Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments it's april .. can we speed up 6th grade math?

My son's guidance counselor suggested my son be given the end of year 6th grade assessment test just to see where he is at. Then if he does well, how about placing him in 7th grade math for 4th qtr. At least they're trying to accommodate. But I see a problem because my son would be completely skipping instruction for most of 7th grade math so I don't think he would do as well. What he needs is to be taught the math but FAST. he will learn it super quick but i don't think this means he should totally skip it. Am I right? I don't know what other idea to suggest. We are in April and I have been asking for giving him more advanced work but teacher has no time to teach it and grade it. I need ideas to salvage remaining 3 MONTHS of grade 6 math.

Dreading June when they do NOTHING anyway. My son will be miserable squared :-(

What is 7th grade math at your school? He might not be missing much.

My son basically skipped 4th grade math, and then essentially 'skipped' pre-calculus by testing straight into Algebra after 6th grade. This is a normal track for the highest math achievers in my district. The U.S. math curriculum is set up to be spiral and the same subjects are revisited each year at a greater and greater depth. This can be very frustrating to a gifted young math student.

Yes it's so frustrating for him. He despises it. He is already set to be placed in a combined 7th & 8th grade advanced math class next year. Its called accelerated grade 7. But the next 3 months now are tortuous. I want him challenged and given new material. It sounds odd to just plop him into the end of regular grade 7. Do you think since its is spiral, that he might succeed in the last quarter of regular grade 7, right now?

What if he did skip to 7th grade math and at the same time skip to the end of chapter one in the seventh grade book and do the end of chapter review page and ask for the teacher to grade it ( my son is a teacher assistant so the teacher could have some kid grade it or it isn't that hard for the teacher to use the answer key and grade one paper). Continue doing this chapter by chapter stopping only to review sections or lessons where he has a gap.

Depends on the curriculum, but quite likely yes he could succeed in the 7th grade class now. And what does he have to lose? What grade is his in now? Also how much school is left of the year?

If he is a fast learner and already advanced, then any missing material he can pick-up in the context of the course. If he has to scramble and lead some of his own learning, that's great news as it is a skillset he likely hasn't had much of a chance to develop in school?

Good idea... I could present this to DS's guidance counselor. But would the 7th grade teacher be receptive to taking a moment to grading his review pages? Additional work for him/her. Accommodating a child's special needs, and no co-teacher like available for the other end of the spectrum. (gasp)

I agree, it's a good skillset that he will need when he takes accelerated 7th grade math next year. I want him to develop the skill to stretch and reach out.

I'm sure he will rise to the challenge, but I am also concerned with social. He is in 6th grade, 10 years old because he skipped 2nd grade. If he goes into 7th grade math class now, he might be sitting with 13 or 14 year olds. Is there any advice to ensure he copes well? Or am I worried about nothing? The kids at that age are probably into girl/boy stuff and I don't want this to be uncomfortable for him, and affect his concentration in class.

I agree with what has been said already--that he might not miss much depending on what is in the 7th grade math. I would look at the 7th grade math textbook and see what your son would miss if he skips and go from there.

Socially it might be very tricky at this age. My DS13 had a very bad experience in our public middle school even though he didn't skip grades and for math, his acceleration was done with a few other kids so at least in the classroom there are a few kids roughly his age. My son also goes to some classes outside of school where classmates are mostly high school juniors and seniors. He doesn't really make friends with them but those kids are older and more mature so there isn't any problem either. Middle school is a tricky time though.

Does anyone have success stories of a gifted child being given next year's work, while remaining with his current classmates that are closer to his age? He is 10 years old. I want to suggest something that his teachers will be able to accommodate. Although there are only 3 months left in the school year, I don't want the math time period to be wasted and leave him with a negative feeling toward the subject.

My DS8 sits in his 3rd grade gifted classroom doing algebra online in IXL while the rest of the class does stuff more on level. He likes that he isn't forced to rework stuff he already has mastered, but wishes he could be in a classroom with actual instruction at his level.

About all you can do is ask if the teacher would grade it. Heck he could even grade it himself after school with her sitting right there working on something else she needed to do...all she would have to do is open the book to the answer key. If they had a standing date for ten minutes after school on Thursdays...he could whip through the beginning chapters and only stop and do what is necessary.

In second grade my son's teacher gave him the comprehensive pretest for math which takes two class periods to administer. He scored as having mastered 85% of the second grade math content. So she then put him at the back table and would give him chapter test after chapter test interspersed with time to play math games on the computer....until he got to chapters where he had gaps and couldn't get 100s ( he didn't have to get a hundred it was just he either was getting a hundred or was lacking that skill). At a chapter with gaps, she went over it and he worked through it and then back to taking chapter tests....he completed all of 2nd grade math this way in the first nine weeks.

I sent an email to the guidance counselor, asking if there are other options for doing the 7th grade math while remaining with his peers... crossing my fingers for another good option !

You said he is doing accelerated 7/8 maths class next year. That sounds great but I think starting 7th now would ruin it a little. Could he do some maths based project for the next 3 months? Or programming? Or something else he would enjoy?

The accelerated 7/8 math next year is designed to complete 7th grade by January, and 8th grade by June... so that the FOLLOWING year, when he's actually in 8th grade, he will be placed in a 9th grade math class. So I think the 3 months of regular 7th grade math he is being offered now, is taught at "regular speed", while next year's accelerated 7/8 math is at "fast forward" speed. I'm thinking it won't ruin it, and it might help him because a few pages will be familiar.

I'm more worried about finishing 6th grade math in a painfully excruciatingly slow way, but also I don't want him (at 10 years old) sitting with 14 year old 7th graders in math, as they near the end of the school year they will get more rowdy, the teachers will teach less, and they even put on movies. I can't stand it.

The best for me would be keeping him with his peers but giving him 7th grade work and somehow teaching it to him. It won't take long for him to learn it, but I just don't know logistically how this school can accommodate this need... that's why I sent the guidance counselor my question.

I love hearing everyone's ideas and thoughts! It is so helpful as I try to advocate for my son.

Cee,

We got our daughter a pre-algebra book dirt cheap on Amazon (used textbook - it was only a few dollars plus shipping). She thumbed through last summer and said there wasn't much in there she didn't already know.

Our state does algebra readiness testing and the beginning and end of the year to ensure progress. Does yours? She rocked that test and we used the score to advocate for acceleration in math from 7th grade math into Algebra I. We were initially worried about gaps since she was missing the 2nd half of 7th grade and all of 8th grade math this way. She hasn't missed a beat. She is doing very well in Algebra and her Algebra teacher told me last week that moving her up was absolutely the right decision. She's 12 and with high schoolers for math only. She hasn't had any issues from being in with older kids.

I doubt that your son would miss much by skipping ahead. If it's only one class, I think he will be OK. Girls that age are giggly. He'll probably think they're weird

What is the structure of his school? Is it K-6 or is there a middle that he's already in?

Is there a project he could work on for the last quarter during math period? Maybe he could use it as an independent study time. Who knows? Maybe he could come up with a nifty money saving idea like that middle schooler who discovered Garamond saves millions of dollars in ink

My son in 6th grade just started the Middle School, which is grades 6-8. He is my only child, not often around older kids, except when he sees them in the halls. Once a week, he is in an advanced violin ensemble through the private violin school, with MS/HS kids but they are smart, musical, well behaved.

7th grade regular math, well, I suppose I am worried. Maybe I shouldn't be? The guidance counselor is totally leaving the decision to me. However, it was an idea that came up in a meeting with herself, my son's current math teacher, and the principal. So they are all on board with the idea, it's just up to me to say yes.

Can any parents here reassure me that socially, he would be fine in a 7th grade ordinary math class in a not-so-outstanding school district?

I would be less concerned about doing the 7th grade math now -- it sounds like he can probably handle the gaps -- and more concerned about having him repeat the same exact stuff in the fall. We had an issue with that when my son was younger, and it was sooooooo frustrating for him to have to repeat stuff he had just done the previous spring. I liked puffin's suggestion - maybe he can do something like programming for the next 3 months?

St paulie- I see your point but 6th grade feels liike a repeat of everything he knows. So I figure a few weeks of 7th grade has to be better than this. To do this he needs to be scored on the test given at end of 6th grade but he would take it now.

Cee, my DD10 did 5th grade math in 3 weeks after school and in the middle of softball season. They made her take every test. If we just did the stuff she didn't know we would have been done in 1 week. This was in preparation to skip to 6th. It may be a challenge but isn't that the point?

Channa which teacher stayed with her after school? And did they teach her anything or was she just administered unit tests during those 3 weeks? I wish I had thought of that myself in September! In contrast the principal and counselor had politely expressed that I should chill out because he will have enough on his plate merely "adjusting" to the bells and changing classes. As predicted, he was miserable in math by end of September!

Our DS11 (he was 10 at the start of the school year) is twice-grade-skipped in 7th grade, and he was in 8th grade math for the first half of this year. He's never had any problem being with the older kids -- in fact, it's better with the older ones than the ones his own age.

For the second half of this year, he went into the second half of Algebra 1 in our e-school, and it didn't bother him a bit to miss the first half of Algebra 1. He's doing better (97% so far) in it than he was in the regular 8th-grade math class, because he doesn't have any problem remembering to turn stuff in online.

I'm not sure I would have bothered, for only one quarter, though.

Cee, I administered all the tests myself and taught it all to her myself. I bought the test book and the 5th grade book for the curriculum. We would go through the book and ask her what she knew and didn't know. If she said it was easy, we skipped it. If she said, she knew it but not easy, I had her do a problem just to make sure and then I would give her the test for the Unit. I graded it and then we moved on to the next Unit. We did 1-2 tests per day. In the beginning, may have done 3. I stapled them all together, put a sheet on the front with all her grades and her 97 average and handed it to the principal.

She has had about a 99 average on her tests in Math this year after that "skip". We are bringing her home to homeschool for 7th Grade, but i intend to go through pre-Algebra over the summer and Start her on Algebra when the school year starts. She is really tired of being held back by repetition in Math and is so ready for real algebra.

Chana, my son feels the same. He's been asking for algebra for 2 years. Today at school there were worksheets. Then, more worksheets. 6th grade level stuff. It's so sad to see his expression, that doesn't hold that same innocent excitement that it used to, about school. He used to look forward to Mondays with joy, right after the grade skip when he was 6 years old. It has changed a lot since then.

When a parent decides to pull child out to homeschool, in some random year, what is the reason they give to school principal? Is there ever resistance? Chana what did you tell your daughter's school, and how did you know what math book to buy. There are SO MANY...

My DD complains because they use the spiral method, which is great when in 3rd grade because it introduces concepts earlier than most, but to her there is no difference between 2-digit and 3-digit division. So, there are very few new concepts each year.

Last year, I had the WISC-IV and EXPLORE test results and said the options were grade skip or we are taking her home. There was much resistance until I walked in 3 weeks later with her math tests. There was still concern until she had straight As at the first 9 weeks and "Excellence"( 96+ average) in all but one subject. Given that we are at the same place as last year and we took our younger one out of school last year to homeschool, they are not surprised. Last year I told them that she was bored out of her wits and I wasn't going to do that to her. We had the support of her teachers with the grade skip because she would finish her work in 10 min, when the time to finish it was 50 min. before approaching the principal, I made sure that I had ample evidence.

On the Math book, i bought the 5th grade book that her school used after they gave the slightest ok to a grade skip. I knew they were waffling. So, as soon as I heard anything that sounded like it could be interpreted to be a yes, I bought the curriculum that they use and got it over with and the next time they saw me, I had graded tests in hand.

Next year, we will use Art of Problem Solving. It seems to be the one that people on here are fond of and it looks like it will work well with my DD. To keep it fun over the summer, I will use Life of Fred and some worksheets to fill in some pre-Algebra gaps. I think there are 2-3 things that she hasn't learned at all yet before jumping into Algebra.