Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grouping with older sibling?

I would like to note that while clearly, skipping a whole grade isn’t a panacea, single subject acceleration, though it may sound like such a good compromise, tends to be no more than a band aid. It may work for a while, with some teachers, but not others, and if it’s a two year acceleration, might soon require arrangements with a middle school.

I do understand being reluctant to skip due to social emotional concerns. Between 3 kids, we have twice decided for and twice decided against accelerating a particular kid in a particular situation. You will be hard pressed to find the sweet spot with the just right level of academic challenge that is also a good socio emotional fit.

I’d explore the single grade skip option further. It will give you time to observe your kids in their respective environments a bit longer, and help you make a more informed decision if and when it turns out your younger kid needs even more than he’s getting from the single grade skip. It’s rarely about perfect - least worst is what a very reputable gifted researcher whose name escapes me at the moments tells parents to shoot for.

Thank you, Tigerle. I do think keeping in mind "least worst" may be key. This is going to be a long road.

A couple of developments since I last wrote:

a) The school decided they are more comfortable with a single-grade math acceleration for now (he showed fatigue both in general and especially in handwriting during his evaluation, so they want to take this in easier steps, plus the math times line up between K and 1 so it would be easy to implement). This is OK with us for now, as my son is intimidated by the idea of being with older kids. This will start next week, so we'll see how it goes.

b) The school initiated a request for a full gifted evaluation, including individual IQ and achievement testing and various grade-level assessments, among other things. This will lead to a meeting in which we can discuss appropriate accommodations (possibly including a full-grade skip), but with a lot more data in hand.

I feel pretty good about his situation for the next couple of months. He'll get more challenge right away and I know I'll feel much more confident making longer-term decisions once we have more data in hand. I have to say, I'm really impressed with how willing and even eager the school seems to be to help him. All of our explorations and conversations with the school about gifted services in K (before they met our son) led to the conclusion that a) they only do in-classroom differentiation in K, and b) they never assess students in K unless the parent requests it, in which case they have to by law. So, their response has been a very pleasant surprise!