Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grade skipping fears

I wish I had Grade-Skipping available to me. My "C" was able to do all the 2nd Grade Math in 1rst Grade, and was sent to second Grade during her 1rst Grade for "Reading Counts". If it is available to you, and you can skipp, AND have someone at home to assist in the event it's too "above" for your child...go for it. I am in Florida, and skipping is no longer an option. My child is getting testet for the "Gifted Program" starting in 3rd Grade. The test she has to undergo is nowhere to be found online. Frustrating. However, do you have dual-enrollment available in your State once your child is 15/16? KEEP them occupied ,is my solution. With a good balance of FUN stuff, once home...so they don't get burned out,we should succeed. Besides, I am from Germany, and guess what: when we graduate at 18 from HS, we already have our "Abitur" wich equals largly an AA Degree.
Peer pressure, you are going to have to deal with sooner or later anyways. Seem's to me you already dealing with it by thinking about it. As do I. My child might not to be accepted to the Florida Gifted Program, and at this point- I am not even sure I let her attend it.(many more questions need to be explained first). Well let us know, how you decide, and how things go afterwards.
Sincerely, ClC

This is very astute of him.

My dd started K when she was 4.4 years old and then skipped 1st grade.. She's a very outgoing child and makes friends very easily so socially she did not have any problems. She's 8 now and is in the finishing 8th grade this year. So that's a lot of skipping for her. But she fits right in.

Thanks for your thoughts. My husband (who started 2nd grade at 4 yrs, and then repeated 2nd grade because of social immaturity)is leaning towards just sending her to 1st because he worries about the social stuff that he encountered. I am leaning the other way. We are having a placement conference with the principal & teachers tomorrow. I'll let you know what we decide. Thank you!

I think it depends on the child. A lot of parents on here advocated skipping. My DS6 did skip kindergarten and is in 1st grade. The social side of it has not been pleasant for my DS. In Sept we are putting him in 1st when he enters public. He has been teased this year called a baby called disgusting (for picking his nose). When I told him all the kids will be his age in his new school, he was so happy. And the work is still too easy so I don't think a skip did anything to challenge him meanwhile it wasn't a positive experience socially/emotionally. Oh and he knows he is they youngest and hated being younger than everyone else, like being a higher age meant they were better than he was.

Traceygns

How terrible for your son! That is unacceptable and shame on the school for allowing him to be bullied.

What a different circumstance we had. Son skipped from 1st to second, quickly became the most popular kid in the second grade. Playdates too many to count and highly engaged socially. Were the situations reversed I too would have thought what the heck have I done!

It is possible that the new school will be different. I assume he wasn't in a public school before?

Hi Marieg,
Thanks for the message. Yeah it has been a rough year. He is in a montessori school now. When I told him he got into the gifted public he said "does the score determine the teasing level" So sad. This could def be a school issue more than a grade skipping issue. Well we hope next year he will be happier.

Glad to hear your son has had a good experience. Mother's guilt, I feel guilty for skipping him.

Just wondering: why? I'm not sure I fully see the reasoning here.

It seems to me that if a child understands, say, grade 1 material in kindergarten, s/he should be able to skip to grade 2. Given that the child would have to be reasonably bright to do this, the grade 2 curriculum shouldn't present a huge challenge. From what I've read, even if second grade is challenging initially, many, many gifted kids will catch up by quickly and be ahead again soon.

Although I see the point about not wanting a child to struggle academically and socially, I'm not sure I agree with ensuring that the child remains at the top of the class? Why is this necessary? To me it seems beneficial to have to learn to work a bit at understanding something. I see and meet too many gifted kids and adults who never learned how to work through a challenge, and I'm convinced that the problem starts in primary school.

My DS skipped 3rd grade this past year and had an +3-by-age acceleration in maths. School was still too easy. The major benefit was that it was merely too easy, rather than mind-numbingly dull. And I don't think my kids have IQs near a lot of the kids I read about on this list.

I guess all this is a roundabout way of saying that gradeskips should be more widely available.



That I agree with.

Val

We met with the principal and teachers and decided to not skip my kindergartener to 2nd. For a variety of reasons, we concluded the better year to skip would be next year, going from 1 to 3.

But, we did decide at that meeting to skip my 1st grader to 3rd. :-) Now we are debating whether to continue with the math-pull out program and pull her up to 4th for math....