<p>I totally agree with the above statement:</p>
<p>It completely depends on the teacher, the program, and the kid. </p>
<p>Older d was in a pull-out gifted program in elementary school. It was an invaluable experience primarily because she had a outstanding teacher and because of intangibles such as working with that teacher over the duration of elementary school as well as working in small groups on projects with her intellectual peers. That said, just because some of these peers were intellectually gifted did not necessarily mean that they did not have behavioral issues or personal challenges. As part of the academic component of the program they had a monthly book project which taught her how to be concise in crafting her response to the books which were primarily age appropriate classic literature. I was so impressed with that format I did share with one of younger d’s classroom teachers. They did interesting group projects that stretched their thinking and they also did fun activities such as brainteasers and word challenges. When our district brought in a consultant to evaluate the pull-out program in terms of movement toward differentiated instruction my feeling was that differentiated instruction is fine and quite worthy, but not as a replacement for the pull-out program. As someone who was one of the youngest in the grade with an end of November birthday (December 1 cut-off date) it was also very helpful to build her confidence. Some of her classmates were almost a full year older than her.</p>