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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 330
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Hi Nikita,
So the school is putting her in 3rd without offering subject acceleration? This is a reversal of her skip? How do they rationalize that if she was grouped with the 3rd graders last year?
Wonderful she is looking forward to it but I can imagine your concern over her repeating 3rd grade material must be substantial.
Polly
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My DD6 skipped K and started 1st a month before her 5th birthday. She would have been one of the youngest in K and the kids in her class were from 10 months to 2.5 years older. She fit in well and the classroom experience was just right for her, but the academics were too easy. She did have a few minor behavior things (playing outside after school instead of going to the daycare room, seeing what it was like to be sent to the principal, roughhousing with the boys) that the school was quick to put down to immaturity, but we felt were do to boredom, her try-things-to-see-what-happens attitude, and tomboy nature.
The school is also 50 minutes away, and she was in carpool with kids ranging in age from 6 - 14, leaving at 7:15 and getting home at 4:00. she was (and is!) a complete rock star with it all. We did, however, did have many days of left lunch boxes, coats, and sweaters, lost water bottles, and homework folder not turned in.
Last year she was in a 2nd-3rd multi-age classroom where she was grouped with the 3rd graders. Still not challenging, but better by a long shot than 1st grade where she would have been chronologically (or K where she would have been in 30 other states!). She got much better at remembering her things to and from home, began advocating for herself, and enjoyed the overnight field trip her class took. She wanted to be friends with the 3rd grade girls, but wanted them to like the things she was into - fairies, forming nature clubs, running around outside - when they were more interested in just sitting and talking. It was a lonely year in that respect and we ended up doing lots of play dates with age-mates from around our home.
Next year she goes to the all 3rd grade, back with the group of kids she was in 1st with. That's great socially, she's looking forward to the 2 weeks of "pioneer days" where they all dress up and some other extras, but we are very worried about what the academics will be like with her repeating 3rd grade. We are hoping the school will change their mind and allow her to continue her subject acceleration by going to 4th (or 5th!) for math, reading, and spelling.
Really, school has been mostly for being social and the extras. The real learning is at home.
All that is a long way of saying, yes, my child skipped K, we are happy that she did, and still fighting for appropriate academic placement.
We had to fight for 6 months to get her school to grudgingly admit her to 1st and I would have loved to have a gifted school offering us early admission. Yes, we realize that we had what most people would have considered an unusually great option, but it just wasn't the right answer for us, at this time. 
I can spell, I just can't type on my iPad.
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Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 7,207
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Maybe we should just start in K and then skip later if need be? Hi Amber - I wanted to let you know that doing k with agepeers and skipping 1st is a commonly recommended path for gifted boys. Ruf, for example, seems to blanket recommend it for boys who are highly likely to need a skip. Is your local Kindy a half-day program? If so I think that this is a fine plan, particularly if your son was 'behaviorally ok' in preschool with agemates. Some kids start acting out or getting tummy aches when placed with agemates due to poor fit even at age 3. Some kids don't. It seems to me that preschool and kindy teachers are the most comfortable with a large range of development in their classrooms - which is nice for the asynchronous gifted kid. Trouble starts up as kids move into full day, let's get everyone on the same page with reading grades (1st around here, kindy in some places.) My son came home with 'books' from school every week in 1st grade, and he seemed to be shamed by their existence. I didn't really know what I was seeing at the time - just that the books upset him for some reason. By the end of the year the little pamphlets, which look to have been printed from a computer, had a full sentence on each page. My son wasn't an early reader - but he felt that he was being personally insulted that he had been given books like this. I thought that by explaining that 'everyone got the same book' and 'that's the way school is some of the time' and 'you just have to get used to it' that I was parenting him effectively. Within about a year it was obvious that I had misjudged the situation. I wasn't the only one who didn't get it, of course. The teachers and staff said: "He was such a good boy in kindergarden, so polite, we wonder why he is acting out now. Let's start a behavior chart." I was very trusting of school authority at that time. So by the middle of 1st grade the whole 'problem' was cast as his 'bad attitude.' Amber, you are way way ahead of the game compared to where I was when my son was 4. I don't blame you for not wanting to drive 50 minutes to school. To me, the best thing about early entrance is that it is sweet to see the kids making in friends in kindy that they 'grow up' with. But unless you stay at this private school, he'll have to make new friends anyway. And for most of the kids here, a single skip isn't enough anyway. So if the local school was offering your half day kindy early entrance, then I can see the upside, but a year of driving doesn't seem appealing to me compared to a year of homeschooling/unschooling. I would say that I doubt your son will be needing to 'relearn' the school rules because of a year of homeschooling (unless he had problem with the rules in the first place - that's a different story.) Most kids are great at looking over their shoulder at what the other kids are doing and doing the same. Sometimes the problem is that they are too good at this. Some kids don't, but being in a poor fit classroom doesn't seem to help with that one. Hope that helps, Grinity
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 228
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Maybe we should just start in K and then skip later if need be? Hi Amber - I wanted to let you know that doing k with agepeers and skipping 1st is a commonly recommended path for gifted boys. Ruf, for example, seems to blanket recommend it for boys who are highly likely to need a skip. Is your local Kindy a half-day program? If so I think that this is a fine plan, particularly if your son was 'behaviorally ok' in preschool with agemates. Some kids start acting out or getting tummy aches when placed with agemates due to poor fit even at age 3. Some kids don't. It seems to me that preschool and kindy teachers are the most comfortable with a large range of development in their classrooms - which is nice for the asynchronous gifted kid. Trouble starts up as kids move into full day, let's get everyone on the same page with reading grades (1st around here, kindy in some places.) My son came home with 'books' from school every week in 1st grade, and he seemed to be shamed by their existence. I didn't really know what I was seeing at the time - just that the books upset him for some reason. By the end of the year the little pamphlets, which look to have been printed from a computer, had a full sentence on each page. My son wasn't an early reader - but he felt that he was being personally insulted that he had been given books like this. I thought that by explaining that 'everyone got the same book' and 'that's the way school is some of the time' and 'you just have to get used to it' that I was parenting him effectively. Within about a year it was obvious that I had misjudged the situation. I wasn't the only one who didn't get it, of course. The teachers and staff said: "He was such a good boy in kindergarden, so polite, we wonder why he is acting out now. Let's start a behavior chart." I was very trusting of school authority at that time. So by the middle of 1st grade the whole 'problem' was cast as his 'bad attitude.' Amber, you are way way ahead of the game compared to where I was when my son was 4. I don't blame you for not wanting to drive 50 minutes to school. To me, the best thing about early entrance is that it is sweet to see the kids making in friends in kindy that they 'grow up' with. But unless you stay at this private school, he'll have to make new friends anyway. And for most of the kids here, a single skip isn't enough anyway. So if the local school was offering your half day kindy early entrance, then I can see the upside, but a year of driving doesn't seem appealing to me compared to a year of homeschooling/unschooling. I would say that I doubt your son will be needing to 'relearn' the school rules because of a year of homeschooling (unless he had problem with the rules in the first place - that's a different story.) Most kids are great at looking over their shoulder at what the other kids are doing and doing the same. Sometimes the problem is that they are too good at this. Some kids don't, but being in a poor fit classroom doesn't seem to help with that one. Hope that helps, Grinity It helps immensely! Thank you. Local ps is a full day as well, so I think taking a little detour this year will be for the best in the long run. Thanks again Grin, your words of wisdom have once again calmed me down. 
I can spell, I just can't type on my iPad.
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Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 7,207
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calmed me down. Yippee! So glad to hear! Have a wonderful year! Smiles, Grinity
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 156
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For what it is worth... which may be nothing....DS went to K with his age peers for half a way before we pulled him out. The psych who tested his IQ told us "I can't tell you what to do with your son, but I can tell you what not to do. Do not leave him with that teacher for another day."
Said teacher ridiculed him regularly in front of the class because handwriting was sloppy. The kids treated him like a leper because he had such different interests - reading, science, etc.
We homeschooled the rest of K and then skipped first grade.
I guess the morals are -
- skipping first is fairly normal for boys, as Grinity said.
- never check your heart at the door. if the classroom experience seems to be hurting your kid, stop it.
- not every kindergarten teacher is up to handling a gifted kid.
- at 12, DS doesn't remember the pain of kindergarten anymore. <grin>. I take this to mean that even if you screw up, there is hope.
Mary
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 62
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Maybe we should just start in K and then skip later if need be? Hi Amber - I wanted to let you know that doing k with agepeers and skipping 1st is a commonly recommended path for gifted boys. Ruf, for example, seems to blanket recommend it for boys who are highly likely to need a skip. Great advice, and I understand why one might want to start out his/her child in K (esp. boys!), but what if the curriculum isn't stimulating or challenging enough in K? My son just started and has already told us that he asked his teacher if she could teach him how to count in Roman Numerals b/c counting things from 1-5 is baby work. That being said, Amber, I don't know if you have the same issues: 1. Handwriting--he hates it and wants no part of it, so how can he possibly skip even if a skip is in his best interest 2. Social skills--sometimes lacking in social boundaries, spacial awareness etc. Sorry, Amber, didn't mean to hijack your thread, but I have the same question!
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Joined: Jul 2011
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2. Social skills--sometimes lacking in social boundaries, spacial awareness etc. Ah, kindergarten. How I remember getting "Unsatisfactory" under "Self-control" for that entire year. I'm one of those people who was always annoyed that I never got to grade-skip. Although, with me, my "self-control" was not going to get better if I skipped K. It took me until Second Grade (at least) until I figured out what I was exactly I was supposed to control. I still remember some of it. Not the parts where I went wild and destroyed the room, though.
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,040
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That being said, Amber, I don't know if you have the same issues:
1. Handwriting--he hates it and wants no part of it, so how can he possibly skip even if a skip is in his best interest
2. Social skills--sometimes lacking in social boundaries, spacial awareness etc.
Sorry, Amber, didn't mean to hijack your thread, but I have the same question! Has he had an evaluation with a psych who is familiar with giftedness and 2-E issues? Intellectually advanced but with lousy handwriting, poor spatial awareness, and sometimes lacking social boundaries sounds a lot like my son at that age. You might want to rule out NVLD issues and maybe investigate the possibility an OT evaluation for fine and gross motor, proprioception, and visual processing.
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 62
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NVLD--had to Google that one! lol We have had him evaluated for IQ test and one year later an Achievement test. The Psychologist (very familiar w/gifted kids) didn't see anything glaring; then again, we didn't have him evaluated for any of the above mentioned issues. We've also had him evaluated for OT and the agency said he didn't qualify for services (which I find hard to believe), so we're having him evaluated by a different agency (I had issues w/the first agency who did his eval. any way).
NVLD--from what I've read, he doesn't exactly fit, but certainly worth exploring. Thanks!
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