Curriculum compacting is a method that hones in on student's specific needs in the general education classroom.
We decide what specific parts of a standard a teacher should focus on and which parts they should be receiving special services.
The well-known strategy of curriculum compacting is described by Reis, Burns, & Renzulli as, "the process of identifying learning objectives, pretesting students for prior mastery of these objectives, and eliminating needless teaching or practice if mastery can be documented,"
Approximately 40-50% of traditional classroom material could be eliminated for targeted students in one or more of the following content areas: mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies.
When teachers eliminated as much as 50% of the regular curriculum for gifted students, the out-of-level postachievement test results in reading, math computation, social studies, and spelling were positively affected.
The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented has shown the effectiveness of curriculum compacting in meeting the needs of gifted students.
Ninety-five percent of the teachers in their study successfully identified high-ability students and documented their strengths.
For those areas not mastered, 80% of the teachers could document those, list appropriate instructional strategies for students to demonstrate mastery, and determine an appropriate mastery standard.