Able, Gifted and Talented Underachievers - 2nd Edition by Diane Montgomery (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A practical guide to identifying gifted underachievers and enabling them to fulfil their potential, raising whole school standards.

• Extensive new content includes the latest best practice in addressing able underachievement
• Explains the origins of underachievement, both overt and covert, especially in more able learners - provides a model that identifies a range of factors that conspire to lower achievement
• The UK Government's 2005 White Paper 'Higher Standards, Better Schools for All' set specific provision for Gifted and Talented (G&T) - there are similar programmes in all developed countries
• The editor is a leading researcher in G&T education - contributors include Belle Wallace, Barry Hymer and Ian Warwick, the foremost practitioners in the field

From the Back Cover

Able, Gifted and Talented Underachievers, Second Edition explains the origins of underachievement, both overt and covert, especially in more able learners. It provides a model that identifies a range of external and internal factors that work in concert to lower achievement. Formal tests identify some underachievers but more than two-thirds remain unidentified and other strategies are needed, in particular cognitive-based curriculum challenge and performance-based realistic assessment. Underachievement may also be masked by learning disabilities and socio-emotional and behavioural difficulties. All of these can form barriers to learning that can be overcome with appropriate teaching and learning strategies. These problems and relevant strategies for intervention are explained in the book.

Research underpinning identification, intervention and remediation is detailed, including recent research by Diane Montgomery to show the current nature and range of the problems in ordinary schools. The final chapters contain case material from schools that have been proved successful in lifting underachievement and shows how they have succeeded. This is entirely new material based upon research undertaken for NACE/London Gifted and Talented led by Belle Wallace.

About the Author

Professor Diane Montgomery, PhD, is emeritus professor in Education at Middlesex University, London. She is a qualified and experienced teacher and teacher educator. Her doctorate was in improving teaching and learning, and she is a chartered psychologist specializing in research on giftedness and learning difficulties. She authored and ran three distance education MA programmes for Middlesex where she was formerly Dean of Faculty of Education and Performing Arts and Head of the School of Education.

She writes MA Gifted Education, MA SEN, and MA SpLD (Dyslexia) programmes and runs the Learning Difficulties Research Project from her home in Essex. She has written more than 20 books and many articles on a range of education topics. She lectures nationally and internationally.