How big a deal is this? A male friend who was grade skipped has refused to skip his incredibly smart boys because he had such a miserable time as the older kids went through puberty. He says middle school was particularly difficult.
It's hard to know if your friend would have been more misearable if he hadn't been skipped, or if he needed a double or triple skip, of if he was just fated to be miserable in middle school - some people are. People's memories are quite unreliable, and one thing to know about gradeskips is that in most places they are unusual enough that there is a human tendency to blame every future woe on them.
The second thing to evaluate is the 'LOG' (level of giftedness) and the local student population. In the US people tend to segregate by economic, and there is a trend (not a perfect one) that higher economic areas tend to have more high IQ kids. So IQ and achievement test numbers are very important. For some kids, but the time the school starts being willing to do a skip, they are so different from their classmates that a skip is almost gaurenteed not to be enough. (Although it can be a great start.)
We're looking at a possible skip for my son from 4th into middle school 6th. I'm told this is a great time to skip because it's a natural transition period and it will be a good time to form friendships. On the other hand, my son is small for his age-- 10th percentile-- and already pretty young for his grade (June birthday).
We did a skip at this exact point,on top of a July birthday in a severly red-shirted area and it was very valuable. We were looking at serious underachievement issues, and it gave our son a chance to learn good work ethic. We did undo the skip later, but we don't regret the journey. Assoline actually doesn't recommend a skip before the 'bridge year' for moderately gifted kids(I'm assuming that in your district 5th is the end of elemantary and 6th is the start of middle school) because the bridge year is key to building up organization skills that will be needed at the next level. If
your child is unusually gifted, then it's not so much of a consideration, but we ran into this problem. Our son was undiagnosed ADD at the time as well as PG, and had no work ethic due to the 'enforced underachievement' and keeping him organized became my 2nd full time job. I was willing to do it because it was the only way out of a bad situation, and contrary to what I had read, DS was able to take back the driver's seat of his homework and organizational responsibilities 100% within a few years. I had to break it down and teach it to him in babysteps, and he entered 9th grade for the second time as 'the most organized boy' in the program. Because of DS15's organizational weaknesses, do does better with agemates in a private boarding school that is very 'in dept discussion' orriented with tons of individualized attention. So it is possible, but if we could have kept him at home, and the tuition money in our pockets, we surely would have.
If he stayed in his current grade he would be enriched and allowed to work at his own pace, but then we'd face probably a difficult transition year when they don't know him at the middle school.
And would be be enriched
enough? and do you really want to go through the whole thing next year? So much depends on if you are in a 'Superzip' neighborhood, what your child's LOG is, how happy he is with his agemates, how organized he is, what kind of stamina he has, what kinds of bedtimes you can put up with, how good he is at handling social situations, and what are your alternatives. Can you try it for 2 months and then go back?
What is motivating you to make the change in the first place?
Best wishes, we'd love to hear how it all turns out.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
