Academically gifted students at Moore Square are served in the regular classroom through the use of differentiation strategies.  Units or lessons are differentiated when they incorporate strategies that vary instruction in order to respond to individual student needs including learning style, interest, and level of content and skill.  Units or lessons may include differentiation in depth of content, complexity of process, and/or type of product.

Identification Process

Nomination:  Students can be nominated for consideration for the academically gifted program at any grade level.  Moore Square parents and teachers can nominate students for referral during the Nomination Windows in the fall (July 29 - September 13) and in the spring (January 6 - February 12). If a nomination is received after the screening period, the nomination will be considered during the next screening period.  

Referral: The AG Resource Teacher and general education teacher confer to determine whether or not to refer a student to the School-Based Committee for Gifted Education (SBC-GE) for an extensive evaluation of needs.

Evaluation::  If a student is referred to the SBC-GE, the committee will review the performance indicators to determine the student's eligibility for program options as well as the appropriate level of service (moderate, strong, very strong).

Testing:  Group tests which are used in the evaluation process are the Cognitive Abilities Test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.  Individual tests may be administered if appropriate.

Differentiation

Recommended methods of content and instructional differentiation are clearly defined for academically gifted and other high performing students.

Students identified with a strong or very strong need in language arts will be clustered for instruction with emphasis in language arts on development of creative and critical thinking skills to improve reading comprehension, literary analysis, and composition.  Flexible skill-groupings may also be used, as well as other strategies, to meet the needs of the gifted in the regular language arts classroom.

Students identified with a strong or very strong need for differentiation in math are enrolled in specific courses in a mathematics sequence, so that they may complete Algebra I and/or Geometry prior to high school.  These advanced level courses are designed to develop conceptual understanding and abstract reasoning in mathematics.