Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment How long to 'catch up' after a grade skip.

Hello,
Earlier this year i asked, and people on here helped me think about, a grade skip for my son. He ended up skipping yr two (ie yr 1 to yr 3) at the start of the calendar year (in Oz). So he has been in yr 3 for about 5 months now.
I am wondering how others have found their children progress academically and otherwise after a grade skip. Do they float to back to near the top of the class by the end of the first year after the skip?

He has made a couple of really good friends, so that is great. They are both lovely boys- and also bright and sporty. Yeah.
He is doing ok in class- his teacher says above average in maths and science and about average in English. She says that he could do much better in English but he still isn't really trying (which was one of the things we hoped the grade skip might force him to do). I went and did reading groups with his class yesterday and i found it a bit disturbing. He is now in one of the middle reading groups and the work was less challenging than the advanced work he was doing in yr 1 (with a little group of like minded kids). His teacher was saying maybe she needs to highlight that if he works harder he could move up to the group his friends are in.

Also, it was his running/track carnival at school today and whilst he was always very physically able in his old class he now doesn't want to compete because he has to compete against kids up to 2 years older than him. Makes me sad for him and worried that he will always be in this position.

I guess i am wondering how long it has taken other children in this position to 'catch up' in their new class. This matters at my son's school in particular as they do seem to throw more resources at this little top group and i think it becomes a self-fulfilling situation.
Any thoughts appreciated.
HHBELLA.

I do feel for the self fulfilling prophecy thing b/c our local schools do that as well: identify the high achievers early on and enrich them such that they later wind up identified as gifted due to their level of achievement while similarly able, or at times more able, kids who weren't achieving highly early on get left out b/c they weren't taught enough to perform as highly.

In regard to post skip experiences, our dd was at the top of the class in the grade up immediately after she skipped. However, she skipped much later in the game (5th grade) than your ds. I guess that, assuming the school did their due diligence in assessing him for a skip (his needs couldn't be met without the skip and they filled out an Iowa Acceleration Scale or at least did the testing it would require - IQ, grade level and above level achievement), I'd expect that he'd be rising back to the top of the grade within a year or two. If he is going to be undereducated until then, though, you may want to supplement at home for a bit to ensure that he has the opportunity to learn enough to catch up with the higher performing groups.

I believe that the general rule of thumb in skipping a kid is that s/he should be in the top 25% or so of the receiving grade immediately post skip. Do you feel that he truly is not at that place or just that they are underplacing him? I'd wonder about the latter b/c you mention him being in a reading class that is doing easier work than the group he had been in pre-skip.

I also wonder if he is being under placed in the new class? Skipping needs to be supported to work...

My DD skipped into yr 1/2 class 18 months ago, one and a half school years later she's top of the class in some areas, highly placed in all and I wish we'd accepted the double skip that was offered... Sort of... I don't want her double skipped if we can avoid it, but the one year hasn't bought much.

I just looked at your sons scores in earlier posts. His processing speed was lower than his other scores, this may make it harder for his teachers to "see" him. Teachers often see the kids who have amazing working memory and are super fast as the most gifted, deep thinkers who aren't that fast can be easily missed. Perhaps his teacher isn't getting him?

I agree with the previous poster who mentioned the expectation that an accelerated student would be in the top 25% of the receiving class, but if he's keeping up and doing well within the average range, perhaps he's in a great spot for him at the moment- i.e. he's in an environment where he can learn, rather than sitting at the very top and coasting, or struggling because it's too hard.

We're also in OZ and have a DD the same age- she's 7 years old and was tested at the start of the year on WISC with a FSIQ of 146/GAI of 157. Recommendation for her was to do a double grade skip- we said no to the skip, so she's in grade 2, but yes to subject acceleration. She goes to grade 4 for maths and English.

We're now 1 term in, and according to the receiving teacher she's at the top of the cohort... which I guess raises the question "is she being extended enough", but we certainly wouldn't put her into grade 4 full-time, nor subject skip her any further at this stage. She's loving school and thriving with loads of enriching experiences along the way (weekend G&T courses, music lessons etc)

I am wondering how others have found their children progress academically and otherwise after a grade skip. Do they float to back to near the top of the class by the end of the first year after the skip?



I think that this depends on a LOT of different factors.

• child's physical size relative to new peers

• child's relative cognitive development relative to new peers

• child's level of giftedness

• as MoN noted, external factors like supportive/hostile teachers/others

Because of having DD in a virtual environment, but having her in face-to-face extracurriculars like 4-H, we've seen that our (probably PG) DD has not needed much time for the academics to catch up-- a matter of months, usually, on each new "load" demand. Honestly, until the skip from 9th to 11th grade, I never even noticed that there WAS an adjustment period. I suspect, though, that this depends on how close you are getting to the child's actual proximal zone of learning. I think that we finally got kind of close when we placed our 13yo DD into a pair of killer AP classes. Previously, when we skipped her into 3rd grade (from K/1 homeschool), we noted no real adjustment period... similarly from 4th to 6th. The adjustments were entirely social.

Adjustment to new DEMAND, though-- that we have some experience with. I think that depends-- profoundly-- on the child's personality and previous experiences. Our DD was underchallenged (significantly) for far too many years, and she freaked out at 11yo when she encountered geometry which made her think and actually, you know-- LEARN. She had concluded long since that school wasn't about learning, it was about showing what you already knew. Actually not already knowing the material signaled to her that something was horribly wrong.

Physical/social... I think it depends (again) on the child, but I'm not sure that most kids who are minus two or more years ever actually get to parity here. They find their own niche, certainly, and much depends upon their social intelligence, for lack of a better term. My DD has had no problems with other children as a result of acceleration... however, she still feels somewhat intimidated by her peers in competitive settings, and it's due to the age difference. Please note, however, that this is a 3-5y age gap in her case. A single year, I do not think she would feel this way about. Oddly, non-PHYSICAL competitive activities, she is completely sanguine about the age difference, and I have no idea why that should be so different for her.

DS7 is definitely proud with some ego involvement in anticipation of his skip; so, he has taken ownership of addressing possible academic gaps himself this summer (mostly writing.) After school stuff as well as full gifted classrooms aren't available until third; so, the skip is as much tactical in that way as anything else. I don't know about top X% and such and am not sure the school reports or presents things in that manner. Guess will see how the next phase of this crazy experiment called parenting works out.

Yeah, once HowlerKarma mentioned it, I would agree that the physical sports competitive catch up isn't something that may ever happen depending on the degree of acceleration. Unless the kiddo is very athletic, he may never be a super star compared to older kids.

In our dd's instance, she was young pre skip and really never very athletic or coordinated anyway. She wouldn't have been competitive with age peers in sports and she definitely isn't with people who are 1-2 yrs older than she as her grade peers are.

For our DS, he caught up in academics (as evidenced by test scores/grades) right away after the skip, but he still hasn't caught up in handwriting/output. That isn't an issue at his current school. It took him about a year to feel better about pys ed, but he's not particularly athletic to begin with. He found that he can run just as fast as most of the kids, now, so even if he can't do a lot of the other physical stuff as well as the really athletic kids, he feels better knowing that he can hang with them in running.

Re: what you said about the reading group. "His teacher was saying maybe she needs to highlight that if he works harder he could move up to the group his friends are in." This seems almost like a teacher who doesn't get GT to me. He has to slog along and perform under his level to prove that he should be doing advanced stuff. Has he ever been in the high group with this teacher (and then ended up getting moved down for various reasons)? If you think he is not being challenged in reading, I'd try to meet with the teacher to find out the specifics about why he's placed where he is. She may have valid reasons, or, like someone else said, maybe she's not seeing his GTness.

Other posters have reminded me that my DD got an A for effort/attitude and an E for outcomes in PE her first report in her skipped grade. She's low tone/hyper mobile, school sports was never going to be her strength and we could care less about this, but I realize sport is important to some families. I guess it would be frustrating if your child was more athletic and a skip impacted their placement, though most sport (after school sport, sports day, etc) here seems to be by age anyway?