Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grade skips and future competitiveness

Yeah, writing was pretty much the only hard part when my DS skipped 1st. But then again, his writing in K with agemates was also crummy -- he wasn't magically going to get better with or without a skip. We were lucky with an HG program that didn't mind that his writing was poor - they said it was age appropriate. Now in 5th, you can decipher his writing a bit better, but it's still not fabulous. His cursive is better. And if he takes the time to really try, it's fine. Good enough for us. But if you're in a program where they're going to make a big deal about quality and quantity of writing, then it would be a concern.

Yea, DS might be in a 2nd grade HG program rather than skipped to 3rd if the HG program didn't have such comprehensive requirements that included writing.

You make a good point. But I guess in my mind, I'm comparing my grade-skipped kid to the appropriately taught and homeschooled HG kids taking the Explore. More of a "what if we had homeschooled instead of skipped a grade and effectively skipped two grades because we then transferred to an accelerated program?" type thing. Those kids who didn't skip, but are learning the same things as my kid, will achieve a higher score if they are with agemates. But it's just one of those thoughts in the back of my head that I don't give a lot of credit to. It doesn't matter for my family, but I still can't help wondering about it sometimes.

I had a wonderful discussion with CTY about this topic.

Our son (8th grade at the time) missed qualifying for their summer program by just a couple of points when looking at the 8th grade requirements. He qualified handily as a 7th grader and I asked if they would consider that he would really be in 6th grade if we had options other than acceleration.

But the CTY program mgr was a stickler on the grade-level, explaining that as an 8th grader, he had all the additional exposure, etc.

Fortunately, he had unsolicited glowing letters from two former CTY instructors explaining that he was ahead of the curve in their courses so she made an exception for one summer with a requirement that he take additional testing to qualify in the future. He subsequently took the SAT at the end of the year and hit his numbers... so all is good.

BUT.

I read about all the GT kids who, instead of skipping, stay with their age-peers but then get carted all over creation for individual subject acceleration in everything except PE and Pottery. These kids get all the same acceleration in the core subjects (or more) as our son, but continue to be tested along side and compared to their age-peers.

This, to me, is no different than a GT kid in a GT class where his age-peers are all doing Geometry and other above-level work in 7th grade. This is essentially the program I had in school, but is simply not available out here in Podunkia, USA.

So, yes, I can see a disadvantage to the skip, but as I mentioned a couple days ago, I couldn't imagine for a second putting him back two or three grades to be with his age-peers. This just means he's gonna have to work a little harder in the next few years... which was kinda the whole point in skipping him!

HK knows that "future competitiveness" is something I consider . Being skipped a few years may reduce competitiveness in some situations where you compete by grade, but as you get older, you compete by age, and there the grade-skipped person may have an advantage over agemates, since he or she has had more years since school completion to accomplish things. Employers may not ask about age for legal reasons, but they do consider it.

Women (and to a lesser extent men) who finish college early have more years to pursue graduate study or work intensively before the biological clock starts ticking loudly.

Grade skip increases competitiveness because kids need to "prove" themselves in a more competitive environment - especially so for a gifted child who has been coasting all his life because everything came easily to him in academics. And a side effect is the high level of self confidence the success in a more difficult environment instills because the 6 year old has proved to himself that he is as good as an 8 year old.

If a child is not going to be bored out of his wits all day long and will be challenged at school, then I would go for that opportunity. I would be excited and happy for my child and not worry about what the future brings.
One word of caution though - when a gifted kid is grade skipped they are bound to face challenges because they are not used to doing difficult things. More so if they are perfectionists who give up at the first signs of failure. A parent's job is to keep a close eye on the child at those times and gently prod them in the right direction.

Our reality is that DD is still just as academically competitive as ever. Even after a +3 acceleration.

On the other hand, this means that she must work quite hard to be competitive at the other things she does as extracurriculars because many of those (4-H, etc) are grouped by grade, not age.

We feel that this is the right balance for her that way, incidentally-- because piano, dog training, showing animals, sewing, etc. are all things that she REALLY has to work at in order to shine, even a little.

It gives her a chance to tackle challenge in a fairly risk-free way, which is another bonus.

Ultramarina, my DD skipped into first (a 1/2 split in fact) wih hand writing that was mid K at best (very generously). I "hothoused" (or provided OT, depending on perspective) for 10 mins a day at home on school days. 18 months later she's 6 months ahead of grade in handwriting and much more than that in writing. Don't assume a HG child who needs a skip can't brin their deficit up at a speed no-one has ever seen before.

And note that my DDs handwriting issues come from a physical disability that will never be resolved, it should not be physically possible for her to do many of the things she does (write this well, monkey bars, etc), but she's compensating spectacularly well with intellect. So theroretically a child who is simply a bit asynchronous should make at least as much progress, if not more (if well supported).

I also think seeing her peers' higher standard of output (quality and volume) was motivating (they were not all so far ahead she felt defeated though).

Interesting topic and there is not one "right answer" for this one.

None of ours are skipped (nor do I think they should be...not PG). You might call middle kid a red-shirt. When we changed schools we had her repeat 2nd for social/maturity reasons, though she is now in the correct grade for her birthdate (private school had a different birthday cutoff).

I think it may be tough to know if you made the right decision until well after the fact, perhaps not until they go to college. And sometimes you may not know even then...you can't run two scenarios at once with one kid. You'll never know if they would have done better or worse with academic competitions, athletics, etc. if you skip or red-shirt.

With that said, I think that the middle kid outcome is mixed. As far as academics go, probably would have been better for her to go to 3rd in the new school rather than 2nd. However, she knew a lot of kids in 2nd through rec sports. Also, my kids are small and not naturally athletic, so that extra year helped a lot for middle kid. If she was a year ahead, I doubt she would still be playing sports, but she is now in 10th and plays a fall sport and a spring sport...she was really excited to be the only 10th grader to make varsity in her fall sport.

While some may not find sports to be valuable, my kids have gained a lot of good memories and friendships through sports. My kids acknowledge that school has been boring at times but I doubt they would have wanted to skip...but who knows what the outcome would have been if they had skipped.