I would do achievement testing at a minimum, maybe MAP and SCAT as a start, or something like that which would give you a sense of where she is in terms of skills. If she already knows all of 4th grade math, etc. that is useful information as you try to figure out how to challenge her.
IQ testing is useful also I think, because it gives you an idea of what you are dealing with, and I think compliant children often can mask just how "out there" they are and how miserable they are, and I think some of the subsets can be helpful in understanding where your child might need challenge. I wouldn't use IQ in isolation, but if a child scores a 155 I would be thinking/planning a different route compared to a child who scores a 135.
I wouldn't give up on subject acceleration so quickly. This is where the achievement testing can really come in handy. If she scores in the 97% on the SCAT test compared to kids 3 years older on verbal (or math or both), then it seems you really owe it to her to figure out additional challenges, even if you don't go the full skip route. Even if you subject accelerated only for one subject, that is one less place where she is failing to be challenged appropriately, and where she will learn how to work at her level. Scheduling a one subject acceleration really isn't that hard (well, I guess it depends to some extent on how many classes per grade are in your school). Also, does your school have inclusion classrooms in each grade? It has worked great for my DS to be in an inclusion classroom, because many of the kids are pulled out at different times to go to speech or OT or PT, etc. so no one cares when he leaves to go up to his higher grade math test. I'm not suggesting a switch for this year, but it is something to keep in mind for the future.
The social stuff is hard. My DS refused to consider a full grade skip when we started dealing with this last year, because he didn't want to leave his friends and my DH was opposed for similar social reasons. I couldn't argue with that, my DS's age and grade level friends are sweet and smart. But, now that my DS is up two years in math, he has started to realize that the older kids are more interesting and he connects with many of the brighter ones in a way that is different from his 3rd grade friends. I think he didn't really realize that friendships could be intellectually engaging (that is what grown-ups are for
) and of course, most of the things he played involved chasing other kids around and pretending to be Star Wars characters, or building Legos. I now see him recognizing that some of his friends are good for playing tag, and some are better for playing chess, and he is more open to a full skip, still opposed, but he sees the benefits.
Cat
