Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Experiences w/multiple grade skips and/or accelera

Hi all,
I tried to find another post on this so I'm not repeating something already discussed, but I couldn't find anything-so here it goes:

I know there's a lot of literature that supports grade skipping and/or acceleration. I'm just wondering how that actually plays out (esp. multiple grades). My son is only five, but he's terribly bored in K (he's been accepted as DYS just to give some sort of frame of reference). The school should be complete w/testing him academically to see where he fits according to the district's curriculum.

We're anticipating that he's at the very least about two years ahead of where he should be. The question will now become what to do about it. The school is not opposed to grade skipping/subject acceleration (so they say), but they are concerned about a five yr. old being placed in a class w/7 maybe even 9 yr. olds.

Multiple grade skips may not be as much of an issue when a child is older, but at this young age, we're a bit concerned. He's been acting out behaviorally (I addressed this in another post) and not the most mature five yr. old.

So, just wondering if anyone else has had experience (s) w/similar type of situation.

Thanks!

That upside of you getting your ducks aligned at this early date is that you have time to get to those multigrade accels in a gradual manner. I would encourage you to start with a full grade first and see how that goes. Even if the academics aren't there just being in a new environment will occupy him for a month or two. Then keep observing your child and add subjects and fulls one step at a time.

My son (DYS with undiagnosed ADD) was offered a double subject accel (one grade agewise but into honors Math that was already a grade ahead) on top of his skip into 6th during his first month of 5th at a new school. The full skip worked very well but the math was too much. DS was uncomfortable in reversing the Math Acc for a day or two but it was very worth it. Moral of the story: Flexabiltiy Rules. These kids require a certain amount of Trial and error. And,at least at our house, that is ok.
Smiles
Grinity

Our Mr W is 3 and his recent assessment qualifies him for DYS. His achievement tests from this summer show he is in the 90th percentile for 2d grade.

Currently he is in PreK with 4/5 year olds. He has adjusted great. He has started acting up a bit after 5 mos - and he told us last week he wanted to be in the K class. We are now looking at a skip to K after Christmas. So we are going to take the 2+ plunge.

Mr W is VERY social. He has regular play dates with kids who are from 2-6 years older and fits in. The biggest problem HE has with older kids is getting them to accept him. But once he gets in, he is in.

The problem about age differences is in OUR heads, not his. He sees that school is boring much of the time and he is miserable. He does see that older kids are INTERESTING.

The problem WE and others face is realizing that he learns VERY fast. Right now he is covering 9 mos of normal in 2 mos or so. His reading and math has just exploded and he is also reading simple sheet music on sight. Just when we think we are going fine, we need another adjustment.

I re-read Ruf's book last night. She says quite clearly that under no circumstances are PG kids to be put in with age peers in a normal classroom. And that they can cover all of elementary in just one year. She says to keep trying even if it means homeschooling. She says that leaving the kids in with their age peers IS a decision, too.

FWIW, I was skipped from 7th to 10th for a year. But that is OT.

My experience is extremely limited, as our school district has a no-grade-acceleration policy no matter what the ability level of a child is; there is subject acceleration but that's it. The gifted kids I know who work ahead of grade level for the most part here are either working in optional schools, homeschooled, or havce subject-accelerated by ability once they hit middle school. Just fwiw, even though elementary school is often boring for those kids, they do much better once they hit middle school and can get into more challenging courses. Back to grade acceleration, I grew up with a friend who was grade accelerated into my grade, and I have a close friend in another state who grade-accelerated her dd going into kindergarten. In addition to that I know quite a few families here who have their children in optional/charter schools which have multi-age classrooms, and who opted for those schools so their children would have a chance to work differentially according to ability. The feedback I've heard from each of these families is that the academics is the easy part, upper elementary and middle school is tough socially when there is an age difference. The reason I mentioned the multi-age classroom (which isn't specifically a gifted school, but has a high proportion of gifted students) is that they have grades 4-6 in the same classroom, and the parents who I know who loved grades 1-3 for their kids in a 3-year multi-age classroom almost resoundingly have changed their minds once their child is in 4th and is in with 6th graders - that specific age difference brings so many changes in maturity levels, beginnings of puberty for a lot of kids, exposure to different levels of things.. I'm not explaining it well, but a 6th grader can be at a very different place than a 4th grader socially/etc.

My friend who was able to grade-accelerate her dd was very gung-ho on it in kindergarten, even though her dd is MG, not PG. She was extremely concerned about boredom in the classroom, and her dd, now in 6th grade has done quite well in school both academically and socially. Her mom, however, isn't all that happy about the social things that her dd is exposed to in middle school, none of which is anything out of the ordinary for middle school, but her mom now says if she'd thought through this part of the grade skip she wouldn't have done it. My friend I grew up with who was grade-skipped, none of us had a clue in early elementary until 3rd grade when for some reason we all went around the room and had to tell how old we were and she was younger and explained why. She was a great student academically, and she did fine socially - in elementary and high school. Middle school she had some challenges with fitting in socially, which seemed to be hinged on age.

Soooo.. that probably sounds like I'm not a fan of grade acceleration, which isn't true - I think it's a very good thing and something many of our kids need. Just thought I'd throw out there the middle schoolish experiences we've seen for something else to consider. We desperately wanted to grade accelerate our ds when he was going into kindy, not just because of his giftedness but because he is a late birthday and just missed the age cut-off deadline. We were really really worried about boredom in school. We weren't allowed to accelerate him and in some ways it worked out great - I think he's in a much better place socially to be with age peers, also because we learned later on, around 2nd grade, that he's 2E with a disability, and not having accelerated gave us "extra" time to work through accommodations etc before hitting middle school and increased academic loads. On the down side, we didn't really realize how terribly bored he was until 5th grade when he just let everything out that he'd kept bottled up inside for all those years. He's subject-accelerated in middle school, has pursued independent study at home for several years, and he's intellectually semi-happy again with school etc (although he is still bored during much of the day). Grade acceleration would have at least had him a little bit more intellectually challenged, but I'm not sure it would have been a great answer. When we were looking at middle school options and I was consulting with his gifted teacher about choices looking forward to high school and mentioned my concern that he might be bored in one program, she told me that with his IQ, he's going to be bored in any of the district programs. Not a very encouraging thought! But I think it's a fact of life for many of us - there's not a good fit for high IQ kids in most of our public schools.

Sorry if that came off as a bit negative, I didn't mean for it to. If I sound like a parent who wishes she could have found a better educational fit for my child, it's because I am, heavy sigh. But he's also had a lot of fun in school at times too, and it's been ok. Not great, but ok.

polarbear

My DS7 skipped 1st grade and then moved mid-year 2nd to an accelerated school for HG kids, and the resulting 2 year acceleration is working well right now. If we had stayed in the local school, we could have found a way to make it work, but because DS's handwriting was pretty bad (school's reason), most of his math acceleration had to be done in pullout format (rather than joining the higher class). The writing is still tough for DS now in 3rd, having missed a year of writing in 1st, but he's doing pretty well.

We are lucky to have an option of a public HG school relatively near by, so that DS is on average only a year younger than the kids in his class. I think if we had stayed in our local school, DS would need another skip pretty soon. The trouble is usually pacing in elementary school. Even if your kiddo is getting more appropriate subject matter, the pace of the class (unless a GT cluster) will be slower. That said, it's still better than material that your kiddo already knows, and since your school sounds very flexible (most important thing), then they will hopefully also be willing to differentiate.

Speaking of differentiation, a really good thing to look for with your flexible school is placement with teachers who are good at differentiation, and who want your kid in their classes.

As for the social bit, it probably depends on the personality of your kid. But remember there is a huge range of acceptable behavior/maturity levels in each grade. As long as your kid falls into that range (even if on the low end), then I wouldn't see a problem in that alone.

Keeping in mind that every situation (as every child) is unique, what worked well for us was that our daughter's skips were separated by three years (she skipped 2nd and 6th grades).

The first acceleration was a complete no-brainer as she should have gone to K a year ahead of when she was allowed to. Unfortunately the first school my daughter went to viewed grade skipping as a form of child abuse.

The decision for the second skip was made after seeing how well she adapted to the first skip. Her test scores took a slight dip (percentile) in the first year, but were back at the top of her grade by the next year. That, plus how well she fit in with her older classmates help make the decision for another skip easier.

One comment I remember from the IAS meeting for the second acceleration, was from one of the teachers on the committee who my daughter had spent a day with. The teacher commented that she did not know my daughter had already been accelerated once because she fit in so well with the other kids.

I definitely consider myself a proponent of finding the best place for a child. In our case, with a total lack of GT services in our bankrupt state, grade-skipping made the most sense.

Short version: Our son bypassed K, entering 1st at age 4. He later skipped into 5th a couple months after starting 4th grade. He's now a 10yo 7th grader (taking 8th grade Algebra) and is doing extremely well both academically and socially.

Despite being the smallest (& youngest) in school, he does very well in P.E., which was probably his biggest concern about entering jr. high.

I've spoken with a few of his teachers and they were all surprised to learn his age. My only advice/request for them was to not make any mention of it. It's truly been a non-issue, and the less said, the better for all.

He's very active in tennis and martial arts outside of school, where grouping is done by skill level, not age, so he's always been around older kids in that arena as well.

From what I've read over the last few very intense years, we've been extremely fortunate to have a local school system that has worked with us every step of the way. Sadly, that's not the case for all kids.

Back when we were considering his first skip, I think that in addition to the wonderful stories shared in this community, the personal experiences described at "A Nation Deceived" played heavily in to our decision-making process.

If you've not yet read through these stories, you should take a few minutes to do so:
http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Personal_Stories/Read.aspx

Just a quick thank you for sharing your experiences! I'll have to go back to reread some of them in order to comment more specifically (the half days, class parties and night time tutoring have left me w/little time to indulge in reading my own post!) lol

A lot of this is going to depend on the child, school, teacher, and where you lived.

My eg/pg son (at 5) accelerated through the pre-k/k/1st grade curriculum at a private traditional, gifted school within 2 1/2 months - then he started to act out because he was bored. I was then told the school could no longer accommodate him. The headmaster refused to put our son in the 2nd/3rd grade class because he felt he wasn't ready socially or emotionally.

We then placed our son in a non-traditional, creative gifted school. There are 30 kids (pre-k to 8th grade) and 3 teachers in a one-room type school setting. The setting is mixed-aged and self-paced learning which seems to better suit our son. So far, he seems to be doing well. He doesn't stand out and he can work at his own pace.

We live where there is no gifted education. So it's either private education or homeschooling for pg kids. The public schools refuse to accommodate them.

I don't know if you've read this article, but you might want to read it - http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10115.aspx

With eg/pg kids, you've got a number of issues.
1. Multiple grade skipping may work, but this depends on the school district. One grade skip is unlikely to be effective with pg kids; they're probably going to need multiple grade skips.

2. Acceleration - pg kids seem to absorb information or go through developments in great gulps. It can feel like Pac Man some days. Schools and teachers seem to be more receptive if you have a child who is advanced or accelerated in one subject, but seem particularly flummoxed when it's 3+ subjects. Then, you've also got to contend with the real possibility of your child standing out. That's one of the reasons why we pulled our eg/pg son from the traditional, gifted school.

If you can find a school that has mixed-ages and self-paced learning, you're probably better off. I think it can be a mixed bag with classrooms based on chronological age rather than ability. Of course, the problem is that's how the vast majority of public schools operate.

3. At the younger ages, eg/pg kids can be quite, how should I put it, complex. Some of these kids can be less receptive to teacher-driven curriculum. They can be rather challenging and demanding at home and at school; they can zoom through reading, writing, or math developments so quickly and succumb to coasting through things. So it can be quite a feat to find the right setting and environment in terms of school.

These eg/pg kids often seen the older kids as their peers than kids with the same chronological age. This can be an issue, because sometimes eg/pg don't want to have anything to do with kids their own chronological age and will not wait for others to catch up.

4. You're right - I think it's easier when eg/pg get older. With the younger ages, people don't know what to make of it, especially if they've got no experience with it or have strong opinions on it. In HS, you've got AP and honors classes and other activities to challenge them, but at 5 years old they're seen as being too young for much of it.

Anyway, I hope you're able to work with your school district or find a private school which will fit your son.

I'm a bit late in the discussion, but here's my experiences (my own schooling and DC17):

DC17 has subject accelerated in science multiple times. It was difficult to get her the acceleration she needed, and it was challenging at times with high school scheduling (some regular classes, some AP classes, and some post-AP courses) and nonaccelerating in other subjects (such as math). It's worked out well in the long-run, though. She was much happier and more confident in her abilities.

Back in the dark ages, I was accelerated multiple times in various subjects and accelerated (and un-accelerated due to district policies) with full-grade skips. When I was about 7, it was obvious that I needed something out of the ordinary, and one of my teachers allowed me to join the middle school accelerated humanitites program for a few subjects a day (5-7 grades accelerated at that point). It eventually became an independent study/private tutoring arrangement when I outran the middle school program. I very much enjoyed being in classes with older students and discussing literature, history, and philosophy with them. However, due to age differences, I wasn't able to pursue the same activities they pursued (sports, programs for middle schoolers with age restrictions...). The independent study set-up alleviated some of those issues, as I had more access to older students' activities outside rigid district policies.

As I grew older, I ended up accelerating several years in math and science, as well, through independent/partial homeschooling opportunities and early college opportunities. Those were probably the best memories I had from my childhood and teen years. I loved the intellectual stimulation and the social experiences with others sharing my interests. However, it was very difficult to arrange logistically within district policies, which arbitrarily could reverse acceleration as policies changed. I would advise going through those rules and regulations on your own before making the decision to make sure that there aren't loopholes that could create problems in the future (age minimums on starting middle school/high school, issues of credit for courses later on...).