Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments multiple grade subject acceleration

DS in second grade is being moved up in math to work with a group of advanced 5th graders (out of, I guess, a 6th-7th grade book). DS is NOT mature for his age--he is well-behaved but not socially mature. I am guessing the 5th graders are going to find everything he says hilarious (and what he says IS hilarious, I have to admit). Luckily if kids snicker at him I don't think DS will care. The g/t coordintor says they are a nice group of kids she had a talk with them explaining the situation. But does anyone have any advice or info about what to expect? He's just going to go for math and then go back to the regular second grade/third grade class for everything else. I'm not sure what they are going to do about his awful handwriting--he probably has dysgraphia (which they know). Has anyone had this work out well? I'm not expecting them to be best friends with him. Probably the best case scenario is that they see him as their little pet or little brother.

I'd try not to worry about it too much. You might be pleasantly surprised. No grade skip, but DS6 has a 10-year-old friend who frequently asks him to play.

DS has a 3 year math acceleration and is taking math with gifted kids two years older. It works.... sort of. It's certainly better than being with age peers, for sure.

Be aware: Hand writing size is a real issue for showing ones work, even for a kid without dysgraphia. We've seen issues where the space required to do one problem meant that he'd write over the subsequent problems on a test, then fail to do those problems, and of course miss most of the test as a result. We also see differences in stamina around homework and the amount of writing required. The pace of math instruction is still too slow.

The kids in the room at the start treated him as kind of a class pet, the cute little boy whose feet don't touch the floor. Now he is a fully fledged member of the class and the kids are used to him.

My son had a 3 year acceleration in math (5th grade by age and in Algebra I). No one seemed to notice his age, and some students were in 10th grade. The biggest problem seemed to be that it wasn't enough. I ended up homeschooling him in math the next year so he could do something approaching an honors geometry course.

Because the kids in the receiving class are older and have had more years to develop social skills, they are IME often very empathetic, going out of their way to be kind and helpful to the small, young newcomer. We have had very good experiences with this setup.

We have gone the Art of problem solving route (after school) with our DD when faced with a similar dilemma. Before that we used Singapore Maths which she just tore through. She is already whole grade accelerated but the Maths just doesn't move fast enough. We are not in a position to homeschool so this has been the option that has been optimal for us. We have been lucky in that she has had teachers that have allowed her to do some of this coursework in the classroom. Scheduling an in school single subject acceleration can be a royal pain if the school's timetables do not line up resulting in missed classes and catch up work at home too.

Best of luck!

All of the math schedules in the school are basically aligned, and they do ability grouping for math within each grade level as well (what a concept!), so if this doesn't work or it's too hard they can move him somewhere else. I'm worried it might be a little hard and told them that and they said "No problem! We are flexible here!"

Anyway, thanks for all the input. I hope it goes well.

Some may say this is logistically the ideal, it would be great to see this type of scheduling implemented broadly.

Well, not exactly the same situation as there is no dysgraphia accommodations/modifications and it is only two grades rather than three. For what it is worth, DS is enrolled in 8th grade GT Geometry as a 6th grader with bad handwriting and there have been no issues either academically or socially. His teacher even volunteered a couple of months ago that it was absolutely the correct placement as DS fits in with the other kids in every way, including socially.

In 2nd grade my ds went up to 4th grade math and LA. In 3rd he was in 5th grade in both. The kids and teachers loved him. some of the kids were on his baseball teams too so that helped. They also clustered all the classes so he got to work with the highest cluster.

The downside was in 4th grade the teacher was suppose to accommodate him using AoPS pre-algebra. That never panned out so rather then make it a horrible year we did this at home. The next year in 5th grade we switched to a private school for gifted kids where 5th starts middle school.

So I think it can work out great. It seemed the older kids especially the girls had his back it seemed.

Also he is big for his age, has always been. That could have helped the situation.