ILA Blog

Written by: Dr. Kelly Van Sande, ILA Founder & Head of School - and a parent of two gifted children

Students with high intellect demonstrate many of the same needs and desires as their non-gifted peers; they want to feel included, have friends, play games, and hold on to a 'stuffy' (stuffed animal) when they are young and feeling uncertain. Yet, their needs become more complicated as they often struggle to identify and relate to their peers. While this is true from an early age, young children are typically more able to adapt, even if it is at the expense of 'hiding' their giftedness from others. As a child grows and matures, the differences become more apparent and feelings of isolation and 'being different' may start to creep in.

Emily Reicherts, mother of one of our incredible Ignite students, penned this essay on motherhood and was officially published earlier this month. We suspect many of our parents can relate to her words and wanted to share them with our school community as well.

https://www.eucalyptusandroselitmag.com/post/folding-laundry

Emily, thank you for sharing beautiful your words with us!

Kelly Van Sande, Ed.D., Founder and CEO of Ignite Learning Academy, has been invited to join Phoenix Business Journal Leadership Trust, an exclusive community for influential business leaders, executives and entrepreneurs in Greater Phoenix.

Children work tirelessly for 180 school days spanning, 9.5 months of the year to acquire the knowledge presented in their grade level; but did you know the average student loses up to 27% of that knowledge over the 2.5 months of summer break?  This amounts to a loss of approximately 2-3 months of math and reading learning, yet its easy to halt this 'summer slide' in its tracks! Students in the elementary grades are learning a tremendous amount of new information each school year and foundational skills like decoding, letter knowledge, reading skills, and math concepts can be easily lost if not practiced frequently.  As a parent to elementary students myself, I know they (and I!) need a break during the summer.