Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Any reasons NOT to grade skip?

So the psychologist that test my 6-year-old mentioned the idea of skipping first grade (currently in kindergarten) and going straight to second. My child is bored, very social, and spends the school day chatting. On higher work than the other children, but not trying. I'm worried the switch to public school (from Montessori) will result in being labeled the class clown. My child seems to behave "up" around older kids, and "down" around younger kids. But at the slightest mention of skipping a grade, I feel like I'm getting rotten tomatoes thrown my way by teachers and other parents. "You'll regret it for sports." "You'll regret it in middle school." Anyone regret it? How do you know what's the right call?

I say quit talking to other parents and the teachers in the garden where the tomatoes are rotting! Just decide what you want and go for it. Do you trust the psychologist or the parent on the corner? The only person I'd ask is the K teacher, and at that, I'd keep in mind her perspective. You don't need all her judgment, just an opinion on academics and maturity. I found that when you invite others to judge, they will. Once you have done it, if he fits in (sounds like he will), nobody will notice.

If you have school sponsored sports and your child is destined for varsity, that is something to consider. We are coming upon that now, but would not have made the decision any differently.

One of mine skipped--the earlier the better.

It's quite likely that no one you encounter in real life will have have much experience with grade skips, although you may have people mention that they know someone who knew someone who skipped a grade and it went horribly. You may run in to one or two people in your district that have done some type of acceleration, although IME, these kids' parents don't shout it from the rooftops. These days, it seems, kids are much more likely to be redshirted than skipped. In either case, parents are just trying to do what's right for their child.

And grade skipping is not for everyone. It requires a child who is beyond the norm and, statistically speaking, this doesn't happen often. So there won't be many people who can see things from the perspective that you have with your child. That's why this board is so great

There is a lot of research out there about how successful grade skipping can be when done appropriately, considering many different factors, from age to abilities (IQ) to achievement to size to gender to sibling relationships. The Iowa Acceleration Scale is very helpful in looking at a a possible acceleration with a more "scientific" approach. "A Nation Deceived" is also a good read.

We've had two kids -- a boy and a girl -- skip in various ways and they have been very successful. From our experience I would agree with mon -- the earlier the better. It can be done successfully later, of course, it's just easier for the child not to stand out quite so obviously when it happens early because then the other kids and parents hardly notice.

I know four people pretty well who have experience (direct-- either self, child, or siblings) with multiple grade skips of one sort or another.

Those who have negative reports on it:

a) tend to be those who did multiple skips AND had another confounding variable in the mix

b) did NOT have the support of family/teacher

c) were hot-housed and gradeskipped as a means of managing a very poor quality school environment.

I know one person who was 2x accelerated and apparently bitterly regrets it, but this person is (reportedly) an Aspie who had unrecognized (?)issues aplenty that remained un-addressed both before and after the skips. I hardly think that counts as much of an indictment of acceleration, in light of the probable origins of the social problems that the person experienced.

I take that as a cautionary tale about kids who have extreme problems with social fit among agemates, and how those problems MAY be about poor intellectual fit, all right, but they may not go away with peers who are simply "older" either. I would probably be somewhat reluctant to skip a child who had a lot emotional regulation difficulty or social problems, myself... but in any event, being aware and managing those other related matters is probably the answer, not avoiding acceleration.

One of the major issues (authentically so, it seems) is about what happens during and immediately after adolescence-- a year of life experience and maturity DO seem to matter all of a sudden then, even when they haven't previously. It can also exacerbate problems associated with multipotentiality and major life-decisions which are often expected of kids in their last years of secondary education or first years in collegiate environs.

My best friend was another 2x skip-- but from sophomore to college, not as a young child. She had no difficulty at all adjusting to collegiate life-- BUT I'd consider her an exceptionally good candidate given that she was: a) highly self-motivated, b) driven, and c) unusually decisive about her life goals, even relative to many of her college peers.

One of my advisees as a young faculty member was also a 2X skip. He was slightly emotionally immature relative to his classmates, but it wasn't noticeable other than that he didn't really share the aging out of teen interests with them. He was slightly out of synch as a college student, in other words. He very definitely wanted a more nurturing kind of relationship with faculty than is generally found on college campuses, however... but he wasn't a complete pest about it, either. He was fairly successful; though he had some trouble emotionally managing irritations/upsets/setbacks, he was well within the norms for the population. I knew this student for two years before I learned that he was only 18 (and not a somewhat sheltered 20, as I'd thought).

Of the SINGLE skips that I've been party to, I can't think of one that hasn't gone well, either contemporary or of the 1970's-1990's vintage. My dd has two good friends who are both grade-skipped a single year, and both of those friends are not having any difficulty as a result of the skip.

One older classmate of hers was disappointed that he had to make plans for an unexpected gap year given that West Point would not allow him matriculation as a 16yo cadet. But that seems minor, as they deferred his enrollment a year.

Thanks, everyone. I guess there is no easy solution. My child barely misses the cutoff, yet is by no means the oldest one in the class. We thought about going early to kindergarten but were strongly discouraged by our private school and by the local public school. There is such a push to hold children back "to give them an edge," especially boys. To be honest, the children that are held back in class seem bright, yet are the ones with the behavioral problems. Yet everyone around me is so into holding back just for the sake of holding back. Yet in my gut a one-grade skip seems like the right thing to do. Sigh. I guess I'll wait and see what the psychologist says when we sit down for the full report meeting.

My DD is 9 and in 5th, and is both young for grade and skipped once (from 1st to 3rd). Next year, she'll have an additional subject acceleration into 7th grade math.

In my perfect fantasy world, she'd be classified as a 4th grader in a mixed-age classroom with everyone working at their own level and pace. A grade skip is not as ideal as that fantasy, but that fantasy is not available to us, and all the alternatives that are available to us are even less ideal in one way or another. DD herself has been strongly pro-acceleration, which is one reason it's been a good choice for our family.

Issues so far for us:
We aren't to middle school yet, but DD does feel socially out of step with the boy-girl stuff. I think she'd be somewhat out of step even in an age-appropriate grade, though, due to individual variation.

DD perceives herself as being extremely short, even though she's 55th percentile for her age. She's very relieved not to be the shortest kid in the grade, but she is second-shortest, and probably will be shortest at one point unless she gets her pre-teen growth spurt early.

There are some social / emotional issues that may be maturity, but may just be personality, and it is hard, hard to know what's which. To the extent I had similar issues as a kid, without a skip, and was in my 30s before I figured them out, I'm not going to suggest holding her back in elementary until she figures them out. But we are working on them in the meantime.

There are some executive function issues that may be maturity, but may be an actual deficit, and it is hard, hard to know what's which. I totally understand now why "young for grade" is such a risk factor for ADD diagnosis. This year, we're getting high expectations for ability to self-organize writing, and low expectations for mechanics. DD really struggles with organization, even compared with agemates, and has exceptional mechanics, and the ability-vs-expectations mismatch is frustrating for her.

It's easy for a kid with the potential to have been skipped to look back on any disappointments in life and point the finger of blame at either having been skipped, or having not been skipped. It's hard to know whether the blame belongs there, or not.

This isn't a reason *not* to grade skip, but it is something we've encountered with our ds (he's subject-accelerated multiple grades) - simply moving up isn't the ideal solution *if* the classes you're moving up into are still not HG-level (pace/depth) classes - ds gets bored in the ahead-of-level classes he takes. So - in other words, whether or not you skip, it's still a possibility you might need to advocate for or fin something different for your child.

I wouldn't worry about what other parents think - they aren't parenting your child. I also (this is just me) wouldn't really talk about it to other parents, unless they are parenting a child in a similar situation.

I do think it's worth listening to what teachers have to say - if they are teachers who've taught your child, and of course try to get a feeling whether they are anti-skip in general or if they see something in your child that they see as a potential warning flag saying not to skip.

Reasons not to skip? We didn't skip - and we're in middle school and glad we didn't - but that's because of who our child is - he really doesn't want to be with older kids at this point in his life, and we've been able to cobble together a different approach to providing him with intellectual challenge - not the best solution, but it's worked out ok. I don't know how well it's all going to work in high school though, because he really needs to be in college then - and he's most definitely not ready to actually *be* in college - if anything, he's a kid who probably would prefer to stick close to home when he's 18 at a local college before he's really ready emotionally to move on. OTOH, I'm just guessing about that! And that's the tough part (imo) about knowing what to do re skips when your child is so very young - you can't really know what middle school / puberty / etc is going to be like until you're a lot closer to it.

And... I'll just throw this out there as a reason not to skip - a selfish parent's point of view. I don't want my kids leaving home for college one minute sooner than they would otherwise have left.. I am going to miss them so much.

So - those are the reasons we chose not to push for a grade skip - and to be honest, I wondered more than a few times in elementary if it wasn't the wrong decision. In middle school, I'm glad we didn't. High school - I have no clue what we'll do. I expect we'd have landed in the same place with high school if we'd skipped too... so who knows.

And to be clear - I'm not anti-skip at all, I'm actually in favor of it. Just putting a few thoughts out there from one family re why we didn't skip.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Other reasons not to skip include that your child may miss out on academic competitions that could lead to acceptance at a very competitive college. They may get a lower score at age 12 or 14 on the SAT than they would if they waited until age 16. Or they could be a national merit semifinalist on the PSAT if they waited.

Fundamentally, the reason not to grade skip is going to be "a better alternative was available", isn't it? My DS is not grade-skipped, although it was discussed and I'm sure if we'd been keen it would have happened. In the early years, the main reason for thinking it was best not to have him skip was his asynchrony. For handwriting and other fine motor skills limited stuff, he was well-placed with age-peers; and for maths and science, he was still going to need special treatment whatever class he was in, and the school was able to provide it. Socially, and probably organisationally, I think he'd have been fine either way.

At that time, it didn't seem like a difficult decision, really. Now, though, I am sort of seeing what the advantages would have been; now that his handwriting has caught up, he no longer has any academic areas of weakness, and there'd be something to be said for his being with older children where he wouldn't stand out so much. But now, of course, he has a long-established place in the social network, and moving him up would be much harder. (Positively, this place is working for him: he is accepted by his peers, and the only problems he's had, which have been minor, have been with older children who have "heard of" him and want him to perform.) Given that the school is still proving exceptionally (I think) good at challenging him where he is in each subject, I think we made the right call.

This is a very hard decision to make and really depends on the child. We started considering skipping my DS9 at the end of kindergarten. In first grade we got more frustrated with how bored he was and how little new he was learning. After much back and forth we decided to have him accelerated just in Math. At the time our thought was this was his strongest area and that reading was easier to let them progress at their own level versus math. So we had him tested and fought hard to have him skip 2nd grade math and go to 3rd grade just for math. The experience was awesome. Everything went well. We ended up having a very strong teacher for that Math year which I know helped in the transition. After seeing how well it went and also seeing that he still could be learning so much more in reading we decided to go for the whole grade skip the following year. Even after single subject acceleration going well the school still fought us on the request. We continued to advocate for it all the way to the superintendent. So the following year instead of going to 3rd grade with 4th grade math he was skipped to 4th grade. So far it has been wonderful. He is still bored even at times.

What I have learned from this so far:
1) A grade skip is more than likly a short term fix with allowing him to not be bored. However I still feel it was the right decision and helped.
2) The best situation is to have them in classes with other gifted children and a teacher that teachers gifted kids. This is where he gets the most challenege. He was moved to the gifted Math class mid year. (They didn't want to do it all at once)
3) Our son is extremly social and athletic in addition to being gifted. Sports were a big reason we initially didn't skip him the entire grade. In the end we decided that academics were the most important and we also decided he was already playing up a grade in most sports and was still at the top.
4) Our son has ADHD as well. His maturity with organization and filling out his planner is not strong. I feel that honestly this will and is a struggle but would have been whether we skipped him or not. It seems to still be going ok but right now have to really stay on top of it. The middle school years will be the real test with this. I feel he will be ok because we are constantly working to help him improve in this area.
5) He is one of the smallest children in the 4th grade. We spoke with him about this ahead of time and he was ok with it. He still seems ok but it is noticable and most noticable when he played rec basketball this year.
6) Because we subject accelerated him first it made the transition to the whole grade skip very easy. He aleady knew a classroom of kids and was excited about the move. This was a huge plus that we hadn't thought about when we did the subject level first.
7) So far it has been a GREAT decision for us. I mention the above just so you think through them. We would do the skip again in a heardbeat! However, we haven't hit the middle school age with possible social issues. Altought I think he will be fine here based on his personality. Just will be behind with girl / boy maturity which boys already tend to be. Highschool and sports are going to be interesting. I can see this being the only reason we may regret down the road. Only because of how athletic he is and how size may play into things.

Please feel free to email me with specific questions or concerns.

Also, don't worry about others comments. Do the right thing for your child. People will quickly forget about it. I do however see that anything that goes wrong in years to come will be blamed on the skip even if they would have had the same issue without skipping. (by other parents and teachers)

Good luck.