Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grade skipping thoughts

I totally get this. Our ds skipped 6th grade. He looked amazing on paper before. Now, he's still good, but not near the top. It's a tradeoff. For us, we were afraid of the consequences of keeping him in a grade that didn't challenge him. He was also a perfectionist. Skipping gave him the opportunity to work through all that. He still gets high grades in school, but doesn't test near the top anymore. It's okay. Part of it is developmental. We assume he'll catch up and then soar again.

Kudos to you for keeping track of each activity and whether the admission criteria is age-based or grade-based. Also be aware this can change over time. When the requirements (age/grade) look like your daughter's participation might not be allowed, you may wish to advocate for her inclusion. The only rule I've found to be inflexible was age 16 for medical/hospital based activities (shadowing, volunteering, programs). While many kids are high school juniors at age 16, some gifted kids may be matriculated college students at age 16.

When advocating for inclusion, sometimes simply posing the question may be enough to receive an affirmative response.

Other times, you may wish to sell the idea by stating what your daughter has done as preparatory work, her ability to work well with younger/older kids, and how she may need or benefit from the activity. Her preparatory work may be books she's read, experiments conducted (even ones found in books or online), research (even online research and compilation of links about a topic), related arts/crafts, puzzles, models she's built from scratch or from kits, inventions and "crazy" ideas, essays... anything to demonstrate interest and ability to focus on the topic. To make this type of advocacy an easy task, you may wish to maintain a dated list of her activities/interests, including a portfolio or scrapbook of pictures, and a reading list.

It is great if your daughter works with you on maintaining the reading list and taking pictures of things she's pleased with to add to her portfolio. At some point she can also write the brief advocacy essay, just a few sentences or a paragraph about her interest in the topic and ability to work well with younger/older kids.

That is a valid concern for not skipping. My DD skipped K and she took SCAT in 2nd grade (which is 4th grade level test at 6 yrs old). She did well but not 95 percentile like she might get if she takes it when she turns 7. When she took EXPLORE in 4th grade at 8, her percentile shot up to DYS level. She is in public school and without skipping, she will be extremely bored and who knows what would have happened. Right now, she is 10 (almost 11) in 6th grade and doing Algebra I and probably skipped some LA next year. She is engaged and challenged adequately.

And she will be counted as a 7th grader next year even though she will be doing Geometry and probably 8th or 9th grade LA.

It is hard to get 660 on SAT Math (DYS level) if you have not done Geometry. In Middle and High School, you don't need to stay in one grade level. Subject acceleration is easier because you go to a different class for each period. The only obstacle is when some classes are only offered in HS and you are still in MS.

Home Schooling gives you a lot of leeway. Try to balance between grade level and getting properly challenged. Good Luck!

I understand what you're saying about summer camps, etc.

This is an area where just what level of giftedness (LOG) you're dealing with helps to inform decision-making, often a lot.

We actually would have been much, much better off with DD being a Xth grader (placed in a +3 acceleration) a lot sooner, because camp and activity opportunities weren't appropriate at the lower (age-based) levels.

But that would have been quite different if she had been moderately gifted, I suspect.

We also weren't all that interested in talent search or DYS qualifying scores. I mean, as it happened, at 12 and 13, she had those kinds of scores, but they wouldn't have counted for many talent searches because she wasn't a 7th grader at the time, if that makes any sense-- she was a high school student.


I guess what I'm saying is, looking at the child you know and love-- the one that you have right now, in front of you-- and the one that you're at least 90% confident you'll have in a year or two-- what does that solution space look like for your family? Lots of things go into that. Personality, LOG, family SES, rural/urban home, geographical location, local programs (and who's running them!!), etc.

DD wanted desperately at 8yo to participate in the local uni's "G&T" summer camp offerings. She was at that time a 6th grader, doing extremely well in school, had test scores to back her inclusion in the program, etc. They refused, and wanted to place her by AGE instead-- which would have left her doing craftsy projects with MG 3rd-4th graders, and doing the kinds of things that she would have been engaged by when she was five and six years old. She was the right GRADE to get to do chemistry and rocketry lab experiences... but they wouldn't let her do it because of her chronological age. She was utterly disgusted, and signed up for a robotics camp instead-- which turned out to be a great experience (wider age range, and she was with students 4-6y older, but it was MUCH better, GT branding or not).

It was incredibly frustrating, that experience. Looking back, while they SAID that they placed by on-paper grade placement, clearly they didn't-- not really.


I guess what I'm saying is that it's a trade-off, and even when you think you're getting it right, you're still going to run into situations where it is bafflingly "wrong" for reasons that make no sense at all.

I agree with HowlerKarma. My kid really dislikes pretty much all camps that are age based. They are all far far too easy. So that would not factor into the situation for us. If doing the grade skip helped put my kid into a music program that was very much desired, we would do it.

The one kind of campy/class thing that has worked is when they allow grades 1-4 (for example) grouped together and then we do that in grade 1 or maybe 2. Then there is enough difficulty of material to be of interest. Art classes seem to be less age based in our area too.

I'm with HK and howdy on the issue with academic camps. We tried a "TAG" summer camp and it was a failure: there was one group for entering 3-5th graders and another for entering 6th-8th. She was going into 5th by age and I lobbied hard to let her into the higher level group. But despite having middle school level classes, they wouldn't budge and the week was wasted from a learning standpoint (she was literally doing labs that she's just done in her biology class in school). I did buttonhole the director on the final presentation day and let her know my issue. DD now has an exemption in her file that lets her take higher level classes (only barring any insurance issues, which a few locations or classes do have -- mostly medical ones).

On the other hand, DD looks forward to a completely non-academic summer camp every year and is happy to blend in with her age group and just relax and have fun. But they don't pretend to be teaching the kids anything except low ropes or how to canoe.

She does the totally non-academic-sing-bad songs, swim and get dirty camp every summer- and loves it, even though she's outside all the time at home.

There are no GT programs/ camps/ clubs/ schools within 2 hours+ of us.

She has asked for something academic in the future (says she likes her friends but want to find a tribe of math and science kids) I probably could narrow down a few of the most likely (affordable?) camps and see what the requirements are before I'm making decisions on the fly.

Thanks for all the great input.

The LOG thing is why I am such a fan of the IOWA Acceleration Scale because it sets a very high bar to jump.

In my DDs case, we felt that if she could clear that bar then we should proceed but if not we would not.

A key differentiator (no pun intended) with high LOG kids is their rate of learning. It isn't that they are just ahead, i.e, exposed to concepts earlier via a high SES home (we are anything but hoity toity) environment as much as the fact that they can absorb, learn and synthesize at a much faster pace at a much deeper and broader level too.

My DD started the 4th grade a year behind (zero experience) in Spanish and now she is at the top of that class, for instance.

As an aside, the asynchronous development of a child liek this can give you whiplash - my DD would finish her pre-Algebra homework and then go and watch Treasure Buddies (if there is another more puerile puppy based show I don't want to know about it).

One day my older son and younger son were sitting on the couch talking about square roots, exponents, and various other math topics (younger son in 4th grade) as any good geeky siblings do. And with a few well thought out questions from the younger and the back and forth discussion I went in and broke it up because it was apparent that if they continued they would just about cover all of 6th grade math and he had just skipped 3rd grade...had to put a stop to math conversations. My younger son just learned way too fast from casual conversations.