My son was skipped from 3rd to 4th 4 weeks into school. We were just asking for a continuation of subject acceleration of math but the new principal couldn't do it and the gifted district coordinator got involved and they offered us this option.
So the first report cared is about ready to come out. Not only did he miss the first 4 weeks of 4th grade but the writing expectations for 4th grade are high because of the high stakes writing test in February. He appears to have fit in quite nicely and no one believes that he shouldn't be there. But his grade online looks like it will be a C for Language arts. It might come up a little bit if the teacher adds a bunch of grades at the last minute but right now he only has 3 grades and one is an essay that was a D (it was a dang good essay for a third grader but wasn't quite there for a fourth grader).
This will be his first time ever not making honor roll if the C doesn't come up in the next week. I know he will be deflated. Any ideas for what to say. I don't make report cards out to be a big thing. But the schools do with certificates and all sorts of coupons from area businesses...and I don't want him to think he isn't doing a great job. And I am pretty sure that he will be back up in the top of the class performers across the board by the end of the year...I also think if there were more than 3 grades in the grade book for him it would more reflect his level of performance overall...the essay just brought his grade way down.
First, hooray for your ds!! This is significant: "He appears to have fit in quite nicely and no one believes that he shouldn't be there."
As for the C, well, it's unfortunate, because a couple of things were going against him: missing a month, only three grades to average. However, this is the time for him to experience lower grades than he might want. Before it matters and while the lesson on what learning really is all about is still teachable.
Our ds skipped 6th grade into 7th. He's received his first 6wks report card (six weeks is too short, imo, but that's for another day). He received As in everything but his compacted math class for which he received a B, albeit a high B. The other classes I'm not surprised by, though there's an increase in the level and amount of writing. But his B in math I find truly amazing. DS was all but turned off by math once the expectation to be fast became the norm in elementary. He is not fast. (on the WISC IV, his lowest index was PSI) He is methodical and thoughtful. He began to doubt his math ability and by last year started believing he wasn't good in math at all. He's also not the kind of person who will happily do worksheets or even math games. We decided to let him to take the summer off rather than teach him a few of the 6th grade concepts he missed. We did this while fully aware it might make this class extremely difficult. I was so afraid of turning him off math for good and I knew I couldn't afford to do that.
So for the first 6 weeks of his compact 7&8 grade math class, the class was reviewing and he was learning everything new on the fly. For the first time I really understood why all those years of math were so tedious for him. To see ds bring home a new concept and be able to understand and replicate it two days later was amazing. There's no homework in this class so I didn't have a handle on everything that was going on. Once in a while I'd ask him and he'd show me what he learned or I'd go over something when he needed. But really, he was a sponge. And for the first time, he likes his math teacher and his math class. (One of the things he was most excited about was that his teacher told them she didn't care how they came to the answer as long as it was correct).
So, our experience so far is that ds is having to work in a couple of his classes and those are the classes he loves the most and those are the grades that give him the most satisfaction. He told us after he saw his report card (I think he didn't have any idea of how well he'd do) that he felt like a 7th grader and that it was a good move. I couldn't have asked for a better lesson for my perfectionist, almost disengaged, ds. Every day he gets in my car and I ask how his day went and every day but one, one day out of 7 weeks, he tells me, "Great!"
I hope your ds is also feeling good about where he is. It's quite an accomplishment to be able to change to a higher grade and adapt to the higher expectations and it seems your ds is doing very well, and that his grade in LA will begin to reflect his ability very soon. I bet his teacher will add a bit more to help the average. But even if she doesn't, in the end, your ds has already accomplished something huge.
