Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy First report card after skip

My son was skipped from 3rd to 4th 4 weeks into school. We were just asking for a continuation of subject acceleration of math but the new principal couldn't do it and the gifted district coordinator got involved and they offered us this option.

So the first report cared is about ready to come out. Not only did he miss the first 4 weeks of 4th grade but the writing expectations for 4th grade are high because of the high stakes writing test in February. He appears to have fit in quite nicely and no one believes that he shouldn't be there. But his grade online looks like it will be a C for Language arts. It might come up a little bit if the teacher adds a bunch of grades at the last minute but right now he only has 3 grades and one is an essay that was a D (it was a dang good essay for a third grader but wasn't quite there for a fourth grader).

This will be his first time ever not making honor roll if the C doesn't come up in the next week. I know he will be deflated. Any ideas for what to say. I don't make report cards out to be a big thing. But the schools do with certificates and all sorts of coupons from area businesses...and I don't want him to think he isn't doing a great job. And I am pretty sure that he will be back up in the top of the class performers across the board by the end of the year...I also think if there were more than 3 grades in the grade book for him it would more reflect his level of performance overall...the essay just brought his grade way down.

I'd sell it as an indicator that he's going to learn a LOT this year in that area-- how exciting!! Look at how much he's learned already-- just in a few weeks, even!

What HK said.

It's actually pretty good to have a goal to reach instead of being there already.

Some might consider talking to the teacher proactively, asking for clarification on his grade, and any comments on his work (especially encouraging ones), possibly even what to expect as far as school celebrations. Possibly a certificate could be made for him, acknowledging his acceleration to 4th grade? This might serve to focus on what he accomplished, as opposed to focusing on the gap between his accomplishment upon transferring up after month, and that of his 4th-grade classmates.

You may also wish to review Mindset (Carol Dweck) and consider praising his effort, talking up the fun of the mental challenge worthy of his potential. If you have any family stories to share about a time your grade was not high or you were not on Honor Roll but learned so much and were pleased, he may also draw strength from that, knowing he is in good company.
Links to these youtube videos have been recently posted on another thread:
Ashley Merryman & Po Bronson: The Myth of Praise (link- )
Carol Dweck: Teaching a Growth Mindset (link- )
One aspect or application of a fixed mindset is that gifted kids, in order to be seen as "right" or "smart", may stop taking appropriate risks, possibly shunning a challenge and preferring easy work which may represent a level of underachievement. A fixed mindset may work against them and be exhibited as a lack of resilience.

Parents may also print a certificate themselves at home commemorating their child's acceleration and performance, showing you are proud of him.

It means he is in the right place and will have to work like other kids (for now anyway).

Yes, yes, yes! Hope it's not too hard for your new 4th grader and that you are able to reframe the grade in this way. An important shift.


I was a kid who got 100+ all through school -- did you forget about extra credit, MON? (I know I didn't really consider it "good enough" unless I'd also aced the extra credit. *Groan.*) But that was simply what I expected. My grades never really meant anything to me until I got to college and had to work for them.

It's funny, even getting to go to Northwestern for some award ceremony in jr. high based on my SAT results or being Nat Merit never meant anything until I was reading parent posts on other threads here. They weren't a big deal, because I'd just shown up for the tests. Now, they served as reminders to me that I need to advocate for my children so they get to do meaningful work and be evaluated in ways that matter, ways that ask them to show up, engage and work at their own levels.

I hope this means you are getting that chance this year with your child and that you can help him realize that opportunity is worth way more than a certificate. (And, yes, no reason you can't celebrate the skip -- and the learning -- with your own award!)

Exactly. The school should prorate what he had done as a 4th grader or they should give him the homeworks/ tests that he missed before he joined the 4th grade and count in the report card.

Wait, why should he receive special consideration? I don't agree with that. I would NOT ask for anything special from the teacher at all.

I think this is a challenge to be worked through and that it means your DS has something to rise to, which is great. It's easy for me to say, because I know my DD would not be happy if she got a C--but I also know that we have worked and worked with her on the concept that getting 100% on everything means she isn't learning much or being adequately challenged. (hmm...as I think back on her science grades...uh, never mind) As others have said, this gives him a goal.

This may just be me, but I also would not give him a certificate at home. That would feel like I was sending the message that my child could not handle not getting one.

First, hooray for your ds!! This is significant: "He appears to have fit in quite nicely and no one believes that he shouldn't be there."

As for the C, well, it's unfortunate, because a couple of things were going against him: missing a month, only three grades to average. However, this is the time for him to experience lower grades than he might want. Before it matters and while the lesson on what learning really is all about is still teachable.


Our ds skipped 6th grade into 7th. He's received his first 6wks report card (six weeks is too short, imo, but that's for another day). He received As in everything but his compacted math class for which he received a B, albeit a high B. The other classes I'm not surprised by, though there's an increase in the level and amount of writing. But his B in math I find truly amazing. DS was all but turned off by math once the expectation to be fast became the norm in elementary. He is not fast. (on the WISC IV, his lowest index was PSI) He is methodical and thoughtful. He began to doubt his math ability and by last year started believing he wasn't good in math at all. He's also not the kind of person who will happily do worksheets or even math games. We decided to let him to take the summer off rather than teach him a few of the 6th grade concepts he missed. We did this while fully aware it might make this class extremely difficult. I was so afraid of turning him off math for good and I knew I couldn't afford to do that.
So for the first 6 weeks of his compact 7&8 grade math class, the class was reviewing and he was learning everything new on the fly. For the first time I really understood why all those years of math were so tedious for him. To see ds bring home a new concept and be able to understand and replicate it two days later was amazing. There's no homework in this class so I didn't have a handle on everything that was going on. Once in a while I'd ask him and he'd show me what he learned or I'd go over something when he needed. But really, he was a sponge. And for the first time, he likes his math teacher and his math class. (One of the things he was most excited about was that his teacher told them she didn't care how they came to the answer as long as it was correct).

So, our experience so far is that ds is having to work in a couple of his classes and those are the classes he loves the most and those are the grades that give him the most satisfaction. He told us after he saw his report card (I think he didn't have any idea of how well he'd do) that he felt like a 7th grader and that it was a good move. I couldn't have asked for a better lesson for my perfectionist, almost disengaged, ds. Every day he gets in my car and I ask how his day went and every day but one, one day out of 7 weeks, he tells me, "Great!"


I hope your ds is also feeling good about where he is. It's quite an accomplishment to be able to change to a higher grade and adapt to the higher expectations and it seems your ds is doing very well, and that his grade in LA will begin to reflect his ability very soon. I bet his teacher will add a bit more to help the average. But even if she doesn't, in the end, your ds has already accomplished something huge.

Thanks everyone. Your answers were most helpful. Like I said I don't make a big deal about report cards or grades (with my older son I do fuss if he has missing assignments because who cares if it isn't perfect or is late whatever grade you do get is better than a zero...and it doesn't compute to get great grades and then blow it by not turning stuff in but that is another story).

Every time we have discussed the move my DS8 has said that the work isn't too hard and it isn't too easy, that it feels just right. He even described his very first assignment as that way...he had been in the classroom an hour on his first day of the move and the teacher said it was time for a test and that he didn't have to take it if he didn't want to. He said he did and he said wasn't too hard and wasn't too easy. The teacher spoke to me later and showed me the test. 100% on a cold test. But he had to think and figure the answers out. That teacher I think from that moment knew that he would be fine. If he wasn't before that teacher became a believer. (He has two teachers).

I don't think he needs a certificate. I might buy a container of ice cream and just celebrate the end of the first nine weeks for both boys. They do their work with only the barest minimal help from me (really only when they truly need help or a bit of infrequent nagging for the older one). And for the most part are very responsible (at an age appropriate level, the teen has his teen moments).

Yes, ice cream celebration is an excellent idea!

Special consideration provides equity for a person coming from unique circumstances, and this outreach avoids bias against them. Some may see what was suggested as a type of scaffolding, a temporary structure while one shows great gains in catching up with their new cohort. It is a form of support which in this case costs nothing to the school budget.


On the other hand, it may send a message that there are many successes and many paths to those successes... he has taken an alternative path (which was not his first choice, but was the available option) and is successfully catching up... showing notable open-mindedness, bravery, and academic efforts. Moving up a grade is not a lark. If a family wants to reinforce his new placement as a positive challenge, not an overwhelming one, celebrating and providing a certificate may create a bond, happy memories, something for the scrapbook, something to look back on.

By analogy, when a family celebrates a child's summer birthday at home, does the child get the message that this is being done because the child couldn't handle not being celebrated in school (as may be done for those children whose birthdays fall during the school year)? That probably never crosses the child's mind. The outpouring of love and encouragement from one's family may take many different forms but is usually seen as positive and rewarding, rarely seen as compensating for a deficit. A kid who receives support will likely be able to lend support to others.

Some celebration. Whatever is rewarding and appropriate to your family.

Huh? No, because a birthday would be celebrated at home anyway. If one insisted on having all one's child's classmates over just for cupcakes and the birthday song (apart from a party) and then sent them home, that would send the message that you thought he/she couldn't handle not being celebrated in school. (It would also be totally weird.)

I think ice cream for both kids sounds great, Sweetie.

... in some cultures, ethnicities, and SES. Meanwhile we've encountered many children for whom a birthday was not a family celebration... unless or until they observe the custom and their families decided to adopt that practice from the majority culture.

My response would be: "Excellent. This C says you're finally in a place where you have something to learn."

"The question going forward is, 'Are you going to rise to the challenge?'"

And, oh yeah... ice cream. Only in our case, we'd probably go out for frozen yogurt.

Except for the ice cream/yogurt part, this is basically how I responded when DD8, skipped into 4th grade + G/T class this year, brought home a writing assignment with a well-deserved F.

After two grade skips, and further subject acceleration, we finally got our daughter to experience something she had not up until then - a B in math. She was ticked, but my wife and I were happy to have finally gotten her to a place where she was challenged and couldn't just coast to an easy A.

We find it amusing how shocked some people get when we say one of our goals is to have had her fail at something before the end of high school.

Embrace the challenge your son has encountered - learning to work through it will only make him stronger.

-S.F.

Just an update...I checked the online grade book this morning (today is when they submit grades) and the C in language arts is now a B....in fact it looks like he will have As and 2 Bs....and he will get all the certificates and coupons that he enjoys earning. He isn't a perfectionist by any means but he does enjoy honor roll. We were cleaning out his backpack and the number of papers with 100 on them were amazing for post skip thrown in in the middle of the nine weeks.

Sounds great! I'm seeing first-quarter grades for DS after skipping 6th, and he's got (I think) two As, three Bs, a C and an incomplete that will be a B or A- when he gets the rest of the stuff turned in. That teacher is letting him turn things in late because it was in his backpack that he left at a cross-country meet and it took us a week to track it down and get it back. Every one of those grades is down because of missing assignments, most of which he did and never turned in. His test grades are nearly all 100%, in-class work very good, and homework miserable.

Our DD brought home her first report card post-skip: 4 As, 2 Bs.

She had this to say about the social studies and science grades: "I knew those would be As, because every paper I get back says 100%."

Well done! Didn't you supplement those courses at home because she was missing part of her classes?

That's a gold star to you, ma'am.

I can't take much credit, though, because after we did three hours out of the books in the first week we got them, she hasn't needed them since. Just last week she declared that they're "finally using the book" in class, but they still haven't caught up to us yet.

I did identify an issue in social studies, though. DD was told that the geography tests were open book, but she didn't open hers, because she thought that was cheating. I told her, "they're testing to see if you know how to read a map," and that was a problem solved.

Isn't that funny when you solve something so simple. My older son is a swimmer and when he first joined the team and was told he had to touch breast stroke and butterfly with two hands and he wasn't but was insisting he was (he would touch one hand and then the other)...finally I realized he needed to be told "at the SAME time".

Great news Dude! It is so much better to see them having to actually work for something.