A Love for Learning: Motivation and the Gifted Child [Paperback]

Carol Strip Whitney; Ph.D.; with Gretchen Hirsch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2007

Spark the motivation in your gifted child or student! Keep them eager and excited at home and in the classroom!

Gifted children are susceptible to many de-motivating factors, which can lead to depression and academic underachievement. The authors present concepts and techniques to counteract those factors, allowing a child's motivation to skyrocket.

Features the Four C's of Motivation:
~Creating Challenge
~Creating Control
~Creating Commitment
~Creating Compassion

This new book, with a foreword by Dr. Joanne Rand Whitmore Schwartz, also includes additional resources, books and websites for parents and teachers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An excellent, comprehensive guide to all aspects of motivation in children, including those who are gifted. --Jerald Grobman, M.D., Psychiatrist and author, Underachievement in Exceptionally Gifted Adolescents and Young Adults

A Love for Learning brilliantly illuminates why gifted children lost motivation and how to rekindle that lost enthusiasm. --Shelly Ackerman Hirsch, J.D., Parent of gifted children and Board Member, Arizona Association for Gifted and Talented

An outstanding resource for both parents and teachers... to guide the optimal development of your child. --Joanne Rand Whitmore Schwartz, Ph.D., Former Dean of the College of Education, Kent State University, and author of the classic book, Giftedness, Conflict, and Underachievement

Review

"The language and layout of the book make it easy to dip into and understand...It's a good book to help parents and teachers understand the gifted child, especially those that have switched off to learning, and gives practical advice to help enhance their motivation."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: Great Potential Press (June 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0910707804
• ISBN-13: 978-0910707800
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #556,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars practical and thought-provoking, June 16, 2007

By 

Lorel Shea (New England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Love for Learning: Motivation and the Gifted Child (Paperback)

Carol Strip Whitney and Gretchen Hirsch have done an exceptional job at outlining major and minor impediments to motivation in their book, A Love For Learning Motivation and the Gifted Child. A key line in the preface is, "Gifted children can and do learn everywhere; the trick is to maintain their motivation to learn in school." Gifted underachievement is a widespread problem. Too few gifted children are adequately challenged and taught how to strive and work toward appropriate goals. This is a guidebook that all teachers and parents should read. There are many reasons that children may lose their desire to succeed. This book makes sense of motivational roadblocks and includes techniques for stimulating gifted minds. Any school should be able to put a few of these ideas into place with a modest amount of effort.

A Love for Learning is not light reading. While it is written in language any lay person can understand, topics are explored in depth. A total of 15 chapters focus on themes such as physical reasons for loss of motivation (vision or hearing problems, learning disabilities, etc.), emotional reasons for loss of motivation, creating challenge, and the classroom that works. Each chapter ends in a brief summary.

According to the authors, there are approximately three million gifted children in the United States. Sadly, we have very few educators trained to work with this population. The advent of No Child Left Behind legislation has pushed the interests of gifted children to the back burner. Teachers and administrators are required to do all that they can to ensure that the students at the lower end of the spectrum achieve a minimum level of competency. Federal funding is tied to raised test scores. Students who are already at or above the minimum standards are often forced to sit through repetitive drills and test preparation. Obviously, this is not the best educational situation for a child who is academically gifted. Such a poor fit with classroom activities is one reason that a child may lose motivation. I encourage you to read A Love for Learning to discover other root causes and find practical methods to reestablish a commitment to learning.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best written books aimed at caretakers of GT kids, August 18, 2007

By 

Wendy A. Skinner "author of Infinity & Zebra ... (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Love for Learning: Motivation and the Gifted Child (Paperback)

I just finished reading A Love for Learning and feel it would definitely be a valuable addition to anyone's library on issues with parenting and teaching gifted children. It is one of the best written and well organized books aimed at the caretakers of gifted kids that I've come across. I appreciate the chapter summaries, the carefully selected anecdotes, and the breadth and depth of its content. My one turn-off is the use of the word motivation in the title and the chapter headings. My first impression as a parent was that this would be more clinical, a dry read. But it wasn't at all like that. It rings true to what turns GT kids on or off (yes, that is Motivation or lack of!) and how we can foster a physical, intellectual, social and emotional environment that is naturally exciting and comforting for them. Other books have addressed this topic, but I think this is a winner!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Parent's Perspective, August 27, 2007

By 

Carole Barnhart - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Love for Learning: Motivation and the Gifted Child (Paperback)

I read this book as a somewhat desperate parent who has struggled with an underachiever for several years. Dr. Whitney clarified, confirmed and put words around some things that I had observed but could not have verbalized, and she identified some keys to motivation of which I was unaware. The book helped me to identify some specific elements in my son's schooling that had led to, and were perpetuating his low motivation, and gave me the words and tools to deal with those elements in the school setting. And I came to appreciate just how different my son is from the norm. I can't claim to completely understand the differences and how they play out in his life, but I can accept them and appreciate that the traits he displays are not altogether unusual among the gifted.