Vol VI, No 6 - June 4, 2024

Many of us caught a glimpse of the Northern Lights last month as a solar storm produced a light show like none other. To witness a solar eclipse followed by the Northern Lights felt like winning nature's jackpot.

This weekend, your luck continues. Starting Friday, June 7th, and continuing through the weekend, you can log in to hear some of the best and brightest minds in Gifted Home Education discuss strategies for teaching and supporting your G/2e kids and yourselves. Our hope is to create a conference that feels like a nurturing community space. We have heard from many of you that one of the things you value the most is the opportunity to share your experiences with one another. This conference will feature speakers, but it will also include time for you to interact with one another.

Parents and caregivers who throw themselves into home education so often give most of their time and energy to their children. As we kick-off our summers, let's remember to take some time for ourselves. It's important to carve out opportunities for our own personal growth and time to connect with like-minded people who support, challenge, and invigorate us. It is our hope that the GHF Conference will provide a space for you all to connect and recharge.

See you Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in our online community conference space. To RSVP for the conference, click here. All of the live sessions are free. Recordings will be available to GHF Friends membership holders. For those of who may be wrangling small children or carting older kids to activities and unable to hear the nuggets of wisdom live, you can join GHF Friends for access to recordings of this conference as well as recordings of our past conferences and events.

Meanwhile, enjoy our feature article of the month, written by Sydney Miller Milbert, one of our dedicated GHF Virtual Co-op parents. Sydney serves as a lead teacher and a parent-teacher mentor in the Co-op. She writes as a seasoned homeschool parent, an elementary and middle-school teacher, a recent graduate of a Masters program in Gifted Special Education, and a bearer of certificates in the Science of Motivation and Affective Needs and Motivation for 2e Students. Sydney shares with us her personal experience of discovering the magic of using a strength-based approach to motivate her gifted homeschooler.

-- Marna

Editing Correction: Last month I wrote incorrectly that Lin Lim, PhD, is the current President of Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG), one of our nonprofit partners in the gifted space. I apologize for this editing error. Dr. Lim is the Immediate Past President of SENG. The current President is Adam Laningham and the President Elect is Denise Michele Hicks.

Marna Walthall Wohlfeld is a mom of four, a former non-profit director and journalist, and now a doctoral student at Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education. She has deschooled, unschooled, and homeschooled various kids at various stages. She loves learning about and championing kids' unique brains and learning styles. She hopes to use her graduate degree to support parents and caregivers of twice-exceptional children as they move through the journey of parenting their wonderfully complex kids. She also hopes to advocate for 2e students by creating greater understanding about the need for strength-based approaches and support for vulnerable nervous systems in education and life. Marna is a trained SENG facilitator. She has presented at NAGC and WCGTC and has written for 2e News.

REfrain from making any other plans Friday evening to Sunday morning, June 7-9, because it's your time to REframe, REcenter and REflect with us at the 4th annual Gifted Home Education - Come As You Are virtual conference! Just a few folks popping in to hang out with us include Dr. Dan Peters (Summit Center), Paula Prober (Your Rainforest Mind), Dr. Austina DeBonte (Smart is Not Easy), and Sam Young (Young Scholars Academy), doing things the GHF way with plenty of discussion, interaction and community. Click here to see the full schedule and presenter information: https://www.ghflearners.org/2024-ghf-conference-schedule. Click here to RSVP: https://forum.ghflearners.org/events

Finding Motivation through a Strength-Based Approach

By Sydney Miller Milbert, M.S.

One evening, about a year ago, my son walked into the room and earnestly declared, “Mom, writing is one of my favorite subjects.” At the time, I was floored, and I’ve had this announcement buzzing around in the back of my brain ever since. I’ve asked myself, "When did this happen? How did we get here? Why did he decide to share this with me?" After asking these questions of my son and doing my own reflection as a parent and an educator, I find myself ready to share our story.

First, a bit about my son: This is a kid who was doing high school math at age 11. He is also a kid who absolutely loves to read and learned to read with ease around three years old, but writing? That was, for what seemed a very long time, a struggle. He also exhibited asynchrony in marvelous ways. At five, he sorrowfully lamented that he would never see the hanging gardens of Babylon, but he just couldn’t figure out shoe-tying. [So thankful for the slip-on wonders that are Crocs!] Well, it turns out that this difficulty with shoelaces is pretty common for gifted kids and goes hand-in-hand with other fine motor skills, like handwriting.¹

Like I said, this kid could read. While many kids were still learning the alphabet, he was reading chapter books and could, at the same time, recall with perfect accuracy the colors of his wooden alphabet puzzle. I digress, but the point is, he could read fluently and had no difficulty with comprehension, recall, or even doing multiple, simultaneous cognitive tasks. When asked to write, though, he broke down and there was seemingly nothing I could do to make it easier for him. Then, we had a breakthrough: I tried writing for him.

This was hard to wrap my mind around, but it worked. He talked, and I wrote down exactly what he said and read it back to him. He would tell me where I got it wrong; I would ask if he really meant to say it a certain way, and we would make changes together. After one of these sessions, I told him, “Writing is just thinking on paper.” I didn’t think this through before I said it aloud, but it stuck. I find myself still saying it. And, I still believe it. 

Like many gifted kids, he had — and still has — an amazing mind. The challenge was getting ideas out of his brain and sharing them in written form. Not long after, he learned to type. We transitioned from my handwriting to his typing. Sometimes, I would still type for him because his thoughts came faster than his small fingers could find the keys.

A year or so later, he was a confident typist and no longer needed my help simply getting ideas out, but we began to struggle with interest. When he was very young, he was interested in everything and would, mostly, eagerly take on whatever learning task I presented. As he got a bit older, he wasn’t interested in everything; he had specific interests. When I asked him to write about history, I got blank stares. It was fun to read history and visit living history museums, but writing about history? Not a chance. 

One day, though, he was chatting to me about "retro” video games — you know, the ones from when I was a kid. I asked him what he knew about the history of those games, and lo and behold, we started talking about history. This wasn’t the history topic I had wanted him to write about, but it was history. I asked him if he would do some research and write about the history of a video game. He wasn’t sure what to research or how to begin, so we talked about research methods – how to gather and evaluate information sources, outline strategies, and finally write and revise. 

The outcome of this process was not just an expository essay about the history of a video game, but also the development of a whole set of skills involved in the writing process. From that essay, he went on to write another expository essay about the history of digital screens, a script featuring characters from a video game, and a persuasive essay about why open-source software is superior to closed-source software. These are not writing topics I would have assigned or selected; to be honest, they probably never would have even occurred to me if it weren’t for his interests. Yet, through these topics, my son learned that writing is a means to learning and sharing information. That is exactly what I wanted for him.

When my son realized that writing is a powerful tool, it spurred his love for the subject. What interests me is that even though we worked through these challenges outside of a traditional academic setting, our experience aligns with research-driven strategies that others have also found successful. That first breakthrough production strategy, hand-writing and typing for my son, is an “instructional accommodation” often implemented for twice-exceptional learners with dysgraphia.² Focusing on personal interests, or implementing content differentiation, is something that homeschool educators have a unique opportunity to apply because we have the benefit of knowing our kids and their passions.³ 

Most of all, though, what I’ve seen is that a “strength-based teaching approach” really works.⁴ When we focus on what our children do well, providing opportunities to wield those strengths while also supporting their struggles, gifted and twice-exceptional learners find joy in learning and are motivated to keep learning. Even when a subject is challenging, children learn to persevere because they want to reach their own goals. One day, they might even come to you, unprompted, and declare that they have a new favorite subject.

References

1. Guilbault, K. & Kane, M. (2016). Parent TIP Sheet: Asynchronous Development. National Association for Gifted Children. 
2. Kircher-Morris, E. (2021). Teaching Twice Exceptional Learners in Today’s Classroom. Free Spirit Publishing.
3. Tomlinson, C. A. (2000). Differentiation of instruction in the elementary grades. ERIC Digest. ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education.
4. Galloway, R., Reynolds, B., & Williamson, J. (2020). Strengths-based teaching and learning approaches for children: Perceptions and practices. Journal of Pedagogical Research, 4(1), 31-45.

Sydney Miller Milbert, M.S. is a creative and innovative educator who is passionate about serving gifted learners. Sydney has taught elementary and middle school students for over eight years through in-person and online classes, including: language arts, art, STEAM/STEM, social studies, and, her favorite: multidisciplinary, multimodal project-based learning.

While homeschooling her own gifted children, she completed a graduate program and earned a Master of Science in Gifted Special Education in 2024. In addition, she holds undergraduate degrees in marketing and design. Sydney has also recently earned certificates in the Science of Motivation, Affective Needs and Motivation for 2e Students, and Executive Functioning for Twice-Exceptional Students. 

Sydney serves on the all-volunteer Board of Directors of The Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers, and she is a member of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG). Sydney is also a member of the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (GHF) Virtual Co-op where she serves as a volunteer lead teacher and parent-teacher mentor.

Visit Sydney’s website: www.mylampyridae.com

Connect with Sydney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydney-m-a530134/

Thank You to Our Conference Sponsors

GHF Press Featured Title

Parents today lead busy lives and it’s difficult to “get it all done.” Gayle and Lin have created a guide encouraging parents to strengthen their connection with their youngsters using shared reading time. This book provides a selection of carefully curated picture books that can be used by parents to address important issues with their children, such as worry, perfectionism, and managing “big feelings.” Gayle and Lin also provide expert advice to gently guide parent-child conversations using simple, science-backed methods, including ways to help your child develop empathy, self-regulation, and self-acceptance. All of this is artfully accomplished as the authors share both research-based strategies and their own parenting experiences to bring out the very best in children using a strength-based approach.

Purchase Using Picture Books to Help Little Ones Learn About Themselves here.