Creative and Critical Reading for the Gifted.

Abstract

THE GIFTED student is too fre quently the most neglected. When confronted with a large num ber of children whose abilities range from nonreader to average reader to independent, fluent reader, it's easy to see how the harried teacher may be forced to skimp on attention for the intellectually gifted. Many gifted children become ex cellent readers with little or no help while others never reach their poten tial. Certainly neither intellectual giftedness nor fluent reading ability guarantees that students will apply critical thinking to their reading. Nor does it imply that the highest level of reading?creative reading with syn thesizing, integration, application and extension of ideas?will be practiced. Critical and creative reading skills should be an integral part of any developmental reading program for all children, gifted included. This article presents some ideas for teach ing critical and creative reading to both gifted and average readers. 1. Stauffer's (1975) directed read ing-thinking activity (DRTA) pro motes critical thinking through pre diction and problem solving, and can be used for either group or individual instruction. While divergent thinking may result from the initial predic tions, convergent thinking is the goal as students seek information con firming their original predictions regarding story events and outcomes. The student's prediction can be based on as little information as a picture and a title, on several para graphs or pages, or on all but the story conclusion. The nonauthoritar ian teacher acts as a stimulator of thought by asking questions such as, What do you think? Why do you think so? Can you read the part of the story that proves your prediction?