Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Starting school early or not

How do you decide?

DD is in private school and started it one year early. Last year she did half day Kindergarten which is not academically very advanced IMO. She did well and had lots of friends. Next year she will still attend the same school so she can stay with the same group of kids. Year after that we will need to decide if we want to have her permanently accelerated one year ahead or will she repeat the last year in her current school. Where we are starting school early is rare and most people think it is better for the kids to wait than go ahead.

She is now 6-18mo younger than the other students. She is well liked and social butterfly type. As she goes to school with older kids she plays with them in her afterschool program, she rarely plays with her peers. Although I'm confident she would do well socially with her peers if needed.

At this point I'm not sure how gifted she is. Her reading is not as advanced as some kids here, she reads short books only. We have not done any math with her but she can do basic addition and subtraction in her head. She plays violin and has picked it up faster than the other kids who are 1-2 years older and started the same time. With her handwriting she is average in her current group of kids. I would guess she is not PG maybe more like MG.

She tiny so even if she would go to school with her peers she might be the smallest.

Our dilemma is that we feel that she should continue going to school with the kids who are year older but we are unsure as we do not know how she would do with the kids who are her age (maybe she would do even better and be even happier).

Wow, you are describing my dd11, who we also assumed to be MG, but who turned out to be HG (or more depending on how you define it -- fits DYS IQ criterion but not way over) and 2e. I'm not suggesting that your dd is 2e, BTW, but more suggesting that a child who is performing how you describe (that's about where my dd was in K as well) can do well being the youngest.

Mine will be taking honors science and English in 7th grade next year and is subject accelerating by a year in math, so she's certainly not struggling despite not being PG with no LDs or MG or whatever it is that has her academics at an advanced but not "wow, that's amazing" level.

We intentionally snuck around a K cut she didn't make b/c she seemed ready for K. She, too, is very, very tiny and 6-18 months younger than many of her grade peers b/c she started a little early and b/c holding out kids with bds near the cut is very common here too.

As an old friend of mine used to say, "you can only raise your children once." I can't tell you how she might have gotten on with kids closer to her age. Ours has, honestly, had some difficulty with being physically smaller but, like your dd, she probably would have been one of the smallest even if she were among the oldest in grade.

I can't say that I would have done it differently, though. I think that she's where she belongs for the most part.

As to how you decide, the only advice I can give is to do what seems to be the best fit for her now and not worry as much about things that would require a crystal ball to predict. That's the approach we took when grade accelerating our other dd and it worked both the year she skipped and is still working four years later.

Hi Oil! Welcome
I think that one thing about many little girls is that they love social interaction and so do well no matter where you place then on one level. But that is all the more reason to keep her where she will get some academic challenge from time to time. You can't rel on her behavior to guide you so you have to figure out what messsage you want to send...that a bit of struggle is a good thing or that she needs to be insulated from using her noggin for academics.

Kids assume that you know what level of effort is required of them at school and that you intentionally want them at that level of challenge. The girls will often conform to that unspoken message whilr the boys often throw chairs. BOth approaches have pros and cons.

I would suggest a WISC 4 test when she turns 6 just to get some reasurrance

My DD had great friends when she was essentially with kids her own age, but in school she kept very quiet because it was so important to her to fit in that she didn't want to stand out by showing she already knew everything they were learning.

When she grade accelerated she again easily made friends with kids in her class, but now she began to speak in class and could answer questions in class without worrying so much about what the other kids would think since she was more on their level.

When she switched to a school with a lot of redshirted girls who were even older than she was, she made the best friends she's ever had and will readily answer questions in class because she feels like she truly fits in.

I really feel like she would fit in and make friends with girls of any age. But, I think now she's found her true peers with girls 1.5 to 2+ years older than her.

I should add, though, that my DD is slightly tall for her age and has never been the shortest person in her class regardless of grade, so I'm not sure if height would have played a bigger role in our decision making if she were very small.

To me, I think it's telling that your DD picks older kids when she has the say as to who she socializes with.

Will any of your DD's classmates at her private school be going to the other school when your DD changes schools? You may find that she balks at not moving up at the same time as her friends do. I know my DD would have!

I agree with the bolded.

A sidetrack, but norming of the WISC-V starts in about August of this year, so you'll be looking at version five when that time comes.

The thing is that she is not really academically challenged at her current level. She progressed the most with her handwriting and coloring.

Probably she would have 3 of her friends including her current BFF in the public school with her. Compared to her year older friends she is either at the same level or clearly ahead. She is still 4 but will turn 5 this summer, I think we need to test her next winter although I'm not sure which test they will ask for the early entrance in public school.

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Ok then. Stop worrying about putting her with agemates and start worrying about if she will have enough challenge with her current group. At this point if she is happy you can let the challenge be handwritingand coloring but the poverbial handwriting is on the wall....you are going to have to provide the 'intellectual stimulation'for now? Which I'm sure you do in the normal course of the day by listening to her think aloud or sharing what you find interesting.

I would call the school now and talk to the gifted coordinator or school psychologist regarding the steps for early enterance. Play up her strong social bonds with the friends who are leaving for public bext year. Also check with the private school to see if they have any experience with similar situations and how to get the early enterance.

@Cricket2. Thanks for the WISC 5 update...it was totally off my radar!

@Oil Ask the school what tests they want. A WPPSI would be common for this purpose and has a very high probability of working well for the purpose of getting the early enterance but just so you know, it will underestimate how far into the gifted zone she sctually is.

Grinity, what do you mean by "it will underestimate how far into the gifted zone she actually is."

We are doing the WPPSI in a month with DS4.5 at the GDC in Denver. Should I expect an underestimate?

Oli, I would let her go ahead if she is mixing well with the kids that are older. "If it Ain't broke", you know. If she were a boy I would worry more about her being small. Seems she fits in just fine!

@1111 WPPSI can be accurate but it can also be way off. One of mine kid's WPPSI was very close to his WISC all the way through childhood. The other had a invalid test, by the notes from the examiner, he was not cooperative during the test. If you had scored it it was lower by 2+ SD off of his WISC results. Younger kids can be all over the place on WPPSI. Their cooperation and comfort level can impact the results a lot. If they are perfectionist or shy the results can be lower. A lot of factors involved with a younger kid.

I don't know about overestimates, but I've seen underestimates firsthand. A good examiner will make notes in the report about issues that came up during the test.