Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education grade acceleration

My son has been recently identified as gifted. Testing was requested by us due to behavior problems last year in grade 3, which we suspected was a result of restlessness/boredom. In grade 4, he is in a much more supportive environment for his learning style/needs. We do not have a program in my state. The school psychologist (with agreement by his teachers) tells us that he is a good candidate for grade acceleration (4th to 6th). Everyone I speak to about it immediately thinks it is a bad idea due to maturity. I do not quite know how to gauge this issue. How do you determine maturity at age 9? In some ways he is like every other kid his age, but in many, many ways he is way above..a big one being humor. He is very well liked by his peers, but has few close friends. He is awesome with younger kids (as a teacher to) and adults find him hysterical (most kids his age don't get his jokes). Any thoughts??

My daughter thrived after skipping 6th grade. See the Iowa Acceleration Scale, and other info here:
http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/

Most kids who are good candidates do very well with acceleration.

Do you mean next year he would skip 5th and go into 6th? Or he would accelerate right now into 6th?

Does he get along well with the age kids he would be with? Do they like and accept him?

I do think that the child's social needs are very important to consider. DD was grade accelerated from K to 1 (so she just turned 9 and is in 4th grade). She has a lot of friends and gets along very well but another kid in her grade who was accelerated (he is still 8) is having a lot of problems socially and says no one likes him. So it depends a lot on the kid. I can't imagine grade accelerating my younger child (currently in second grade) because he is just too socially immature and awkward.

Ask your DS and see what his viewpoint is. He might be very much for it, or very much against it. That doesn't mean you base your decision just on what he says, but it will give you an idea of whether it would potentially work out well or not.

With the consensus already in place, I think that a one-year acceleration to 5th grade would not be particularly risky. However, I would be uncomfortable with a two-year acceleration to 6th grade unless your 6th grade is still consider elementary school with all that scaffolding/hand-holding still in place and/or your DS9 has highly advanced executive function and a decent physical size. As high ability as my DS11 may be, he could not have handled the executive functioning demands or the huge 4-inch binder as a nine year old.

It would help to clarify the skip. Is the plan to skip him immediately (+2), or to finish this year in 4th and promote to 6th for next year (+1)?

My DD9 did a +1 skip by unenrolling from public school in 2nd grade, immediately beginning homeschooling as a 3rd grader, and re-entering public school as a 4th grader the following year. It has been a big success.

The best way to identify how your child measures in maturity versus age norms is to observe them interacting with age peers, and with older children. Getting your child's feedback is also a big help.

Some areas we found worth considering for measuring maturity:

- Thoughts - Does your child get frustrated that they often have to explain themselves to age peers?

- Behavior - Does your child exhibit superior impulse control, and become outraged at the impulse control of normal age peers?

- Physical - How does your child stack up in size/mass compared to age peers? Can your child contribute in a team sport with older children, or would your child be the last pick?

SORRY! Transition him this spring so he would finish grade 4 and enter grade 6 in the fall.

All good thoughts from Dude...but sometimes maturity can be measured the opposite way:

We early-entered, and later grade-skipped (+1, so net +2), one who has:
1. always gotten along exceptionally well with people of all ages, older and younger.
2. is active and impulsive, even compared to age peers.
3. and was, at the time, well below the average height among age peers, let alone +1 or +2 year classmates.

Our decision-making process with regard to these areas was:
1. this is a strength, when moving into a new group with classmates +1 to (ultimately) +4 years older.
2&3. grade-skipping is not going to make the activity and impulsivity level go up, nor will the difference in size be that much worse when one is already tiny. Actually, we made the argument to the school, on the early-entry, that behavior would probably be worse if not early-entered, because boredom would become even more of a factor.

Both skips were eminently successful, from what we can tell. It helps that team sports were not a particular interest. We have another one who is a year young for grade, but plays competitive sports with age-mates.

I would absolutely agree that getting the child's feedback is vital. Even if (as in our house) the final decision will still be made by parents, you need to know what expectations and apprehensions the child has about a potential skip, and give due consideration to their concerns.

My son skipped 3rd and went to 4th last year. To be honest if I really pushed it he could have skipped 5th and been appropriately placed in 6th. He is happy in fifth so I am glad to let him be happy if a bit under challenged in some areas. What to do next year is the big question.

Not knowing your situation, could he skip right now to fifth? Instead of skipping 5th right into 6th?

Do not forget to consider what things might be worse if you don't skip. People tend to assume that not doing anything cannot make things worse, but it can.

As far as the number of friends whether you skip or not, I think you need to ask yourself, is my kid the type who will have a lot of friends or is he never going to have lots of friends and much prefers to have a few close friends instead. It may be that being in one grade is a better fit socially than another, but it also might not make a huge difference if it is the personality of your particular child.

I also second the Iowa Accelleration Scale.

Our ds13 skipped 6th grade and he's made some great friends in his new grade. At the end of 7th, academically he was at or near the top of his class in every class. This year he's struggling with accuracy in math but not concepts.

More importantly, he's learned that he needs to study sometimes, that he can face challenges and that he can adapt to new environments and new people.

I have an update on my decision to skip grade 5 next year. My son is rapidly going through the grade 5 Math now both in and out of school. He will be prepared at least for that. His 4th grade teachers are apprehensive. To paraphrase them, they feel that his thoughts and ideas are beyond kids his age, but he has a hard time processing them fast enough (I feel that is because he considers things from every angle possible). They worry that future teachers will put pressure and expectations on him that woud be too much for him to handle. I am speaking mostly to his writing. They gave the example of the class reading of a book about racism. They called on him to respond to something about the book and he got flustered. They expected him to immediately respond to their question because of his high level of understanding. He didn't and started to get upset. I am wondering if it is because he was consideringanother aspect of the topic that was much bigger. I say this because the teacher told me that he approached her after class and asked her if they would still be teaching this book had their been a black child in the class (we live in a mainly white area). He fwas upset about the possiblity of that happening and the topic being upsetting fo that child.

I am going on an on and I am sorry but I really could use the help with this decision.

Have you looked at the Iowa Acceleration Scale, mentioned above? I really think that this will clarify things for you. Also, what does your DS want? Does he want to skip?

DD9 makes silly mistakes when under-challenged, too. She can also get flustered when she doesn't immediately know the answer. IMO, these are NOT a good reasons to avoid the skip. In fact, I see these as signs that more challenge is needed.

Your DS sounds like he might be a deep thinker. This ABSOLUTELY does not mean that he is a poor candidate for being skipped.

I think they will do the Iowa. I also agree with your thinking that it may be a sign of even more challenge being needed. I swear if he could just talk about his thoughts on everything all day long he would be so happy! (but he'd put people to sleep.
Thanks for the advice. Also looking into private schools (which we can't really afford, but perhaps they offer scholarships).

If you are going to grade-skip your DS, I would really push to move him into 5th grade at the beginning of 3rd quarter so that he can be up to speed with the 5th graders' writing and executive function expectation ASAP. In our area, 5th to 6th grade is a significant leap forward because our middle school starts in 6th. It's a big adjustment for all the kids but it will be easier if your DS has been treated as a 5th grader during the second half of the year. In the second half of 5th grade last year, DS/DD's teachers tried to introduce some middle school expectations and otherwise prepared them for middle school. While he will need to answer promptly as class discussions move quickly, that is something that he can work on now so that he can be comfortable by 6th grade.

Why do these posts seem to have old dates on them?

Are you looking at the "Registered" dates on the left, instead of the post dates on the upper right of each post?

Do you think my if my DS9 accelerated, he would be allowed accomodations for processing speed? He scored superior to very superior on most subtests on the WISC, but his processing speed was low average. The psychologist suspected that his perfectionism (noted very neat handwriting) slowed him down. Teachers are concerned about that processing speed as causing too much pressure on him. I agreed initially, but then I thought, "�k, so his thoughts are too much to get out on paper fast enough? That doesn't makes sense to hold him back for that". What are your thoughts?

Well, in my experience (given that I have a child who has been radically accelerated several times over and is pretty asynchronous with some academic skills-- and is now in college as a young-ish teen); this is something to worry over, but probably not a reason not to accelerate in the here and now, assuming that you're talking about a jump from a primary grade (4 or 5, right?) into a higher primary grade, or even into a middle grade.


The reason is that the shift in processing speed demand would be relatively small, and probably COULD be readily accommodated, assuming that there aren't huge accommodations happening for it in the current placement.

It does begin to matter a great deal with the work output demands are higher, and they take a VERY large jump in 9th grade, in most instances. You'd have a couple of years to figure that out or hot-house the skills, though-- but that assumes that it would be effective to do so.

It also depends upon whether it's a hard limit imposed by his particular developmental profile, or if it's voluntary in any sense. If it isn't voluntary, the problem becomes the fact that while he can be scaffolded to some degree (being given scribing, etc, keyboarding as an accommodation, or extra time on assessments), if the skill isn't truly a DEFICIT relative to the norms of academic peers, this is going to very likely come to an end in post-secondary anyway...

and, (more ominously), the ultimate problem is that it takes most high-performing/high-potential students a fair amount of time to perform at that high level. So while giving a college student time-and-a-half on a midterm exam is fine and dandy, there is not any WAY to give that same student "time-and-a-half" in the term, nor in each day. They'll come up short on having enough time to demonstrate what their peers can, in terms of mastery via work-product, first of all, and secondly, if it's truly an underlying processing speed problem, they may well need more time with the material in order to gain mastery to begin with.

Pacing of coursework is a very rude awakening for a lot of students in college, and never is that more true than with students who have slow reading or processing.

With that said, I would caution you about thinking that an acceleration is without cost down the road-- however, it might still be the right thing NOW. You can worry about a gap year or deceleration via a year abroad or something-- later.


Hope that helps.

On the flip side of that series of considerations, however, is that if you're right and this is perfectionism manifesting as slower processing, then placing it under greater LOAD is likely to be a good thing in the long run.

The greatest problems for our own perfectionist were definitely when she felt that she should be able to attain it. If it truly felt out of reach, that made it better and enabled her to take more risks and focus less on the lack of perfection in the results.

Acceleration is definitely of benefit in that sort of situation, even the asynchrony makes it hard. If you think that applies, though, I'd strongly emphasize that you probably do NOT expect "accommodation" for something that isn't really a disability, but a quirk of asynchrony. The reason is that accommodations may place perfection back within reach, and offering them in the first place risks communicating to your child that you EXPECT perfection, since you're committed to placing it within reach, even using external modifications as needed to make it so.

Does that make sense?

The only skills that DD has never thought we expected perfection in/with are the ones that she has had to struggle a bit with-- motor skills and writing. No, she isn't exactly disabled at either one, at least we don't believe so-- she's just not got those as areas of top-1% ability. They're weaknesses in her particular profile, in other words. We've opted not to level them for her. I was unsure about that decision for many years, by the way, but in hindsight, I think it was the right thing to do.

That was VERY helpful! Thank you! I am only begining to recognize the patterns my son is exhibiting. What I know is that he is happiest when productive and challenged. If he is under challenged, whether it is in school or even a sport, he will lose interest quickly and move onto something else. And when he finds that something else, he loses himself in it completely. I think he knows that he can think and speak quickly and efficiently so he becomes annoyed at the need to write it all down. Standardized scores show absolutely no deficit in processing, so I think I agree that NOW it will not be a big deal if he accelerates with the descrepancy. I guess I woudld prefer that struggle than the potential one of him losing interest in school.

I am a little confused here - which type of standardized test scores don't show a deficit? Grade level standards-type group tests administered through the schools? Or something else?

My reply has nothing to do with acceleration (I would consider the acceleration so your ds is placed where he needs to be intellectually) - but I would also watch the things that were mentioned by his teachers as a potential concern (not answering quickly, for instance). The combination of gaps in your ds WISC scores + the notes about your ds not liking to write things down and also not answering as quickly as teachers would expect in a class group discussion sound much like my ds who is dysgraphic and has expressive language challenges. The explanations you have for them also are very reminiscent of what I thought was going on with my ds at around the same age! These might not be issues for your ds, but if they are, they won't disappear with an acceleration - note, they aren't a reason *not* to accelerate, but accelerating might not make them go away.


I agree, that shouldn't hold him back - but it is something you want to watch for and give him support with if it causes an issue. Actually, I'd be thinking through supporting him with it now whether or not he's accelerated.

polarbear

In MA, we use MCAS. He scored a perfect score on Math and ELA. So, the way I see it, compared to his peers his processing speed is not an issue. Compared to his other strengths, it stands out. But again, would this be an reason not to accelerate? I guess I am thinking I would rather advocate for him this way....should he encounter difficulty with the grade skip, I remind the teachers to allow some leeway given that he made an academic jump and may need time to adjust RATHER than explain to teachers in the next grade, please forgive my son's behavior, he's just under-challenged.

I did a quick google re the MCAS, and according to the internet (as in, I could be wrong lol!), the MCAS isn't timed. For students with gaps in processing speed like your ds has on the WISC, the impact is often see on timed tests; his score might not be as high as it could be *on a timed test* because he doesn't have time to answer all the questions.


No, this wouldn't be a reason not to accelerate, but it *might* be a reason to see how it impacts him, and if it does, try to get accommodations for it. Chances are, if it's an issue, it would impact him even if he doesn't accelerate. And this is an area that's tough to see in gifted kids - they perform at such a high level that it might not be obvious with the level of challenge he's given in school right now that there really *is* an impact. *If* there is an impact, it might show up in a larger way as he progresses into more challenging academics.


I agree with you, I'd go for the acceleration, and I think it's reasonable to expect it might take a little time to adjust and that's all ok. I also think it will be important to not dismiss what teachers have to say if they do note that he's not responding as quickly as other students (or other remarks). Right now you and his teachers are looking at his behaviors through the lens of - he's not in the appropriate intellectual setting - and that's no doubt true. The things I was trying to point out really don't have anything to do with accelerating or holding back - they are just things that might need accommodations, no matter what grade level he's in. What happened to our ds in early elementary was that when he was having some of the issues you've posted about teachers seeing as well as a relative low in processing speed score on his first WISC, we at first put it all off to perfectionism and under challenge, inappropriate classroom setting etc. A lot of that was real, but there was also a real challenge underneath that we weren't seeing, that was related to the large gap in processing speed on the WISC.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Re: MCAS. Yes to the untimed. (Or more-or-less untimed.) This is actually something to keep in mind as he goes up through the grades, as when it comes time for SATs, ACTs, or AP exams, he is going to need documentation, in the form of processing speed testing and accommodations on a 504 or IEP, to support the request for additional time (should that ultimately prove to be a functional concern). In the absence of routine timed assessment, you may not know that this is a potential concern for several years. And because MCAS is nominally untimed, you might not have documentation in any accommodation documents unless you ask for it. It needs to be documented in a 504 or IEP for at least a couple of years prior to the SAT/ACT/AP exams, or they will view it a bit suspiciously. So definitely pay attention to any feedback from teachers that might indicate functional impact from slow processing speed.

Also, not to downplay his outstanding performance at all, but, strictly speaking, a perfect scaled score doesn't necessarily mean a perfect performance, as there is usually a range of raw scores that can lead to the top scaled score, especially in ELA:

http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2014/results/spring-conversion.pdf

In case you're interested....
Met with teachers and counselors yesterday. I think this is the route we are taking for next fall; my son will go into a grade 5 homeroom (school is 5-8), but take grade 6 math class and maybe ELA too. This is to give him time to adjust to pace and organization to middle school. They will put him on a 504 plan to accommodate the processing speed (it was noted that when given time, he produces well above grade level work, but when time is limited he shuts down and at times produces nothing). We will reassess in December whether or not to merge him into grade 6 mid year and then into grade 7 the following year. The important thing for me was that the school recognizes that they need to change the way they do things to accommodate his learning style and match his intellect. They are even suggesting some online coursework to be done in school to further his enrichment. In the meantime, we are waiting to hear of an opening at a private school known for it's rigorous academics and hopefully he will be a scholarship candidate. Thanks for all the opinions and information, it was immensly helpful.

That's great, Jodi! I'll bet that it feels terrific to have made progress and have a plan that looks so much more promising. It sounds nicely flexible, too-- definitely an advocacy win!

We have found this kind of "onramp" (via subject acceleration) very helpful when you get to boundaries between schools-- by the time my DS got to middle school, he thought he owned the place because he'd already been doing it the year before.

Sounds like a great plan.

Sounds like a plan My son did the same thing when in 5th - he was transported to the Middle School every day for 6th grade math class. Worked out great

There's a blog hop happening over at Hoagies' Gifted this week on acceleration: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/blog_hop_acceleration.htm

Thank you...I will check this out as now the middle school is resisting partial acceleration. Counselors think he should whole grade. Principal says no. I don't know what to do. He is meeting with success this year, but is on a self-taught math program and is a year ahead. We just did the IOWA acceleration scale and it scored such that whole grade is recommended. I just want to make the right decision! ARG!