All--

This question is: what is the appropriate standard for a school to deem the full-grade accelleration attempt of a 5 year old to 1st grade to be a failure? Specifically, is merely meeting grade-expectations on reading-level at the end of 1st grade a sufficient basis to abort the acceleration?

Here are the details: Our DS5 just met the kindergarten cutoff (he has an August birthday). He had always seemed very bright, and so just before school started my wife and I asked his public school if full-grade acceleration directly into 1st grade was possible. They agreed to test him use the Iowa Acceleration Scale to determine the viability of acceleration. When doing so, they applied the CogAT and the Woodcock Johnson IV tests, but did not apply an IQ test (which I thought odd). I have the sub-scores from each of those if they are relevant to anyone.

His IAS grand total is 59 out of 80, which the scale considers commensurate with a "good candidate" for full-grade acceleration (and 1 point away from being an "excellent" candidate). The team from the school recommended a half-and-half transition, where he'd attend Kindergarten for half the day, and 1st grade for the other half. The idea was that if all went well, next school year he'd continue on to 2nd grade with his 1st grade cohort. We scheduled a follow-up for January to see how he was doing, and otherwise accepted the transition plan.

Now that it is January, we met with the school's team and they are saying that as things stand, they do NOT presently recommend him continuing into 2nd grade with his 1st grade cohort. They cite two points: (1) his writing skill is a little behind his other 1st grade peers, and (2) more importantly, they believe him to be reading at an F&P level "G" which is merely par for common-core reading expectations at this point in 1st grade. The school has suggested it expects an accelerated student to be in the top 75% of his accelerated class, and if he does not exceed expectations on this measure by the end of the academic year, they are not in favor of continuing him on the accelerated track.

My question is this: Is the school's expectations of his 1st grade accelerated performance reasonable? From my (admittedly layperson's) review of the research, differences between an accelerated student and his peers at the 1st grade level are likely to be more pronounced, given normal developmental issues. After all, a 6 year old has 20% more experience and physical development than a 5 year old. Furthermore, because of his birthday, had our son been born just a few weeks earlier, his acceleration to 1st grade would have effectively been a two-grade skip rather than skipping just Kindergarten -- so he's got an even steeper hill to climb.

I'm troubled that the school, which has very limited experience with acceleration (having done only one skip to 1st grade in the past decade) is applying the same performance standard to a 5 year old accelerating as it would to a 10 year old. And may pull the plug on our son's acceleration after this first year, perhaps prematurely, to his detriment.

Can anyone point me to research and guidance, be it from Belin-Blank researchers or elsewhere, that might be helpful in determining whether it's appropriate to abort our son's acceleration if he is merely keeping up with the common-core F&P scale throughout 1st grade? If the school's approach is correct, I need to know that too -- but if not, I want to be a good advocate for my son.

Thanks in advance!