Mrs. Johnston

The goals of the Loudoun County Public School Gifted Department are: 

1. To become divergent creative thinkers who recognize problems and solve them.

2. To construct personal meaning and understanding of others and of the world around them.

3. To develop the capacity for self assessment (ownership of the learning).

Click HERE to learn more about the gifted evaluation process and services here in LCPS!

Click here to visit the LCPS Gifted Education Website. 

(Seeking Educational Alternatives to Reach and Challenge Higher level thinking) 

SEARCH provides lessons in thinking skills for students in grades K-3. Classroom teachers work with the SEARCH teacher to screen students for gifted services. The bi-weekly SEARCH lessons are designed to foster an environment that encourages students to think, take intellectual risks, and develop an excitement for learning and discovery across a variety of thinking skills. 

The SEARCH curriculum is problem-solving based and founded upon gifted education research.  The curriculum spirals developmentally through five components:  perceiving, reasoning, connecting, creating, and evaluating.  Each grade level learns about each component at increasingly more complex and abstract levels.

The School-Based, Collaborative Gifted Program is a new model for delivering gifted services for 4th and 5th grade gifted learners. It was established to provide gifted services for students at their home schools. A gifted resource teacher collaborates with classroom teachers to challenge gifted learners in their regular classrooms by enriching and extending the general curriculum and by integrating curricula developed for gifted learners (e.g., William & Mary Literature Units, Jacob's Ladder, and Mentoring Mathematical Minds).  In addition, gifted learners meet during the week with other gifted learners to collaborate on a variety of challenging, interdisciplinary projects.

What is DCI?

The LCPS Gifted Education Department now provides a level of gifted services for 4th and 5th grade students called Differentiated Classroom Instruction or DCI. Students who demonstrated exceptional performance in one domain, language arts or mathematics, during the gifted evaluation process were found in need of DCI in their area of strength. Some students may have been identified for DCI mathematics and DCI language arts.

What is EDGE? 

(Empowering Diversity in Gifted Education)

The EDGE program is designed to nurture and challenge students with advanced academic potential from groups historically underrepresented in LCPS advanced academic and gifted programs. The program provides additional academic challenges for students designed to develop students' individual potential. Classroom teachers and gifted resource teachers work together to form small groups that nurture academic potential in young learners and prepare them for more challenging and rigorous academic pathways.

Here's a deeper look into the concepts and ideas that will be presented to your child throughout the school year.

The SEARCH curriculum is problem solving based and spirals developmentally through five components: perceiving, reasoning, connecting, creating, and evaluating. Each grade level learns about each component at increasingly more complex and abstract levels.

• Perceiving is understanding and learning with one’s senses. Concrete spatial and visual activities are provided and students are encouraged to look at objects in many different ways. Pattern recognition and prediction skills develop and are used along with reasoning skills.  

• Reasoning is using information to find answers that can be proven, are logical, and make sense. Reasoning activities begin at the simple level of recognizing, labeling, classifying, and comparing attributes of concrete objects. As students mature, reasoning activities become more abstract as students use analysis and logic to solve problems.

• Connecting means linking information and ideas to see how they fit together. At the basic level, students identify and extend patterns using concrete objects. More abstract problem solving involves interpreting and extending numeric patterns, determining relationships between concepts, and making generalizations. Students make connections between cause and effect.

• Creating is putting ideas, information, or objects together in a new or different way. Students learn to be flexible and fluent in their thinking with familiar objects as well as unusual and/or real life problems. Original ideas are elaborated with humor and/or beauty to provide clarity and completeness. Student products may be visual, verbal, spatial, or kinesthetic.

• Evaluating is using information to make a decision. Students begin evaluating by determining what the facts are and what considerations are important in making a decision. Students learn to develop criteria and rank solutions or choices according to the criteria when making decisions.

Johns Hopkins University
This link is provided for information purposes only and is not an advertisement or endorsement by LCPS.  All responsibility for inquiries, applications, and/or participation is solely that of parents or guardians.

Stanford University
This link is provided for information purposes only and is not an advertisement or endorsement by LCPS.  All responsibility for inquiries, applications, and/or participation is solely that of parents or guardians.

University of William and Mary
This link is provided for information purposes only and is not an advertisement or endorsement by LCPS.  All responsibility for inquiries, applications, and/or participation is solely that of parents or guardians.

University of Virginia
This link is provided for information purposes only and is not an advertisement or endorsement by LCPS.  All responsibility for inquiries, applications, and/or participation is solely that of parents or guardians.

University of Southern Missississippi, Karnes Center for Gifted Youth
This link is provided for information purposes only and is not an advertisement or endorsement by LCPS.  All responsibility for inquiries, applications, and/or participation is solely that of parents or guardians.