My oldest, D11, moved to a gifted program for fifth grade. He is now in 6th. One of the things he has enjoyed was moving from always being the youngest in the classroom to being smack bang in the middle of the age group - at least half of the class is accelerated as well.
While it remains anecdotal evidence, it is still quite a nice sample of how kids are doing a few years after acceleration. I thought I’d share a bit, since the subject comes up so frequently.
First off, I notice that outwardly at least, girls seem to be doing better than boys. Though the sample of girls is small and I know less about them than the boys, nor do I interact much with their parents, having a boy myself. They may struggle inwardly and not let it show. I know this is how it happens with my accelerated daughter,
The younger boys tend to struggle somewhat both sociallyand academically, and more so the younger they are. Fall or winter birthday, just a bit younger than the youngest non-accelerated kids? Tends to work better. Spring or summer birthday, a whole year younger? The struggle is very clear. Sounds like a no brainer once you write it down, but I rarely see th relative age distance referenced as a criterion.
My daughter (young for grade, born just before the cutoff) provides another daeta point: she happened to skip grades together with a girl that was almost exactly a year older, due to having been redshirted In the first place. They both had been first graders in a split classroom, went on to be third grades in almost the exact same classroom with the same kids. Up till then, they had identical educational experiences, with the identical teacher and identical kids. Older girl integrated seemlessly, it’s truly btu a grade correction for her. My daughter struggles socially (fairly invisible, she is not bullied or rejected, just lonely, and feels she is really friends only with her fellow skipper.
Early acceleration (early entry or skip in the early grades) appears to work much better than later acceleration. A few kids have skipped 4th grade (the “transition year” that the IAS counsels against), and boy, does it hold true - those kids, no matter how smart they are, really struggle with with writing and languages.
Neither of my kid struggle academically, by the way, with the exception of some EF issuesm they soared effortlessly to the top of the class wherever they are. Particularly in my daughters case (she is also tiny, whereas my older son is physically indistinguishable from the non accelerated kids), all of which makes the academic/social mismatch in development that much more glaring and continues to convince me that grade skips provide bandaids, but don’t work very well as the only or best solution.
Thoughts? Of those who have more than just one or two data points, dos your experience tally with mine?
Last edited by Tigerle; 04/21/18 01:53 PM.
