I know -- isn't the "grade skip" search great? This is *exactly* the discussion I was looking for! I started an almost identical one on my other board last night before I found this one.
As for older children looking back -- I have a PG cousin who was not grade skipped. And this is one of those obviously gifted children -- the kind who, when asked to name a pot on a vocabulary test at age three, said that the picture was of "vaporized water" -- he was looking at the steam coming out the top! His parents chose to do a lot of enrichment and subject acceleration with him rather than skip him full grades. I've been speaking with his mother -- my aunt -- a lot over the last week and he's told her that he *wishes* they'd just skipped him the grades. He said that most of the older children -- much older, in many of his classes -- sort of took him under their wing and wanted to guide him, and he wished that he's been able to move up altogether rather than do the radical single-subject acceleration. I've been thinking about that a lot lately as we've begun to seriously consider a skip for our Benjy.
But I suppose that brings up another question entirely -- for the child who is truly academically ready, emotionally secure and fairly confident, is a two-grade or more grade skip more socially appropriate than a one-grade skip? Do you think it's easier socially to be the "really REALLY smart one who skipped two grades" or the "really smart one who skipped a grade"?
I don't know the answer to that question. I really can see arguments both ways.
