Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Possible Grade Skip for Child

I am relatively new to this board and seeking thoughts on grade skipping. I've read lots of reports on the issue (Nation Deceived included) but am looking for personal experience and thoughts. Our son is bright, and a giant reader with really strong comprehension, fluency, and writing skills which I think aids him in everything else.

Noticing he was talking about reading for hours at school some days (when the teacher couldn't get time to challenge him), we became worried he was getting bored. We mentioned something to the teacher, expecting a wall and are surprised that the teacher and administration staff seem quite in support of it. We asked for IQ and achievement testings and they and we wanted to to see testing from the next grade level for data but all signs point the school allowing it. Our son is also on board with it, adding that "he'd learn something" with a grade skip.

What are your personal experiences and/or thoughts? We live in a small community as well, which adds to the fact that this doesn't happen often...Thanks for the thoughts...

We lived in a small community when DD grade skipped also. She started the year in kindergarten, but halfway through ended up in grade 1. It also went great for her, although day 1 wasn't so good, day 2 was and she was much much happier because of it. We are now thinking of another grade skip is needed and will be investigating that this summer.
Like you, the teachers and admin at her little school were very supportive and helped us get testing done and had everything in place to help her continue to learn at her own rate, even if it meant subject acceleration with the grade skip the following year, but we then moved and had to start over again in terms of getting school on board.

Good luck!

My DS skipped first grade in a small community ("We've only skipped 2 kids in the past 20 years..."). We had to work hard to get the skip -- you are lucky that the school is so supportive. After the skip, there were some things that were still not challenging enough for our DS, and most of our meetings were trying to get him even more. During the meetings, it became clear to everyone that the skip was necessary and successful, and some of the teachers even forgot that he had skipped.

We had the opportunity to switch to a fulltime GT school mid-year (commute to big community), where they worked a year ahead, and that finally was a good fit. If your school is so willing to do a grade skip, you might want to see after they do above-level testing if they'd agree to additional subject acceleration if warranted.

What age is your son? For us, writing has been an issue, having skipped 1st, which apparently is a big writing year. DS7's writing wasn't all that great in kindy either. But in 2nd at the GT school, he's pretty far behind in physical handwriting and getting thoughts out too. He has made improvements, but it's really hard for him. Gym has been hard too. But other than that, all is well. We make sure we keep in touch with friends from before his skip, too.

I think it's great that the school is supportive and that your son wants it too. From what you've said so far, it all sounds good. Do you have any specific concerns?

So, is the school going to pay for the IQ and achievement testing? It sounds like you have a very receptive and helpful school! That's wonderful.

Our experience with skipping has also been positive. Like you mention, I think the fact that my dd reads a lot and is a fabulous writer helps her in all academic areas.

When will you find out for sure if he'll be moving ahead?

I think you just worry as a parent-no specific concerns, just the normal thoughts on social issues and whether he'll be academically ready. The school has not been very supportive in the past so this is kind of shocking. I think it speaks volumes about the teacher's support and old GT coordinator's support for him moving up. He would be moving up to 6th grade in the same building. They were willing to consider moving him up just having him take and do well on end of year assessments for the next grade but we insisted on IQ and Achievement testing, and yes, they were supportive of doing that. In our state there are no gifted education programs and no mandates. It is grade skip or begging each teacher year to year to provide enrichment, which has sometimes been successful and sometimes not...

He is quite happy in his current grade but spends hours each day reading while others are being taught or working on class work. The teacher works hard to enrich him when the time allows but often he entertains himself. He is all for a grade skip because as he said "I'll still get to see my old friends because they will be in the same building BUT I'll learn "something", which made me laugh and cring at the same time!! I worry that if we don't do this he won't be challenged and will never work hard and that boredom will bring behavioral problems. He also has ADHD, which is well treated. The last thing you want is a bright kid who has ADHD who is bored! We meet next week with the school, when all of the testing has been completed.

I understand about the non-specific worrying! I still worried even after the skip for DS7 was very successful. I think your son's attitude is fabulous, and that absolutely this is a great decision. I suppose there's a little caveat of "what if the IQ and achievement testing come back unexpectedly low", in which case you may need to reconsider a few things. But it doesn't sound like that will be the case.

The turnaround in the school's attitude to me indicates that something happened to make them think that the skip would be successful. Most schools tend to be anti-skip still, but I would guess that they have seen what your kid can do and believe that the skip is appropriate.

The opposite worry about not being academically ready can be worse -never learning how to learn, never learning what to do when you have a challenge. It is better to get a few challenges before difficult classes in high school and college, where kids who've sailed through suddenly think they're dumb because they didn't know something ahead of time. And it sounds like your son has a great attitude about the social stuff - he knows he'll still see his friends. Most kids do much better socially with kids at their own intellectual level as well. Try not to worry too much!

Ah - I didn't notice the other posting. This may also have been talked about in another post that I missed, but it would be a good idea to fill out an Iowa Acceleration Scale, which has many objective criteria to look at when determining whether a kid is a good skip candidate.

Although, from a quick glance at the scores, it looks like your son does fall in the GT range, and a skip can be a solution in a school that has no GT programming and also is not providing challenging enough material at grade level.

Wouldn't that be a nice one to have?! I do think that, having seen how my kids perform in comparison to their grade peers, I have some idea of how they compare, though, and that did help guide my decision to agree to skip dd12. She has consistently stood out amongst the other kids in her schools. I am not sure on exactly her IQ but using the one WISC she semi-cooperated with at age 7, I am going to stick with around the 99th percentile. In her school of about 900 kids last year, I'd feel safe saying that there were about 5 or 6 kids who were as able as she (and one, who was in her grade, really should have been accelerated). With the skip and being 1-2 yrs younger than her grade peers, she performs in the top 1-2% across the board, is one of the top students in many of the classes, and is in the top 10-20% in her weakest subject (math) where she does earn As in the accelerated classes but is not, by a long shot, the top kid in the class.

Point being, even without being given access to the other kids' scores (if they've even been tested), you can sometimes ballpark it. Also, many tests like MAPS, CogAT (which I hate, but I know others don't ), etc. not only list national norms, but local norms. My dd who skipped always comes out at the 98th - 99th percentile on local norms post-skip and was always at the 99th (again, save for math which is/was mid 90s usually with a few lower outliers post-skip). If I was getting 98th national and 75th local, I'd be more hesitant to accelerate. How much the national and local norms diverge can give you insight into how many peers he'd likely have if he really is a 98th percentile kid.

And, I do have one who is in that range or so who won't be accelerating b/c her ADD is disabling enough for her that it doesn't matter if she's more able than 99th percent of the local kids, she isn't outperforming 99th percent of the local kids in terms of achievement. Her achievement level puts her in that "good company" spot within her current grade and accelerated classes. We do have accelerated classes, though, where the kids are grouped and it doesn't sound like you have that option.

That too . At the meeting where the middle school officially approved the grade skip for dd, I told them that I'd need to go home and think about it a little more and discuss with dh and would get back to them. On the way out, one of the teachers stopped me and told me, off the record, that I might want to include in my consideration the class that she'd be with if we didn't skip. Being friendly with a lot of the elementary teachers, she had been told that it was a lower performing group with more social and behavioral problems. Dd was coming from a different district at that point so I didn't have a frame of reference as to the kids in her grade. After three years at that middle school, I can say that she was right. The 7th grade class last year (the one dd would have been in had we not skipped her) had drug ods, a pregnancy, and a lot of other issues. One of dd's friends is in that grade and is changing schools. It does sound like, from what the friend has said, that it isn't as high of a performing grade as dd's either. Of the few kids who seem to be very able like dd, a good number of them are in her grade.

I think people make WAY too much out of specific test numbers. To me, alot of the key is how the child (and parents) will perceive a grade skip.
Long-term, motivation is a key factor in school success. If your child is unmotivated to do often boring or tedious work, having a super high IQ will ultimately not be enough.