Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Multiple grade skips for 5 year old. Pros? Cons?

Our 5 year old son began his first year of “school” a few weeks ago. We decided to do Connections Academy (an online school) because they allow for flexibility in placement and pace. After their placement testing, they recommended he begin in 2nd grade with an additional Gifted and Talented Language Arts course. They suggested re-evaluating after a few weeks to determine if 3rd grade would be more appropriate. Two weeks ago we moved him up to 3rd grade in everything but math. He’s on track to finish 2nd grade math in a month or so. 3rd grade seems to be much better for him (although still pretty easy for him). He is moving through it quickly, and it looks like he will easily finish the first half of fourth grade before the school year ends.

He is extremely internally motivated and is eager and excited to learn about anything and everything. Learning comes very easy to him and happens naturally. He figures out many things without ever being “taught.”

We don’t push him when it comes to academics, but do provide him with many opportunities. He excels at the piano, loves karate, sings in a homeschool choir, has swimming lessons, takes an after school class at our local elementary school (Bricks4Kidz), and has many playdates with his friends. Busy kid! He loves each of those activities, but often in his down time, he chooses to curl up with a book or two and will read for hours.

Today we met with a psychiatrist because of some behavioral problems we had with him over the summer. Incidentally, his behavior problems have nearly disappeared and his behavior changed drastically the first day of school. The psychiatrist said he was against rapid vertical acceleration for kids like our son and preferred horizontal learning. He hasn’t met our son yet, but just making a more generalized statement. We realize our son is on a course to finish school rapidly and will likely be ready for college at a young age. To be honest, we don’t care at all about what grade he’s in or how fast he advances. We just want him to be challenged, because he is a much happier child when he is challenged.

We would love to hear about experiences from others who have had a child advance quickly. Pros and cons, etc. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

I don't think I would worry about what a psychiatrist thinks about your school choices. He doesn't even know what "kids like your son" might be, having never met him, and chances are he has never met any kids like your son.

Grade skips in online school are not at all the same thing as grade skips in a regular school, as far as having to be concerned about social matters -- which is probably where the psychiatrist's experience, if any, lies. In traditional school, you're having to think about age differences and behavior and physical limitations of the buildings and schedules -- can the kid get to the advanced classes in a different building, is it at the right time so he's not missing something else, etc. Online, you can choose the classes you need and not worry about the rest -- you have lots of opportunities for the social stuff outside of the online classes.

It sounds to me like you're doing just fine and have everything under control. I would forget about the shrink and just keep taking care of the kid.

I agree with Nautigal, but I do just want to comment on "will likely be ready for college at a young age" given that your son is 5. I think that's fine as a best-guess prediction, but I suggest you guard against letting it turn into a plan, iyswim. College at an early age can be the best thing for some students, but it may get you into all the social problems that Nautigal correctly points out you're avoiding at the moment by using an online school. It may (or may not, of course) turn out that he'd get more out of college if he did it at the usual age, using the extra time for something else.

Maybe this isn't a danger for you, but I know I tend to be an overplanner; I find it reassuring to think through a picture of how things might work out for my son over the long term. I think that's fine but I do then have to make a conscious effort to remember not to get committed to that picture; because it becomes familiar, there's a danger that it becomes the unexamined default.

Also, you might think about finding a different psychiatrist. Psychiatry has evolved rapidly and not entirely smoothly over the last few decades, so quality varies widely. (Not that long ago, psychiatrists were basically Freudians who were allowed to prescribe pills.) I would be wary of any psychiatrist who is expounding as an authority on stuff he has not been trained in. At a minimum it sounds like this guy is suffering from this kind of "I'm a scientist" hubris: SMBC cartoon

My oldest was outrageously ahead at 5, and working at high school level in grade two, but is now at 12 perhaps 2 grades above level in math and reading but at level for writing. Be cautious of assuming that a 5 year old at grade 3 level will be at college early. I mean, he might, but he might not.

Since you're homeschooling (essentially), I would call him what he is (a kindergartener), and allow him to do whatever level of academic work that is appropriate. If the online school won't allow this, I would consider homeschooling independently.

At 5, my son tested into K12's 2nd grade language arts. I used it for about 4 months and it really helped me to place him in the different LA areas the next year (much more so than a placement test would have done).

From K-4 he was always running 2-4 years ahead (and mastering the material), but on paper we kept him at grade level. This year, he is going to a private school, and so we had him skip 5th and did an additional year of math acceleration. Academically, it is still not enough though managing his stuff (books, notebooks, papers, jacket, lunch, etc) is a bit overwhelming, it seems.

Anyway, my point is that I'd wait to officially advance him until he enters a brick and mortar school and you know what his needs are at that point.

I appreciate all of your comments. I completely agree that 5 is way too young to project about college. My husband and I had never really given it much thought or talked about it at all until yesterday after the psychiatrist made his comments. It just made us question our choices a little bit. We have always talked about taking it year by year to see what will work best for our son. We realize Connections isn’t going to work for too long, but for now it’s working out well.

I guess we were more concerned that by allowing him to jump up, we would be setting him up for future complications and issues. Although we will likely homeschool him for the foreseeable future and in that case it doesn’t matter at all about what “grade” the material is.

Hmmm... well, given that my DD is another one of "those" kids with Connections-- that is, on a similar trajectory, and apparently she was one of the first PG kids they'd seen in their system when we started with them 7 years back...

well, they've clearly learned a lot about not fighting over what PG kids need. That's the better news here. The bad news is that you ARE setting up some future complications. I think (unlike what some posters above are saying) that you should be thinking about this-- hard. There is no "un-do" on this once you have your child WORK THROUGH additional grades' curricula. We know. There's no really good way to reset since your child HAS DONE the work, and it's public school. This is something which is unique to virtual schooling, by the way... rather than "acceleration" it's more like compacting-- the kids HAVE done the work. Just at a much faster rate. The upshot is that if you went to the local B&M in three years, they would consider your child to have completed whatever grades he's done with Connections. (We found that out when my DD was in 9th grade last fall. Twelve or not, she was very definitely a high school student, and the local middle school wouldn't enroll her... and furthermore, the high school recommended that we send her to the local community college campus since we'd already outstripped so much of their offerings, too.)



There are some things that I want you to be VERY well aware of with Connections. Contrary to popular opinion, too, this is NOT homeschooling or even a lot like it once you leave elementary grades (more on that momentarily).

1. They are VERY unwilling to actually go so far as to increase challenge to truly appropriate levels for PG children. They tend to WANT to keep kiddos like this in placements where they can (and often DO) achieve 98%+ across the board. So if you're looking for a placement that will actually result in risk for your PG child in terms of outcomes... look elsewhere. Truly.

2. They will only decouple math. Generally speaking, this isn't ideal for kids who are asynchronous in other subjects, but the reason is that the literacy-intensive nature of instruction in those other subjects ties EVERYTHING to the literacy level. Period. As far as I can tell, up until high school coursework, if you're in GT Language Arts 6, there is NO WAY to also be in Science 4. Or 8, for that matter. This leaves kids pushed against a ceiling in their weakest skill set, basically. (For my DD, this was written expression for many years-- which plays into item 1 and also into item 3, below).

3. This system FEEDS perfectionist tendencies. BIG time. The entire system is disproportionately based in short, badly written, superficial multiple choice assessments. They are an ABOMINATION for PG kids, and they feed the binary world-view of the inwardly directed perfectionist... after all, they aren't wrong to view an assessment with three questions as either "perfect" (100%) or "unacceptable" (66% or 33%). That's the bulk of daily feedback in secondary in this system, by the way. It is downright toxic.

4. Past about 4th grade, Connections is NOT intended to be self-paced. Period. You'll get increasing pushback to work in sync with the schedule, and in high school, you'll lose the ability to schedule at all-- no working ahead in high school courses. Well-- you CAN. There's just no point, though, and it causes problems with the administration.

5. In secondary, the executive demands are EXTREME in this model. Think college time-management and self-regulation needs. We've struggled most with this part of things. It's entirely inappropriate for a 13yo to be able to monitor and correct ALL of his/her own time during the day, YK? But the model demands that.



Finally, from the perspective of your state, your child IS whatever the system has next to his name. If that says "4" under "grade" then that is what he is. Period. This isn't homeschooling, and while you can ASK the local administration to retain a grade designation more in keeping with chronological age, eventually (in secondary) this becomes a losing game since they will graduate a student who has accumulated the sufficient credits-- 8th grader or not. Make sense?

The other thing is that you SHOULD be considering the social ramifications.

This is because if you ignore that now (and think "oh, it's fine because it's a virtual school.... like homeschooling, no social issues... blah-blah-blah") then that is going to catch up to you both with a vengeance during MIDDLE SCHOOL. Connections expects (and demands, actually) synchronous participation with classmates (who are obviously 3-4 years the senior of kids like yours and mine) starting in 5th-6th grade.

You'll soon have a feel for whether or not this is likely to pose problems when your DS starts the GT Literature elective in October. Pay close attention to that experience; some kids (like mine) seem to do fine socially with older peers, and soem of them don't... and some in between... but honestly, even with Connections, we felt pretty strongly that a 3 year acceleration was about the limit of what was wise. Health topics in middle school, in particular, were a more than a little inappropriate for our then-nine-year-old, and we are VERY liberal and unsqueamish. I'll also never forget the day that my ten year old informed me that one of her algebra classmates "has a new baby." (Horror)

One more consideration-- because this is NOT homeschooling, organizations like scouting, 4-H, and other unaffiliated extracurriculars (including sports) will rely upon GRADE, not age for placement/eligibility. In the worst cases, they use BOTH, (must be aged 11-14 AND grades 6-8), which completely excludes PG kids who have been grade-accelerated by 3-5 years. Been there, done that. My daughter has also experienced truncated eligibility because of the acceleration.

PM me if you want more detailed/insider info, need answers to Connections-specific questions, or if you want to contact me via the school intranet. We've been Connections' guinea pigs for many years.

YES. Which goes right alone with my post above. I feel that Connections was 90% positive for my DD when she was 6-8 yo and in elementary. In middle school, more like 60-70% positive. Since? More like "least worst," and let's not talk about that... As long as you understand that you may be closing doors into B&M options... and leaving "homeschool" as your fallback position, then all is (probably) well.

RE: the psychiatrist... wow-- bias, much??

I'd consider that reason enough to ditch that psychiatrist, honestly-- how helpful can such a person be for PG children if s/he doesn't even understand THAT much?

I'd echo Kai's suggestion - although I will add that I have no experience with Connections and I have not homeschooled my own children. There are two children in my dd's 5th grade class who were homeschooled (both until 4th grade) and accelerated when they were very young - one was only subject-accelerated so she's where she would otherwise be in grade now in B&M according to age, and she's doing fine with subject acceleration continuing in math and challenging work in other subjects. The other student is younger-than-grade by two years and is in lower-than-grade level math based on the school's placement testing, and finds most of the classroom work challenging across all subjects. She's told my daughter "I used to feel smart, but now I don't" - which is really not a good situation to be in - she is a smart girl, but she probably would be feeling much better about herself if she'd been subject-accelerated rather than "grade" accelerated in her online schooling.

polarbear

One of the best bonuses of an online environment...



DD regularly exercises maximum snark, and mostly without getting into major trouble for being a wise-acre.

(Which, um... she IS. To be clear.) It's just that in this environment, since such things are (mostly) not 'disruptive' to other students, it's all fine.

Another in the negative column...


my daughter has a VERY unrealistic view of her relative strengths and weaknesses as a student. She doesn't have a range of observations (of other students) from which to draw, and in the absense of such data, she tends to assume that everyone is like her.

They aren't. (Obviously.)

Even other MG kids' parents kind of goggle when she/we get rolling with a few anecdotes about some of her antics with this system...

doing an entire semester's Algebra midterms in a week (with an average of 90%+), learning an entire semester's worth of high school mathematics in just a few days of intense study... polishing off 80 overdue lessons in GT 8th grade over just 3-4 days...

THAT kind of thing shouldn't even be possible if they were really challenging her, n'est pas? But it's also something outside the realm of possibility even for most of the highly capable classmates 2-5 years my DD's senior.
{ETA: I guess this also points up another negative, which is that this is hardly a good system for developing a good-- or even reasonably okay-- work ethic, since it allows for and maybe even encourages such 'red-lining' activities in adrenaline junkies, and frankly it doesn't allow for much else in the way of authentic challenge, which to kids like my DD, is an INVITATION to this sort of thing... }

Anyway. So my daughter really has no idea how unusually academically competent she actually is, because she doesn't experience group learning most of the time. The few times she has, she's tended to write off the others kids' apparent "slowness" as anomolous, because it challenges her self-image/self-perceptions significantly to consider herself THAT unusual.

I found it telling that when she (for the first time) met another PG Connections kiddo like herself last spring (at an Honor Society event), both of those kids were fascinated with one another-- and elated to not be such 'freaks.' The other child is physically very small, but DD is younger, much to both child's delight. (DD because she's finally taller than SOMEONE in her peer group, and the other child because he finally is OLDER than someone in it.)