. That being said, what is lacking in this resource is fairly typical for books on this issue. To situate myself, I am a public school teacher with no children of my own. As somebody looking for ways to improve the educational experience of the gifted students in my class, there is not much helpful information here for me.This book is great at creating a sense of, "We are not alone," for the parents of gifted children. The sampled parental accounts of struggles to get the unique educational needs of their unique children recognized and met at school are very effective at building empathy. There is specific, detailed information about development milestones of children at different levels of giftedness. As a parent, former teacher, and former district administrator, Ruf does have quite a bit of insight. This is particularly helpful in explaining how American school districts came to be such bad environments for gifted children at the levels Ruf calls 2-5.What I do not find is much practical information about what actually works for gifted children. That discussion seems to be pretty much confined to pages 287-314. Even the conclusion of that chapter is still trying to persuade the reader that, "...teaching everyone the same material in the same way will never make all people the same," or "It will take a great change of perspective and a letting go of the traditional and familiar..."It seems the original title "Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind" was a more accurate one.For more practical advice for the classroom, you might want to bite the bullet and spend the dough on Methods and Materials for Teaching the Gifted by Karnes and Bean.

Very well explained levels of giftedness which has been helpful figuring out my two children.

Coming from a non-gifted person with 3 gifted kids and a gifted husband... this book is a must.

Very informative. As a parent with a 3.5 year old that is quite different, this has been a fantastic resource in helping understand the level of giftedness his behavior tracks with as well as education options, information on testing, etc. Very informative and provides a good basic understanding.

This was an eye-opening book for me. I have recommended it to several people. I believe it is more for the newbies in the field of gifted education than the people who have been involved for years.

The book came in-in a good condition. It's a good read too.

As heading says: Informative, easy to read and helpful!So glad I purchased this, if you have a gifted child or suspect you may have a gifted child, I would not hesitate to purchase this book. I feel this will be a game changer for us.

Super!