Middle School English Language Arts Instructional Guide

Canyons School District

Instructional Supports Department

Advanced Learners

Dos and Don’ts for Supporting Advanced Learners

Additional Resources

Do

Variable Characteristics of Advanced Learners May Include:

●

Pre-assess your students.

● Design learning tasks that develop students’ areas of strengths in addition to their areas of challenge.

● Enhanced Verbal Ability

● Plan for differentiation. Consider pre-assessments, extension activities, choice boards, and compacting the curriculum.

● High Vocabulary

● Perseverating on Ideas; Excessive Worrying

●

Emphasize DOK 3 & 4 level tasks.

● Highly Perceptive

● Provide opportunities for inquiry and application of learning that center on student voice and choice.

● Unusual Capacity for Informational Processing

● Provide enrichment activities that examine concepts in deeper and more complex ways.

● Ability to Make

Connections Among Concepts, Events, or Disciplines.

● Model and encourage creativity, critical thinking, and metacognition.

● Easily Bored Without A Clear Purpose for Learning ● Focus on Efficiency and Accuracy Over Compliance ● High Curiosity in Areas of Interest

● Promote positive social interactions by assigning clear roles for group work and keeping learning activities open-ended.

● Vary between heterogeneous and homogeneous grouping structures.

● Support regular self-reflection and goal-setting.

● Fast and Sustained Memory Retention

● Incorporate interdisciplinary activities and connections between concepts.

● Sense of Justice

● Strong Imagination

● Provide appropriately-leveled text based on Lexile as well as qualitative text complexity.

● Divergent Thinking