Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School 7 yr. old in 5th grade?

The school wants to graduate my 7 yr old grandson from 3rd grade to a 5th grade gifted class. He is small for his age. I have advised his father to sit in on the class first and talk to the teacher.

Can anyone give me their experience with a young student advancing through the grades? I know I have read stories about very young students graduating from high school, even college. I just wonder about the pros and cons that we might not be considering. I think bullying heads our list, but it is hard to be objective. Of course, every parent wants their child to do their best while still being socially adjusted and psychologically healthy.

When I was seven, I was allowed to accelerate to our junior high's gifted reading program. This was the only part of my week where I was not bullied, beat-up, or bored to tears. In fact, many of these students welcomed me, and it was devastating for me when a new administrator reversed the acceleration and had me stay in an age-based classroom.

That being said, I think that a welcoming teacher and prepared classmates are essential for radical acceleration in the younger years (less so in later years--no problem even with unprepared college students when I would take classes or attend talks as a young teen/preteen). My teacher had allowed me to sneak into his classroom before I was transferred officially, and I also had friends in his class prior to the transfer.

I think sitting in on a classroom is always a good idea. Your son knows what Grandson can do and would find interesting, and can size up the teacher's attitude. Is there a lot of scarcasm or are kids who are 'different' in some way treated with restpect. Is the environment structured 'enough' for the particular child? Talking to the teacher can help to weed out a teacher that is overtly against the acceleration, but in general, watching what he or she actually does seems much more valuable to me. I've often been mislead by a teacher's ability to connect to me.

I have found that the Adults in the room set the tone that encourages or discourages Bullying, outside of the unusual 'kid with problems' that you can find in any classroom. What makes the difference with Bullying is how the 'audience kids' react. From what I've heard the older kids can be more vocal about sticking up for the smart, but younger, kid.

Of course everyone wants what is best for the child. Possible cons include missing the chance to be dominant in sports, or certian academic competitions. For my child, I'd rather have him in a classroom of academic peers and loose that competitive 'giant-step' but learn how to work hard to get the edge, because I think that will serve him best in the long run when he is finally placed with kids who he has to compete with, but I'm not in a position to be totally dependent on athletic scholarships, and the schools that I'm hoping for don't do academic scholarships.

Genirose, do you mind my asking how you found this list? If you mention it, I might be able to answer your 'question behind the question.' Also, it might be nice to give your son a little 'gifted family tree' of which family members did some of the classic 'unusual things' that gifted people often do, and what was tried to accomdiate their special academic needs, and how things turned out for them.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Genierose, welcome!
the big thing that a very gifted child gains in acceleration is not learning more academics, because that will probably happen anyway with or without the acceleration, it is learning to work for it!
If possible the child will be placed where he can do well but not perfectly all the time, be challenged but not overwhelmed. That is supposed to be where most kids fit into a regular classroom. I have personal experience of just floating through regular classes and even 'challenging' college prep high school classes with zero challenge. Faced with some actual challenges in college and beyond has been eye opening and at first, quite daunting!

You want a child to learn perseverance early, not when a lack of it might really mess up whether they graduate from college.

Best of luck to your gs, reading up on current ideas on acceleration is a great idea!

I agree that in an ideal world, kids with some acceleration would have the opportunity to work hard at learning. In practice, I worry that doesn't occur for really smart kids unless the acceleration is so drastic that there are some serious potential consequences. If a kid needs to be in a high school class at 5 to work at learning, there are many concerns beyond the academic to think about. For most GT kids and especially PG kids, skipping a grade or two or three or five doesn't address the pace of academics, the lack of depth, or that even several grades up, the kid may have already self-taught the bulk of the material.

Genierose, I'd be worried that the academics wouldn't be better for long. I'd also worry that the kid may have challenges that come from development -- issues with handwriting in doing longer papers, stamina to do a whole day and more homework than would be typical for 7, more extracurriculars available and done by others as a social experience that wouldn't be appropriate for a younger kid, and organizational issues if 5th grade involves multiple teachers and multiple different homework requirements. I'd also worry a great deal about bullying and social fit. Keeping the child at grade level for some things like recess, specials, and fun like PE might be worthwhile, but then you have to deal with the kid feeling that he fits nowhere. I'd also worry about the future consequences where the kid ends up out of high school at a very young age and early college or other options have to be considered. Those issues can be addressed later (gap years, undoing skips, etc.) but it's worthwhile imagining them now and thinking about options.

These are hard, hard questions.

I worry about all these issues with my subject accelerated daughter, but honestly in the past few months she has been happier, better adjusted, and more socially successful than ever before. So, I do worry about the future, having to accelerate further, whether its ever enough, and what do we do with her when we run out of pre-college options for her. But then again, she is really, really happy. Right now we are just trying to plan for what is appropriate in the next year/year and a half.

We have been very, very fortunate the way math acceleration has been handled at dd's school. I'm sure there are other cases where it hasn't worked out so well.

Bullying is an issue and all schools are different. However, I do think bullying is more likely to happen in a same age or near age class. That two year grade skip should mean that the older kids know better and that teachers will be on the lookout for bullying. Being in the classroom for just math is different that being in the older classroom all the time.

I'd be more worried about what would happen for math the following year or whenever elementary switches to middle school, or middle school to high school. Even if these are divisions within the same building, this seems to be where things get complicated. Different class periods, calendars, field trips, etc. I'm sure the "if we skip him this year, what will we do with him next year?" dilemma has already crossed this principals mind.

Wow Dottie I didn't realized exactly how much our kids have tracked together.

I'll just add on some of our experiences which we're still in the middle of establishing. Dottie's the trailblazer here

Our DS was also an early entrance to school so he's 7.5 in third grade. We have done math subject acceleration only so he's 7 1/2 in a sixth grade honors math class for one period a day. The rest of the day he's with his normal homeroom. We will likely not accelerate any more than the current 1 year. Like Dottie, our child is still coasting through with not a whole lot of new material. (On the drive to school he watches Algebra I & II videos on my iPhone from Khan's Academy... that's the new material for him... sometimes )

One thing that I didn't think about and appears to be fairly common is that bullying usually is between kids near the same age. Knock on wood, but we haven't yet had any issues. And we were very surprised with how supportive the middle school's staff has been. It's been great so far and I think school support is a must.

So that's been our experience. +1 full year plus an additional +3 years subject and it's going well. Hope that helps.

JB

I was wondering about the age thing too... My DS6 is in 2nd grade, but that is because he skipped K. He is already on the younger side for 1st grade as well. In addition to the skip he is subject accelerated +2 into a 4th grade math class in a different building. He also does some their morning work with them which is multiple subjects. I have to say that the 4th grade room is quite accepting and caring. They really seem to like DS and kind of treat him like a younger brother. Although he hasn't said it yet, in some ways I think he is more comfortable in the 4th grade classroom. I am not sure about next year as he will most likely be skipping up to 6th grade math from my guess. He isn't really challenged in the 4th grade class too much, but it is more interesting and he is learning a little bit here and there. Plus they do enrichment with him and he has other stuff to fill in when the rest of class is doing all the repetition. You have to have a classroom teacher that is accepting and willing to try it. Thankfully we have a great 2nd grade and a great 4th grade teacher that really feel that he is part of their class (in fact he will be in the year book twice as part of 2 classes which will be very confusing to some people I am sure). Also, both principals and all of the staff there we have talked to so far are really on board as well. I will be anxious to see if this continues as we progress into the middle school level probably next year.

I too personally wouldn't want to do more that +2 full grade skips, but that is just me...sometimes at the rate things are going I wonder how it will be possible not to. I am thankful that DS is a taller kid too, but it still doesn't matter too much since he is subject accelerated as well. Most people forget about the full grade skip entirely and just think he is just subject accelerated. Anyhow, there is lots to think about and oh so many variables. Good luck!

My DS7 attends a charter prep school that goes from 6th to 12th grade. He is listed as an accelerated 6th grader. He loves it. The teachers, the classes, the students, all of it. There has been no bullying at all. The kids who are in some cases 10 years older than him treat him like one of the gang. His "house" even took him into consideration when choosing their service learning project to be sure he would be able to participate.

On the flip side, the public school that he attended last year accelerated him from 1st to 4th and it was a disaster. The fourth graders treated him like a freak and seem to delight in making him cry. He lasted three weeks before I pulled him and homeschooled the next year.

My point I guess is that it depends on many different factors. Your GS' personality, the receiving teacher, the overall attitude of everyone involved, the temperments of the kids in the fifth grade. Not only that but you really need to consider not only this move but what happens next. Is 5th grade the top of elementary where you live? If it is, then the following year he'll be moved to middle school at 8. Then you are back to the same set of questions/concerns listed above. Most importantly of all.... What does your grandson think? Does he have great friends that he would miss? Does he have the confidence to know that he belongs there even though he's young?

There are a million and one things to consider and I would think long and hard before I would give my son's schedule to anyone else. It works for him but it works because of who he is, not how old he is. If he was intimidated by older kids or the work load or anything else, it would fail in a big way. This is one of those things that truly has to be taken on a case by case basis.

DS7 when pulled out for 4th grade math.
Something to consider...
He has come home saying stuff like so and so says I like this girl etc. They are way more mature than he is and I would not want him to skip anymore grades. He skipped one.
The more skips the more to worry about.