Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Whole grade acceleration or no?

DS8/2nd grade has been subject accelerated in math by one year since K, but schedule has not worked out this year. He's been mostly wasting time this year doing Aleks and occasionally going up to 3rd grade math. Met with principal a month ago to discuss upping overall challenge level at school after discussion with multiple parents whose kids need more challenge.

Principal suggested going ahead and missing social studies and going up to 3rd grade math every day for remainder of year. She also suggested discussing whole grade acceleration for him. There are about 10 students in the class of 90 2nd graders at his level; only one of them is being accelerated in math with him (both initiated by the families, not the school).

DH and I bought the Iowa Acceleration Scale Manual, filled out the form, and it shows DS is an excellent candidate for whole grade acceleration. However, I, DH, and DS are all ambivalent about it. We would really prefer to keep him in his current grade because:
a) Immediately, he's very happy socially and has intellectual peers in his class. He also has friends in the grade above, although not close ones.
b) In the long term, we're confident our high school choices will meet his academic needs at his age level because of advanced/AP level classes (we live in a large metro area with good high school choices).
c) He's very athletic and we want him with age-mates for high school sports.

Even if we could advance him now and get him back with age-mates by high school, he's so happy socially that we, and he, are hestitant to whole grade accelerate. He's not bored the entire day, but overall the curriculum moves too slow for him and other advanced kids in his grade, and the math scheduling continues to be a problem each year.

He's moderately gifted; a single grade acceleration with another grade acceleration in math beyond that would be ideal for him academically. If he weren't so happy socially in his grade, we'd probably be more positive about pursuing it. He has repeatedly requested more challenge, and even asked for a grade skip last year, but now prefers to remain with his friends. Thoughts?

If there are ten kids in his grade working at that level, why can't they cluster them? For my children I strongly prefer a cluster. Being with a group of same age academic peers seems preferable to being in a group of older academic peers.

This is partly for all the social and emotional stuff, but also because there are academic differences between a seven year old who can do third grade math and an eight year old who can do third grade math.

If a bit more than 11% if the kids in his grade are functioning at the same level as is he, I would be more inclined to get the parents of these other kids to join you in advocating for a cluster grouping like others have mentioned where the entire group uses the 3rd grade math curriculum & has more challenging and deep work in other areas. We did something like that for my youngest toward the end of elementary & it worked well b/c there were enough kids to create a group to work a year ahead in math & reading without asking a teacher to do something different for just one child. I also think that makes more sense than having him miss another core subject to take 3rd grade math.

Grade skips, to me at least, are warranted the most not just when a child is an excellent candidate on the IAS, but when s/he is an excellent candidate who has few or no peers in grade and whose academic needs will never be close to met without the skip. Especially since you anticipate school being a better fit once he gets beyond elementary, I'd try to get the elementary to do something more for the gifted kids. BTW, I am not anti-skip in general and do have one other child who is grade skipped.

Why can't you be in one grade and have friends in another? Do you go to class to socialise? I remember very little socialisation during class past the first few years.

I have kids who have friends in other grades, and kids who have friends in their same grade. We also have an EG ds who we purposely chose not to accelerate for social reasons, and while he's bored in some parts of school, it's worked out well socially and that's been more important to us at this point than the academics (but that's just us and our ds - he's a kid who would rather be bored and be with kids his age than stand out - his words and thoughts - as the youngest kid in class).

I don't think the issue of friends is as simple as thinking that friends are something you "do" outside of class - friends often happen among the kids you are actually in class with every day because that's where you (as a student) are spending a huge amount of your waking hours. Class is also where a student is exposed to age-peer interactions whether or not he/she is among close friends. Same-grade classes usually have lunch and recess together at the same time, PE and art/music etc are with your same grade... so there is a lot of time spent with the same-grade-you're-in kids that's somewhat social even though it's school.

For me (as a parent) - acceleration would have been ok in elementary (socially) but I didn't think my ds would want that in middle school, and honestly I wasn't really keen on it. I had friends who had accelerated their kids as well as friends with children in multi-age classrooms (4th-6th grade), and the 4th graders were hearing concepts (outside of academics) that their parents really didn't want them hearing about or thinking about yet that they most likely wouldn't have if they were in classes with only 4th graders. The friends who had grade accelerated were very much thinking it was the thing to do in early elementary, but once their children were in middle school they were upset about some of the things their children were exposed to around children who were into puberty/hormones/opposite sex earlier than they'd thought about their child thinking about it. Note - I'm not anti-grade-acceleration AT ALL, these are just some things that influenced me based on my parenting hopes and desires. I also didn't want my kids leaving home for college one nano-second before I have to let them go - I love having them here! So.... while I will advocate like crazy to be sure my kids have appropriate subject acceleration... I wasn't so excited about whole-grade acceleration. Now that my ds is in middle school, it's pretty clear that was the right choice *for him*. So anyway - just something else to consider with a grade skip.

Best wishes,

polarbear

These responses are so helpful. The comments here have helped reinforce our feelings of not wanting to whole grade accelerate. I keep reading literature that it's "harmful" to not accelerate kids who are ready or good candidates for it, and appreciate hearing experiences that show we're not necessarily harming him by keeping him where he is! But we still need some changes.

The clustering suggestions are very helpful. The principal made a comment that made me think they might be looking at putting those kids in a single classroom next year, but it goes against recent changes they've made, so I may have misinterpreted. The school ability grouped across grades for the past 6 years for reading and math, until the new principal came in this year and ended that practice at teacher request. Now they are supposedly ability grouping within the classroom much of the time, but not all of the time. I think the school wants to keep classes heterogenous and ability group within those heterogeneous classrooms. Hope to get more information about their new philosophy and advocate for the clustering for next year's class placement.

I did ask at our last meeting if his teacher could work to push the 3 or 4 kids who are at that level in DS's class together for group projects, and principal said that was happening. However, according to DS, teacher has not been encouraging him to team with any specific kids. And yes, given the amount of group work, and being with your grade for all specials, recess, and lunch, the majority of the socializing does occur within the grade and classroom.

I would very much like to get the other parents on board to advocate for this with me, as someone suggested, if I can figure out who the families are! I know/suspect three of the other kids because we know the families well and DS is close to two of them. The school hasn't shared that data with us thus far, but might be willing to if it's in the context of helping the kids find each other as social/intellectual peers. Will see. We have a meeting with teacher, principal, and 3rd grade receiving teacher for math, next Monday. Meeting is primarily to discuss moving to 3rd grade math daily, and to get overall input about whole grade acceleration.

DD6/K has started to ask for harder work too, so we have a meeting with her teacher tomorrow to start that process... Thanks all!

So we made the decision to whole grade accelerate my 12 yr. old from 5th to 7th and it was successful, but it was combined with a move so the issues were different. I face similar issues to yours as we contemplate what to do with dd5.

One thing I would encourage you to do is to google the Paradise Valley School District in AZ--they have a really great gifted program and links to research in support of cluster grouping that could be a useful tool for you and other affected parents to advocate with.

and I just have to say, that seems so bizarre to me that they would stop ability grouping at teacher request. Cluster grouping makes it EASIER for the teachers to give the kids what they need.

Thanks for the info on cluster grouping. I went to the Paradise Valley School District website and printed off some info that I brought to our meeting today with 2nd and 3rd grade teachers and principals. Didn't end up using it though, it wasn't relevant, they are still fine with ability grouping within classroom and even across grade philosophically; they ended the practice of "intervention teachers giving first time instruction" to kids. Problem is, they are not ability grouping across the grade anymore even though principal is still ok with it philosophically; and the ability grouping they're doing within the classroom isn't giving these kids the challenge they need now.

I gave up halfway through our meeting. We came up with some so-so "solutions" that aren't even worth bothering relating, and it was very clear to me that DS is going to be at grade level in math for the remainder of elementary school, despite starting K 2 years ahead in math two years ago, and that the teachers are well intentioned but are not giving the advanced kids the true level of challenge they need. After multiple meetings throughout the year on this topic and a principal and teachers who have been so willing to talk with us and try to find solutions, it's clear that the solutions I want - which are instruction ABOVE GRADE LEVEL for the advanced kids in this grade - are not going to happen. Instead, they will continue to get more "depth" on how to find umpteen ways to solve Everyday Math problems at grade level. No matter that they are capable of doing higher level math. I'm so disappointed and discouraged. Just venting.

You've had some great responses so far. I'm afraid I don't have anything to add except trust yourself on this.