Do you have a child who is an excellent reader, but is not picking up books on her own? Do you wish you had a way to help your student choose books that will enrich his life? Do you want to give a gift of a book to a precocious reader, but don’t know where to start?

 

In many districts, school librarians no longer exist. In efforts to cut costs, aids with little training often replace these import figures in student education. Yet librarians, parents, and teachers are so important in guiding precocious readers to appropriate choices. In order to maintain interest in reading, students often need help in finding books that inspire them.

 

Debbie Abilock points out in Lighting the Gifted Reader’s Journey—the Parent-Librarian Partnership ways in which parents can support and encourage school librarians and how the librarian’s knowledge of books can be used to point young readers in the right direction.

Rita Soltan advises other librarians how to advise gifted readers in her article titled Precocious Readers. She recommends that first librarians find out areas of interest to the young person. Next, those interests should be matched to books that contain at least some of the following criteria:

In Challenging Gifted Readers, Patricia Austin discusses reading elements that challenge strong readers, including language, structure, perspective or point of view, ambiguous endings, and content. Reading well-written books about professional role models is also important, especially if the books enable readers to view the work of a scientist, historian, activist, or other contributor to society. In addition, books with gifted protagonists help bright readers better see their own lives, struggles, and feelings mirrored in the characters. While gifted readers may not naturally gravitate towards these books, adults can certainly steer them in that direction. Austin goes on to elaborate on each of these elements and also provides an annotated bibliography of suggested books. Suggested grade levels are provided.

 

Bertie Kingore has some excellent reading discussion questions for young people—even very young learners in Reading Instruction for the Primary Gifted Learner. These questions will help students to think about their thinking.