Intervening in Early Written Literacy Development for Gifted Children in Grade 2: Insights From an Action Research Project

Abstract

This article reports on an action research project undertaken by a team of four Grade 2 teachers who work in a school for gifted learners. Focused on implementing a structured printing and spelling curriculum in addition to providing instructed support for planning, organizing, and vocabulary use for different genres of writing, both qualitative and quantitative data provide insights into the contribution and importance of these five curricular elements on the quality and quantity of written production during 1 school year. Of particular importance is the need for automaticity as this relates to capacity theory and the constraints of working memory. The unique needs as well as strengths of the gifted learner profile are highlighted. The article concludes with a series of unanswered questions for the research community to consider.

Keywords

early written literacy gifted children curriculum action research Dabrowski

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