Cluster Grouping for English Language Learners

The practice of cluster grouping allows gifted students, including English language learners, Hispanics, and other culturally and linguistically diverse students to participate fully in gifted education services in any school. In a gifted cluster model, all identified gifted students receive services, regardless of their area(s) of identification or levels of ability, achievement, or English language proficiency. In this model, identified gifted students are clustered into classrooms with a teacher who has been designated as the gifted cluster teacher for that grade. The designated gifted cluster classroom also consists of non-gifted students at other ability and achievement levels, with the exception of students who are extremely needy academically. There is usually one classroom at each grade level in which the grade's gifted identified students are clustered to create a strand of gifted cluster classrooms in the school.

The schoolwide cluster grouping model (SCGM) represents a comprehensive and inclusive model for providing gifted education services. The SCGM may be implemented at one school or throughout a district. This model places students in classrooms to create a balance of ability and achievement levels throughout the grade level. In this structure, all students are purposefully distributed among the grade-level sections with no classroom having students at both extremes of the learning continuum. This model slightly narrows the range of abilities in each classroom (see Figure 1). Careful balancing of the classes at each grade level and focused training for the cluster teachers allows for success in the model.

Because gifted students are as far removed from the “norm” as are students with significant learning difficulties, it is necessary for teachers to have specialized training in how to teach these exceptional students. In the SCGM, the district and/or school must provide ongoing teacher training in gifted education. Offering training opportunities to all teachers in the school helps prepare those teachers who do not have the gifted cluster group for when they might rotate into the strand another year.

Effective gifted education programs should enfranchise all gifted students. This entry includes recommendations for administrators, teachers, and parents to increase efforts in promoting equity [Page 145]so that culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) gifted students can receive services commensurate with their ability. The SCGM provides access to gifted education services for all identified gifted students regardless of English language fluency or achievement levels, while also providing improved learning opportunities for all other students.

Figure 1 Example of a Classroom Composition for the Schoolwide Cluster Grouping Model