Like many people, our primary "nonsuccess" was with trying a differentiated program for DS's first semester of kindergarten.
We truly believe that acceleration would also have been a nonsuccess, though, and here's why....
Background: In the first week of K, the school asked to give him placement tests and evaluated him at 3rd grade LA/spelling, 4th grade reading, and 2nd grade math. However, he has a summer birthday and was still "5" for handwriting and gross motor. (They also made a big deal about the fact that he didn't know "phonics" because he was a whole-language reader. That was a laugh since he tested at grade 8.9 in national placement ranking when he took a standardized reading comp. test in May.)
Anyhow, the principal suggested we place him in a 1st/2nd grade "combo" class for accelerated learners.
HOWEVER, when I spoke with the 1st/2nd teacher, she told me that she could not move him into other classes for his LA/reading groups because it was logistically too difficult. She said to do this and keep him from missing other subjects, she would have to line her schedule up perfectly with both the 3rd and 4th grade teachers, and there were too many variables that came up to make that work. Even at the start of his K year, beginning 2nd grade work was not going to keep him challenged where he was at.
On the other side, too, she made a point of the fact that his handwriting was still in early-sentence mode, and he was going to get slowed down compared to the rest of the class who could write so much more clearly/faster/more at a time. This was actually true at that point in time, 'though he's caught up to the average 3rd grader in handwriting now that he's 6.
Since we knew this wasn't the right fit, we decided to let him stay in kindergarten while we tried other options. They tried lots of differentiation, but it was far too little and not worth the extra chaos. Luckily for us, we discovered homeschooling, and are now with a fabulous charter who fully supports where he's at. His lowest curriculum is 2.5 grade levels ahead, his highest is middle school, and yet he can participate in activities with other children his age if he wants. We can also keep him enrolled as a 1st grader on paper, which will hopefully allow us to stay with this charter all the way through "8th grade" even though he'll likely finish high school curriculum by then.
I read so many wonderful acceleration stories, yet I have so many questions. I would have to guess that most other YS kids are like mine and don't get nearly enough even by 1 or 2 grades of acceleration. Some schools make pullouts work, but I wonder how they get around the issues our teacher described. Plus, even "new" subjects seem so basic at grade level. (For ex, our certified teacher just pulled out the regular school's geography materials for grades 2-3, and quickly discarded them as too basic for DS, but most people wouldn't do a pullout 3 grade levels higher for geography!) Do the accelerated kids find that some topics are meeting their needs but others just won't be able to? I'm always very supportive of acceleration and like to learn more because we know that we'll have to do that too if we reintegrate again some day.
