Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Anyone do a 3-5 year grade-skip? Did it work out?

n/a

You may want to wait and just see how it goes. You can see on threads where people have skipped their kids, sometimes in upper grades they run into handwriting issues or concentration issues, where the child intellectually is able to do the work but emotionally has problems.
Just enjoy the ride for now.
If he is suddenly 3-5 years younger than the other kids, he may not be a very social little boy. You really need to relax and give him time to develop.

I agree with jack'smom (and you) that you probably can't usefully form a concrete plan that far ahead right now. Reading and learning is good, and it seems to me that learning about all the ways to accelerate and compact won't take all that long, and then you're loaded for bear on that front. You will probably want to learn about the subject areas at each grade level, of course, and home schooling and other educational options for them, which also won't take long; that way you can be better prepared if you need to pull him out of a particular school system and home school, or go with some other non-traditional option.

Your son may be ready for all-day formal schooling earlier than 6. One aspect of home schooling him until then that may work against him is that he won't learn to fit into the school routine, while rubbing elbows with kids in a bigger classroom, so it may increase the learning curve a bit when he enters at a grade where most of the kids have learned to settle in. But it's like many similar issues with a highly able, asynchronously developing child: if he's engaged, he can probably surmount those obstacles.

If you home school until 6 and stick with the plan to enter the school system then, I'd also make sure he gets plenty of writing practice at home.

I have a 3 yr old and I see what you're saying. I only have one elementary school locally, no private schools, a boy with a late birthday, and a principal who's never heard of early pre-k entry, although I've been told by a local teacher one town down the schools down here don't mind skipping; they test the kids and place them accordingly.

Re: staying one step ahead of him, my thoughts;
When I wuz preggers I told the hubby, "if he's smart I'm going to homeschool him so he doesn't suffer. If he's normal I'll send him to school so he can have a normal life". I made my judgement call early in his infancy. Of course I've evolved as a parent since then.

I think what has to happen to stay one step ahead of a PG-gt-let is to call it like what's happening is that you're ultimately homeschooling/afterschooling/unschooling regardless of whatever else happens. If he's lucky enough to go to school for a year, or two, or ten, or thirteen I consider that desirable.
I would call it unschooling in that the responsibility and the right to learn belongs to the child. We have to keep bringing it back and realigning the plan to that goal. I call it homeschooling because as a mother I'm dedicated to teaching my kids the basics because, well, that's what parents do. I'm hopeful for a good school experience when it's our turn. Of course it's a huge unknown. I don't know what I'm going to do/request. I don't know what the school's going to do/request.
Keep reading this forum. It's very reassuring and chock full of common sense. Acceleration and reversal are never final decisions. At 6 he may be too immature for his academic peers, or unable to manually complete the written coursload. And he may be concurrantly too immature to "play along" with his agemates' classwork if it's too easy and the pace is too slow.
You may homeschool until age 6 and find he's not mature enough for what school has to offer until age 9 or 10.
Enjoy this year if it's enjoyable and/or productive. Congrats on the baby step. How exciting a first school!

Also if all goes well I assume you'll have teachers and gt parents from your area letting you in on the scoop on what's available locally by the end of the year.
Also if you like kindy and try first but don't like it I think you can pull him out and homeschool/unschool/virtual school and/or retain him a year or two. Here you can even keep them out of schOol completely until they should enter first grade, which since you're going early gives you a couple extra years at home if you don't like it or change your mind.

No need to prickle; Jack'sMom's "you need to relax" isn't the "you need to relax" you hear from other people ;-) She's right: however much you know your DS is gifted, you have no idea right now whether a 3-5 year grade skip is going to be appropriate for him. (Based on what I read and hear here and elsewhere, it's vanishingly rare for it to be a good answer, actually; you don't solve what is basically a pace problem by starting at a different point.)

I too had a miserable school experience in which I wasn't challenged, so I know what you mean about being determined not to let that happen to your child. I'm not advocating doing nothing.

You say your son is (about to be?) doing handwriting at K level, and you posted elsewhere about how he doesn't currently like teacher-structured environments. Those are the two really big things that limit the practicality of large skips: they have to be able to meet the expectations of the class they go into and they have to be able to produce the output. (Some schools will be prepared to do some accommodation e.g. allowing typed rather than handwritten output, but it's not a silver bullet: my DS still doesn't find typing any easier than handwriting.)

My DS7 is, as I often feel obliged to put in, untested, but on the pure intellectual side, a 5 year skip would look just fine, in the sense that he can easily handle explanations etc. aimed at 12yos, make arguments expected of them, etc. In fact he'd still need individual teaching in his strength areas. However, although we've discussed skips, we've decided against even one because it isn't, overall, in his best interests to do it. The output and social expectations are an important part of the reason: e.g. I'd rather have him somewhere where he can, with effort, meet output expectations than somewhere where he has to have accommodations because it's obvious he can't meet them. Another major reason is that no amount of skip would leave him looking typical for the class he arrived in. There's no substitute for sensitive teaching, and if you've got sensitive teaching, it can happen in a variety of settings.

Concretely, at 7 DS is currently expected (ha :-( ) to be able to produce a nearly full A4 page of writing (small, neat, joined up) on a set topic on demand in about 45 minutes. That may, I think, be a little ahead of usual expectation for that age, but it's a guide. He has to be able to do what he's told all day, get himself to a lesson on the other side of the campus on time and on his own, dress himself quickly and without fuss including tie and lace up shoes, etc. etc. etc.

TBH I think if you try to grease wheels for a 3-5 year skip for a child currently only just three years old you're simply going to get backs up and get yourself written off as crazy. Keep quiet, homeschool him for a bit if it seems right, see how it goes, and if you want to put him in school several years ahead of age in due course, then get a copy of the Iowa Acceleration Manual, get an IQ test, and go for it. But argue it then on the basis of the evidence you have then that it's the right thing. For now do what's right for him now.

When you are talking about a 3 yo and rapid acceleration, I think you should think about how you can adapt social needs. I don't think recess with the 1st graders will really work, having just had a kid in 1st grade. They tend to cluster with friends, then eat lunch after recess.

You may consider some activity, like Karate, where he can develop age peers friends. I read 2 seriously PG kids, graduate college at 12-14 and they seem to have that kind of thing happening where they developed friends.

I don't see anything wrong with long term planning. Put the paths of the various outcomes and what the options are. But I don't see kids 3-4 years older hanging with your child as they get older. They are going to be into different things, and not discussing chess strategies.

Ren

Sing it sister!
My son also is super strong extrovert and that is a bit unusal in PG world. He also was very distressed by the agemates at age 3 but I was so in denial that I had no idea what I was seeing. Your school set up sounds lovely and hopefully you will be able to maintain the social relationships he starts there for your sons whole life. Parents do a lot of the work for a childs social life until about 4th grade in our neighborhood.

Meanwhile start attending the local school board meetings and get to know the decision makers. Building relationships is the name of the game. If the private kindergarden is well respected by the local public school then the teachers recommendation may go along way. Build friendships at the local homeschool coop and see if once they know you the rules don't start to bend.

Lots of camps and sports teams and afterschool activities will bend act requirements especially if they know you.Or you ask nice.

Apparently you are just going to have to accept that it is going to be hard for folks to hear the truth when it comes from you (even we moms don't trust moms) so get others to stand up for you as much as possible. Professionals teachers music or karate teachers even other kids Moms or othe kids.

My son did well with a single skip plus a summer birthday but was limited by ADHD and low stamina. He has many friends who are at 3 years accelerated but I ones I know started with a single skip then added a subject acceleration then added gradually from there. I think it is great that you and your DH remembered your own experience and can use it as a guide. Most folks I know are still in denial. I'm sad to say that I thought that if I could just manage to avoid filling my sons head up with ideas that he could be what I always wished to be in elementary school...someone whose needs could be met there.

Now I get it that the children are born the way they are and it isn't my fault. My mom was so proud of her kids being smart and looked to me like she was sure it was all because of her. I'm so sorry that I never even asked my son's day care to try him with the older kids or looked for a school like yours.

I believe that you will find good patches as you go. Remember that from the elementary schools perspective it is the concrete skills that impress them....handwriting...telling time...shoelaces....math facts.....taking turns....sharing toys and...ut oh....doing things the teacher's way.

My DS15 has had behavior charts at school off and on between 1st grade and 6th. 'Doing things the teachers way' was a biggie.

On one hand 3 is too young to expect that but on the other hand the giant reinforcer is there at this private preschool...access to big boys.
You might want to start harping on the idea that 'big boys' do things the teachers way at school and save other ways for home.

But I gulp to even write this. Is there anything honest you can say about doing things other peoples way in the workplace? A sort of family creed to explain the importance of flexibility in this matter?

Love and more love
Grinity

There will be no great fix to this situation as there are *lots* of differences between 6 and 7 yo children and 3 yo children, between 12 yo and 8 yo, etc., and being capable of the intellectual work of older children will not erase the other differences. The social fit has to be both ways, so that it's not only whether your son likes the fit but whether the other children do too. At 6 or 7, my children would not have chosen to play with a 3 yo when they had lots of age peers available.

I would look for opportunities to find age peers for your son as well as good educational fits. These do not have to be the same activities. If your son needs social outlets, I'd find sports, clubs, or other age and interest based activities that he could join. For radically accelerated kids, having some interaction with others in the same age range seems to be really important.

I agree with the other posters that 3 is too soon to plan long-term education decisions. Most early schooling is play based and as long as your son likes to play, he may enjoy early schooling even if it isn't appropriate academically.

It sounds like you have found a great fit for next year. I think information gathering is just natural for someone in your situation, but really you can't predict what's going to work or not work in the future when your child is just 3.

Though our DS (now 7) knew pretty much all the kindy curriculum before he went, we chose to not send him early, on advice of the psychologist who tested him, because kindy is a more fun way to learn how to "do school". Also, the school did do some differentiation. We then skipped 1st, which worked out OK, but still wasn't enough, so we transferred to a school for HG kids where they work baseline at 3rd grade, plus split out for groups at different levels (e.g, my son's reading group was doing 6th grade levels books). This latest HG school has worked quite well, and we are hopeful that he'll be able to stay there through the program, but you just never know.

Handwriting has been hard, as well as gym. My son was a perfectionist early on too (my mom remembers noticiting signs when he was 1). He did start writing letters very early on, but quit when they weren't turning out how he wanted them. He refused to try when we encouraged him, so kindy turned out to be a perfect place for learning to write (that was our main goal for kindy). DS's writing is still very bad compared to the other kids in his HG school, most of whom are a year older and had 1st grade, a writing year. But his teacher did not made a big deal of it, pushing just enough. A lot of good fit for highly asynchronous kids depends on great teachers. Sounds like you have one now.

I agree that it is quite important for kids to learn at some point that school is indeed for learning, and not just breezing through. Kids need to encounter some safe failures so they can learn to persevere, and it's better when this comes earlier. Bad when it comes in college.