I'm amazed at everyone's negative experiences here. We just completed the acceleration for our PG DS6. He is moving from first to third- whole grade. The school used the Iowa Acceleration Process as well as an IQ test and of course extensive feedback from us and his first grade teacher. We had a blast doing the whole thing! Our principal was fantastic, as was the entire staff that participated in the process. My son starts his new grade in the fall, and he is super excited. 2nd grade would have been a big fat waste of his time, as we have another PG DS9 that is going into 4th grade next year. 2nd grade was a big waste of his time too! lol
They test them in their own grade and then they plug that into the grade skip above to see how they would perform given how they scored. So for example, In reading and math my son scored 96.9% and 99.9% for a first grader and then 53% and 56% respectively if he were to be in the 3rd grade right now. So, that gave us the impression he would perform quite well given a whole grade acceleration. There are a bunch of other factors they test as well, and in the end you have a scale. The top of the scale is between 60-80 and that is where a whole grade acceleration is recommended and he/she is an excellent candidate. My DS scored a 65 so he was firmly in the zone, so we went for it! Time will tell how we feel about it. We had the opportunity with our older son the prior year, but he is emotionally less stable than our younger son and we felt he would struggle if he accelerated so he is in his right grade and gifted classes, which seems to be perfect for him. Every child is different so make sure you weigh all the pros and cons! Good luck!!
