Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grade skippers - how did you prepare them?

I feel a little more pressure than normal about working with the kids this summer since DS will skip 1st for 2nd next year. I was told to work on time & money which he pretty much gets but not sure what else would help. I work part time so he & DD write a few sentences for me about their day when I get home & we're trying to read together.

How did you prepare your child to bump up a grade? Educational and social tips- what helped get them ready?. And what did they say to their friends? What did you say to your friends?

He has really wanted to take karate so we're letting him try that this fall in hopes that will help with some self control and added confidence.

We've not experienced gradeskipping, but I thought I'd say welcome. You might check the books by JD Hirsch (I think) called "What Your Nth Grader Needs to Know", specifically for the 1st grade. That would give you an idea. You might also check your school's website and see if they post a concept map. Other than that, I'm clueless. I'm sure someone will jump in soon and offer more help.

Welcome!

This summer DS is working on descriptive writing, reducing letter and number reversals, and memorizing math facts.

Some practical bumps he experienced when he switched from K to 1st in March: difficulty opening containers in his lunchbox and making it to the bathroom. It was good to have a few months in first grade to get the kinks worked out

As for what to say, I'm not completely comfortable talking about the skip with people but I usually say something like, "DS is really enjoying X grade. It seems to be a much better fit for him." DS is a little awkward with his K friends about the skip. He is a bit of a celebrity to them because he gets to play on the "big" playground. They are always waving and saying "hi." This makes him feel a little shy, but we have talked about how all he needs to do is smile and say "hi" back. And that next year they will be on the big playground with him.

At least in our district, first grade is devoted to teaching reading. So if a child can read, I am not sure that there is much else that needs to be done. Plus there is usually review built into the fall curriculum. So most things that your child might have missed would probably get covered in September.

Agree, acs. That's why I am considering partial homeschooling for one year for DD5. By second grade the seemed to have a lot more interesting things going on for the kids.
Let me see if I can remember what they focused on for the "gen-pop" in second:

Descriptive writing, for sure. They want to see "voice"- but don't ask me what that is.
They wanted the kids to create a graph to represent something they wanted to measure and to write a verbal description of it.
Big on math facts. they wanted to know all those single digit addition and subtraction facts QUICKLY.
Yes, time and money, but they are learning it, so he doesn't have to know all of it going in.
Maybe work on reading comprehension, I think they start testing the kids to see if they are getting what they are reading.

That's all I can think of for now, hope that helps.

Hi Steph,
My DS7 had a mid-year skip from 2nd to 3rd this year, so we didn't have much of a chance to prepare him (or us!). Maybe that is for the better! I can tell you some of the things they did in second grade... if my sleepy brain can think for a moment. Timed math tests were big in his school. (his school does Everyday Math) He had to be able to do 100 addition in under 7 minutes (single digit numbers), and likewise 100 subtraction in 7 minutes. You would be amazed after practicing that all year how fast they can do those drills. They worked on the beginning steps of fractions... cutting pies and pizzas into wedges. They also began to introduce multiplication... 2 sets of 3 equals six. (very basic) I can remember the math facts better since my son loves math. In science, they talked about habitats for animals and food cycles. And I can't think much about reading and writing at the moment... I'm drawing a complete blank... Oh well. Just the basic sentence structure and punctuation for writing. Oh, and they introduced cursive writing towards the end of second grade. (my son missed that completely). Those are just some of the things that might come your son's way this next year.

And as far as preparing him emotionally, we really just pretended that this was the most normal thing in the world. One day he was in second grade and the next day he was in third. Since we didn't make a big deal over it, he just seemed to go with the flow. We told him to say, if he was asked why he was in third grade, that this was what the school had decided was best for him. That way he didn't seem like he was bragging about being smarter than anyone else. And as for the other parents... We live in a pretty competitive school district where everyone thinks their kid is gifted. So we learned not to mention it unless someone asked us a direct question. I have to say that most people thought we were making a horrible decision in accelerating our son up a grade. (family and friends-we got all kinds of lectures!) They put much more emphasis on kids social maturity than on intelligence. I must say that a one year acceleration was the best thing that we could have done, especially socially! Our son had nothing in common with his second grade classmates at all. He now has a good group of boys that have a lot of common interests.

The only downside to skipping up to 3rd was that the bigger boys (9 or 10) were into a lot more things that I would consider inappropriate for a seven year old. He learned many things from them that I could have used another year before facing. And they are allowed to watch some movies that I won't let my DS7 watch. Oh well. It was still the best decision.

I am very new to all of this too, Steph. I just started posting here this week. So I would love to chat with you some more about this tomorrow.

ebeth

Good advice.

I forgot about the cursive, yeah that too.

My DS6 is also skipping 1st and going into 2nd. Academically, we are not doing anything over the summer to prepare for 2nd unless DS wants to. Keep in mind I'm acting on zero experience with skips, so although this is what my gut tells me to do (or to not actively do anything) in DS's case, it's not a recommendation, just another point of view. My thought is that 2nd will quickly become underchallenging for DS so if he has the opportunity to have a normal (or even steep) learning curve at the beginning of the year it will be good for his student skills. Grade-school curriculum is "spiralled", so they generally do a brief synopsis of what is taught in the prior grade anyway before introducing new material.

In terms of social stuff, he is attending a small summer camp where all the ages are grouped together so he can interact with older kids. He is at least average height and I think he should be able to hold-his-own athletically.

I casually told DS that we (mom, dad) and the school thought he'd learn best in 2nd. DS has voluntarily told his classmates in a matter-of-fact way and the kids haven't made a big deal out of it (one benefit of doing the skip early). The only ones making a big deal are other parents! At DS's school, the parents know next year's teacher so I tell other parents if they ask which teacher we have. I try not to let the icy silences and ignorant comments get to me (e.g., yesterday a camp mom said, "Did you think he was too smart for 2nd? My daughter is reading at an 8th grade level and I would never skip her to 4th because I want her to have time to be a kid, blah...blah...").

We'll see what happens! Jool

Shame on you, anonymous mother of HG child!!!!

Yes, the parents are definately the worst! Sorry you have to deal with that junk.
I'm glad to hear some of these schools are skipping these kids over first. In many ways I think it's the worst year because, yes, it's all about reading. And it should be, many of the kids are not reading fluently at the beginning of first and it's a crucial year for the skills to be firmly obtained.

Agreed! We'd have LOVED to skip 1st.

Actually, since we pulled him out that year for homeschooling, I guess in a way we did skip 1st for him.

Dottie, I'm imagining you with a gun!

ROFL!

Maybe you can sneak a prison shank!

Okay, Dottie, what's AWK? I'm intrigued now ...

Nervous Chatter Alert:


DS11 is of the firm opinion that we adults should STAY OUT of kid slang. Gulp - I hope he never sees this -
AWK stands for

AWay from Keyboard

A terrible condition! Right now I'm At Work with Keyboard, but I'll be AWK for a week starting midday friday! I'll miss you all!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

My parents never told me. Suddenly I was in the group that was grade skipping. At least I don't remember them telling me. But it was a comment much like, wear rain boots today, probably, you are accelerating at school.

Didn't phase me but there were about 8 kids skipping. A natural part of grade 3.

Ren

MON,
Sorry that happened. I'm glad you spoke up. My son's skip was no bed of roses, but I still think it beat that alternative. Here's what happened to us.

1) We asked for a skip from 5th to 6th, during October.
2) The school evaluated him, including the Algebra Readiness test. He did well - he's great on 'aptitude' tests, but only 'pretty good' on measures of actual achievement!
3) The school offered a full skip plus a subject acceleration into the 'high' Math. We had the weekend to review the material.

So a kid who just finished 4th grade math, when straight into an honors class for 7th graders, which taught what was essentially an 8th grade class. Without any hothousing. And with missing half of his combine Language Arts/History class every day. And being one month late. And being rocketed into Middle School. And with an outgoing, verbal, attention-loving kid who was delighted to tell everyone who would listen that he was gradeskiped because he was so smart. ((LOL - not showing smart behavior in my book!))

Did it work? No.
3 months into it they firmly suggested a move back into 6th grade math, with twice a week pullout to deal with the bordom factor. Yes, he was never quite accepted by the new classmates in his very small school.

The good news:
A) He 'gets' that a person shouldn't act that way!
B) His behavior in Math was wonderful all year this year, when he took the same class again, with the same teacher, and the same book.
C) The gradeskip did help reverse a really bad attitude about all things academic. DS11 requested a 'science camp' this summer, and I've found two wonderful hands on science/engineering style day camps for him.
D) He's learned how to study, and do his homework!

I always thought that an early skip would have helped. Truth is- we aren't actually in control of this whole thing! Yuck!

Do you have a friend you has a kid in the 1st grade who can show you the homework? I think that's the best. I just don't know if hothousing will be needed. Best to ask if there are placement exams, etc.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

My son was offered a 2 to 4 skip for next year. We declined it in favor of a new school that groups kids by ability. He's very excited about this school. He's spent a couple days there and came home very excited about what he'd learned.

Even though we declined, the school was good about giving him 3rd grade books while he was in second grade. From what I could tell, no one got wound up about it or even commented on it.

A boy in his class this past year had skipped K to 2 and he was accepted pretty easily by the kids from what I saw. They're still very young at that age, which I think makes the grade skip easier.

I remember that a kid was held back in 4th grade when I was in school. He showed up in our line on the first day of school and we asked why he was standing with us. When he told us, everyone said "oh" and that was the end of it. No one ever teased him. Sometimes (not always) this stuff is a bigger deal for the adults.

If people are interested, I'll report occasionally on how well the ability-grouped school goes. Really, I think this is the way schools should be run: figure out what level each kid is at, and group them that way. It would work best for everyone.

Val

Sounds good Val,
Do keep us posted!
How do they figure out where a kid belongs, and what do they do with kids who are 'multilevel' within a single subject - for example 'Algebra idea ready' but slow with the multiplication facts. Or Reading at 10th grade, writing at 2nd grade?

Smiles,
Grinity

Here's how they explained it to me: they'll test him, and if reading is 10th grade, he'll do 10th grade reading. If writing is 2nd grade, he'll do 2nd grade writing. It's all subject-specific.

The mathematics is supposedly the same, but this will be more difficult. My son is doing algebra right now and isn't have any apparent trouble with it. My husband and I have been showing him about graphing lines and slopes, etc. and he gets it easily and has managed to work out some details on his own.

We skipped grades 6-8 maths but I go over various aspects of it with him as required. So, for example, algebra has a lot of crossover with grade 8 maths and sometimes he works problems in the grade 8 book.

He's learning a lot of the 6-8 stuff (which is not difficult conceptually) through applications in algebra. He's very happy with this arrangement. I have no idea how the school will handle it, though! It'll be a challenge to figure out. I'll report....

Please do! That kind of asynchronous stuff is what I'm dealing with, too, as a homeschooler. ANYTHING you can glean from the school's methods and share would be very much appreciated.

Thanks, Val!

Yes Val, I too would be interested in hearing about the new school!

Thanks for the replies! It sounds like there's not much we need to do. He likes math & reads great so other than that, I guess it's just adjusting to the comments. I don't say anything unless someone specifically mentioned the next grade level. It's been odd but hopefully he'll have an easy time. The principal said they're so self involved at that age, there shouldn't be much question.

Nice. Love parent support. Feel bad for kdis with learning disabilities and wonder if every says such stupid things to them as well.

The flawed notion is that skipping or services is about their abilities. It isn't because I'm trying to simply match how much this kid knows now. It is how fast she keeps learning. Even if there are holes in a skip it is the fact that you could compact the year worth of math and cover it in about 4 weeks. Grrr. I feel your pain.

I wish I'd never talked to anyone outside of the "circle" of gt people about our issues. In general it just causes more grief. Like suffering a mc or stillbirth and people suggest it was for the best. grrr. where is the chocolate!

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