Under Achievement in Gifted Students

The Myth of Laziness: America’s Top Expert Shows How Kids -and Parents- Can Become More Productive. Mel Levine, M.D. Simon & Schuster: New York. 2003.
“I know you’re smart! So why can’t you . . .” Dr. Mel Levine argues in this book that kids displaying what educators call “underachievement” should never be labeled “lazy.” Levine outlines a set of hidden handicaps, involving neurodevelopmental areas such as motor function, memory, language, and organization, that keep children from the productive output they are capable of. Levine is a holistic clinician, collecting evidence from children’s social, emotional, school, and family lives as well as from educational and neurological testing. Similarly, his recommendations for remediation run the gamut from school accommodations to suggestions about the type of extracurricular activities the child might experience success in. A particularly interesting section of the book profiles a family in which parents have poised their children for success in school, suggesting ways to structure family life for high academic achievement. Levine also turns his attention to how schools could do a better job of fostering “output” in their students. Both parents and teachers who have wondered why a child shows a gap between ability and productivity will benefit from this accessible, elegantly written book.

Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Black Students. Promising Practices and Programs. Donna Y. Ford. 1996 Teachers College Press, NY.
Ford begins her book with an examination of definitions. The first chapter looks at definitions of giftedness and their implication for the identification of gifted Black students. The second chapter similarly explores definitions of underachievement. Subsequent chapters addresses many facet of underachievement in gifted Black students including motivation, beliefs about achievement, school factors, cultural issues, psychological factors and family factors. Ford devotes the last two chapters to potential solutions to the problem of underachievement among Black students including a review of promising practices gleaned from the Javits projects and directors for future research.