Acceleration vs. Enrichment in Gifted Education

There are two main pathways to gifted education, acceleration and enrichment.  Both are likely beneficial for your child but which to focus on can be a tough decision, and one that may change as your child grows.

Acceleration refers to presenting a student with advanced educational material or teaching school-based skills that are typically taught to older children.  An example is teaching multiplication facts to a kindergartner, or giving your second grader third- or fourth-grade workbooks at home.

Enrichment, on the other hand, typically refers to exposing your child to specialized topics or skills that are not traditionally part of a school curriculum in the lower grades.  An example might be an in-depth dive into a different culture or language, astronomy, geology, meteorology, ethics, chess, art history, photography, cooking, etc.

The Benefits of Acceleration

The benefit of acceleration is that the pace of learning and the complexity of the material more closely matches a gifted student's high learning capacity.  Gifted learners, by definition, learn more quickly and understand more advanced topics than other children their age.  As they often don't require extensive repetition, they can move through more material in a shorter period of time, meaning they have the potential to complete a year's worth of traditional schooling in a matter of just a few months, or even less.  It also means that gifted learners, who are often frustrated/bored with rote repetition, are more likely to stay engaged with the material as it is constantly changing and presenting new challenges.  An accelerated learning model makes the most use of the gifted students' time at school because, in an ideal acceleration setting, each learner could progress more or less at their own pace, without being "held back" by students who are progressing more slowly. 

The Disadvantages of Acceleration

The primary disadvantage of acceleration is that it is often not available or feasible in a traditional school setting.  Teachers are responsible for trying to get every student to a level of competence, meaning they often - appropriately - focus extra time and attention on struggling learners.  Teachers juggle the needs of vastly different learners within the same classroom and it is hard for them to devise entirely different lessons for different sets of students.  Computer-based learning can help fill some of the needs for differentiated curriulain the classroom. Gifted or AGP classes are specifially designed to fill those needs as well.  However, many gifted classes consist of only one hour a day of pull-out instruction with a gifted teacher, in some cases less.  There are some full-time gifted programs but they are relatively rare.  So, in most instances, gifted children still spend the majority of the school day in a traditional classroom. 

This leads to the second disadvantage of acceleration, boredom. 

Boredom is a complaint I hear of very frequently in parent feedback.  This century has seen a metaphorical explosion of early childhood learning.  With the increase in preschool programs focused on academic instruction, and with the expanded availability of educational programs on tablets, videos, and computers, young children are being exposed to educational material at a level unprecedented in all of human history.  Computer programs and apps in particular allow children to proceed at their own pace, independently, without an adult even being in the room.  Interactive learning provides immediate feedback and fun practice, while the internet presents an unbelievably vast library of topics to choose from.  We have more children coming in to kindergarten reading chapter books and knowing math calculations than ever before.  But these advanced learners then enter a kindergarten classroom where the curriculum is still focused on learning the ABCs and 123s, as some children have not learned them yet.  So, they face hours upon hours of rote practice of rudimentary skills that they have already mastered and moved far beyond.  It is hardly surprising that gifted learners are at higher risk of being bored or even of becoming disengaged with school entirely.  This can continue on throughout the years if children continue to be exposed to higher-grade materials through workbooks or apps outside of school. 

Unfortunately, this poses a conundrum. 

Do you continue to expose your children to higher-level materials at home and encourage them to go as far as they can but risk daily boredom (and possibly acting out or disinterest) in school? Or do you limit those materials and have your child learn the material at school at their grade level with everyone else, with the concern they might not be challenged or fulfill their potential?

The Benefits of the Enrichment Model

An enrichment model provides one possible solution.  In this philosophy gifted children and advanced learners experience challenging and useful lessons on a wide variety of topics and skills but ones that do not duplicate the lessons taught in the traditional school curriculum.  In this way, they stimulate their brains but do not face the same risk of boredom in the classroom because a lot of the classroom material remains new to them.  And because the lessons are not tied to a specific academic checklist that has to be completed, they might have the freedom to explore any topic or skill that interests them, making their engagement and motivation very high. 

Combination is the Best Approach

In sum, a combination of the two approaches works best for most students.  I am a firm believer in teaching a child to read early because reading opens the door to independent and self-directed learning for life.  If your family has access to a less traditional school setting with opportunities for self-paced learning, the accelerated model has a lot of advantages.  But, if not, the risks of boredom and disengagement can be high.  The enrichment model has advantages in any type of learning situation.