Parent Corner
Welcome, parents! I understand how parenting children with giftedness can present its fair share of challenges. The resources on this page are meant to help you support your child at home. If you haven't already done so, I encourage you to enroll in Guardian Summaries through Google Classroom. Learn more about Guardian Summaries by clicking here. If you are looking for more information on identification and placement in Holmdel Gifted and Talented Services, please click here. To learn more about Mrs. Mezzina and the program at Village School, please click here.

Video Presentations

My Book Chapters

Strategies and Considerations for Educating the Academically Gifted (2023) provides a complete overview of issues relevant to gifted education and contributes to the existing knowledge in the field with the most up-to-date information to effect positive change and growth. Covering key topics such as creativity, curriculum models, and assessment, this reference work is ideal for administrators, policymakers, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.
Chapter 2 depicts a gifted identification method using K–8 student data profiles, the same one we use in Holmdel. This method of gifted identification aligns student needs with comprehensive gifted and talented programming, and student data serve to inform instruction, not solely to identify whether or not students exhibit giftedness. Anecdotes and documented experiences demonstrate the gifted identification process using student profiles capturing local norms, multiple criteria, and gifted service goals to guide the committee's anonymized review.
Chapter 16 depicts a gifted programming framework following a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) model in K–12 education.
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Amplify Learning: A Global Collaborative is a book series of mentor texts capturing educational best practices worldwide. Book 3: Amplifying Student Inquiry in Robotics, Computer Science, and STEAM, is co-authored by Meredith Thomas and Vanina Sandel. Teaching problem-solving skills is the focus of chapter 1. Problem-solving skills are necessary for all classroom and real-world settings, and what better way to engage students than through code. Meredith supports educators by providing a step-by-step tutorial on how to implement code into the classroom. Chapter 2 focuses on tinkering and real world experiences with a variety of robots. When teaching Robotics, students are gaining an understanding of their key purpose along with a clear path to begin complex problem solving. Read more about the book series release here.

Helpful Links

These organizations, websites, blogs, and articles to help gifted students and their parents get the education, emotional support, and guidance they need to grow up happy and well-adjusted. These resources are not endorsed by the Holmdel Board of Education, but many parents and teachers have found these resources helpful.
  1. Learning Without Labels: An insightful video about students' perspectives of being labeled as "gifted."
  2. How the Gifted and Talented Fail: This is an outstanding article articulating the importance of gifted and talented programming for our students.
  3. National Association for Gifted Children: The National Association for Gifted Children is one of the best places for parents of gifted children to find resources, reading, help, and advice on raising an exceptional child.
  4. NJAGC: The New Jersey Association for Gifted Children is just one of many state-centered organizations for gifted kids. Parents can join, find other families, and even attend special events.
  5. Gifted Child Society: The Gifted Child Society is a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering the cause of gifted children. Through their website, parents can find helpful information and learn about seminars and workshops they can attend.
  6. SENG: SENG is short for Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted and is an organization that wants to help ensure that gifted children are understood, accepted, nurtured, and supported by their families, schools, and workplaces.
  7. Mensa for Kids: Mensa embraces younger members through this fun website, offering up monthly themes to get kids reading and learning at an advanced level.
  8. Gifted Exchange: This blog focuses on gifted kids, touching on issues of schooling, parenting, education, and more, all written by the staff at the Davidson Institute for Talent Development.
  9. ​Unwrapping the Gifted: Head to this Education Week blog to hear from Tamara Fisher, a K-12 gifted education specialist. She gives great insights into gifted and talented education.
  10. Gifted Parenting Support: This blog is an excellent place to read more about how to parent and educate children who are gifted and talented.
  11. Gifted Guru: This blogger offers up resources, books, commentary, and more on the subject of gifted education.
  12. Gifted Child Today: This open-access peer-reviewed journal is a great read for parents who want to learn more about how to cater to the needs of their gifted child.
  13. Gifted Child Quarterly: Another peer-reviewed journal, this journal is a bit more scholarly, publishing research done on giftedness and talent development.
  14. ​Top 10 Myths in Gifted Education: Learn some of the biggest myths about teaching gifted kids from this great YouTube video.