Academically Talented Program Overview

South Lyon Community Schools recognizes each child's individuality and the need to develop each child's potential. The district further recognizes that some students with outstanding academic talent perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age or experience. Their educational program should provide challenging learning experiences which may differ from the regular school program in environment, pacing, depth, and methodology.

MODIFIED CURRICULUM
Using the South Lyon Schools core curriculum as a guide, teachers modify the curriculum to make it appropriate to the abilities, needs, and interests of their academically talented students.  This differentiated curriculum may move at a faster pace, provides additional learning opportunities, and allows for greater depth and complexity of learning. Higher levels of thinking are incorporated with focus on application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The affective focus of the program revolves around the concerns of young people dealing with self-awareness.

The student in the Magnet and Plus/Honors Programs will experience the following:

ACADEMICS
  • higher level thinking
  • acceleration/pacing of materials
  • increased depth and breadth
  • thematic and/or interdisciplinary appropriate materials
  • the opportunity for independent and group cooperative investigation and problem solving
  • the opportunity to challenge existing ideas and produce new ideas
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AREA
  • higher level thinking
  • greater opportunities for discovery of real problems and experiences (world awareness)
  • greater concentration in reasoning and proof experiences
SOCIAL/AFFECTIVE
  • leadership opportunities
  • independent thinking
  • self-directed learning
  • group interaction
  • opportunities to evaluate, recognize and appreciate one's abilities, and appreciate likenesses and differences between oneself and others


Students in the Magnet and Plus/Honors programs benefit from a learning environment in which their classmates are also able to sustain dialogues at a more complex level of discourse regarding more advanced topics.