Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion DS7 going to 3rd or repeat 2nd - maturity?!

My son is almost 7 and just finished first grade in the public school. We are skipping him to 3rd grade in a private school. He is a a bit immature but we think he can handle the skip better than he can handle being bored in 2nd grade. The director of the private school thought he should skip to 4th. I would NOT skip him to 3rd in OUR public school, though,for a variety of reasons (class size, NCLB testing, ...). We also have heard the "he's a late summer birthday, he's not mature enough" argument.

Don't know if that's much help but wanted to let you know we are going through the same thing. Also, someone on this board pointed out to me that you can always DEcelerate if you need to do that.

I agree with cym and squirt. My DS has the same summer birthday issue and was accelerated from 2nd to 3rd in mid-year. He spent the second half of a year in third as a seven year old when most of the boys were 9 turning 10. He was much happier socially with the older kids, and was teased less than when he was in second.

He is also a very asynchronous kid who can seem very immature one minute and very advanced the next. He is also a rather wiggly little thing, with tons of excess energy. All of these things considered, third grade was a much better fit for him.

I wanted to pass along two points:

1) The public school decided DS needed a grade acceleration based on his second grade teacher's assessment. Without any prompting, she gave DS the end of the year tests in all subjects by October of his second year. She also talked to the gifted teacher about DS before recommending a grade acceleration to us. You should be able to ask for the same thing. If the school is dragging its heels, you should be able to say, "Look, in the week before school starts, give him the end of the year tests." If he passes them, then there is nothing left for him to learn in that grade. You can also ask that they do out-of-level tests to find out where he is, but those take a long time to order, administer, and grade.

2) Most schools follow the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) for determining if a child should be accelerated. It is a very detailed process that evaluates the child's intellectual needs and emotional needs. My PS (public school) formed an acceleration team that had my DS's current teacher (2nd), his previous year's teacher, the gifted teacher, the principle, and the school psychologist. They gave him the WISC-IV IQ test, and somehow tried to evaluate his out-of-level knowledge. (we are trying to find out if they gave him any achievement tests). And the school psychologist talked with him and tried to assess his emotional and social maturity. All of these voices had to agree that acceleration was a good option for this particular kid at this particular time. I'm glad the school was so cautious, but it took 3 months to jump through all of the hoops to make it happen. Also, part of the IAS is asking the kid what he or she wants. If the child says at any point that they do not wish to be accelerated, then the process comes to a complete stop.

As a parent who spent three months agonizing over whether to accelerate or not, I understand your concerns. Eventually, you just have to go with your gut feelings. You know your kid better than anyone else. Just try to listen to what you think is best for your child. (and yes, I spent three months of not sleeping well due to worrying, so I know how hard it can be.) I had it easier, since the school was recommending the acceleration to me. You might need to fight for it.

Hope this helps!

Oh, and one more thing. My school didn't play the "summer birthday" card. They played the "product" card. When you move up in grades, more of what the child knows is measured by producing a "product"... like a book report or science report. The one concern that the teachers had with my DS is that he did not write very much daily in his journal, and his left-handed scrawl was a bit slow to produce. Sure enough, within a month of moving up to third, DS had to do a science report. It ended up being 19 half-pages long, which was quite taxing for him. Science is what he lives for, his joy in life. But getting all of those facts that were swirling around in his head down on paper was a challenge.

Hi again engmom,
I went back and reread your first post and realized that you are switching from private to public. So the public school really doesn't know your child yet.

The thing about public school (I think?), is that they move very, very slowly. My guess is that they have to fill out a ton of paperwork and send it off to the state to justify that a kid needs to be accelerated. They will not let a kid jump a grade without a mountain of paperwork to justify it. Just thought you should be warned in advance. It might also be state specific and even district specific, depending on how friendly your school is to acceleration. But I would start working on generating that mountain of paperwork. Try to get as much concrete data on your child as possible, or start hounding the school to start testing him.

Good luck!

I think that's very important, Dottie.

Weighing the harm of not skipping, harm that's being done to a child now, harm that's visible and real, against some hypothetical "won't he be traumatized if he can't drive when his classmates can?" makes it clear how goofy that non-specific sort of argument tends to be.

"Yes, let's bore the kid silly for 10 years on the faulty assumption that all kids develop facial hair at the same time." <eye roll>

Generic, hypothetical arguments against grade-skipping--or any other deviation from the path kids are "supposed" to take--don't impress me. Yes, he might not be happy with the skip sometime down the line. But if you KNOW he's not happy without it, it seems to me to be an easy choice in that case! The problems today are real. Deal with the "what-ifs" of tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

BTW, we got the same sort of thing when we decided to homeschool: "What about high school? Will you be teaching him chemistry in your kitchen?" The kid was 6yo at the time! Can we worry about high school chemistry a little closer to when it's relevant?!?

Frankly, I think it's just a scare tactic. A way to snap us back into line. I don't find that sort of thinking to be useful at all to the actual children involved.

Engmom,

I would actually be wary of a grade skip based on your description of your son. You say he does not like paperwork/seatwork and he finds writing hard due to fine motor skills perhaps not being as advanced.

The way I read your post, you had concerns about his maturity level yourself. Although I feel that grade skips are sometimes great, I don't believe they are always the best alternative. He would be very young.

Is there a specific area where he is very advanced (math, language arts, etc)? Would subject accelaration be an option? Would they be able to differentiate w/i the classroom?

Just things to consider.

Agreed Dottie.

If he the private school certifies that he has completed 2nd, then the public school has to accept that and place him in 3rd. (provided the child and parent agree). I couldn't tell from the original post, engmom, whether the private school just let him work at his own speed in an open type classroom and he went up through 2nd... or if he was in a structured 2nd grade class. I don't know if it makes any difference, but I could see the school making an issue out of it. Granted, I have no experience with private schools and how they structure their material. But I have some experience with how PS likes to drag its feet. And take my above post with the grain of salt that I love data. Towering mountains of it!!! It gives you a good feel for what kind of advances and challenges you need now for your child. And it gives you an indication of what kind of challenges you may (or may not) face in the future.

And I agree completely with the hypothetical social/emotional problems in the future.
Love the <eye roll>, Kriston. LOL

The hard part is separating a kid who doesn't like to write and seems immature because he is not being challenged from one who is truly young for his age. That is a tough one!!!

My own DS, FWIW, appeared to be very young in second emotionally due to a serious lack of motivation. School was definitely a social event and learning was non-existent. I even had his first grade teacher repeatedly come up to me after school and tell me that she was afraid he was falling behind because he had no interest in doing the work!! Of course he had no interest in doing it... it was way too easy. All of those issues, as well as the squirminess in his seat, improved greatly when he had more challenging material to work on.

I'm not saying you aren't right, Bianca. He could very well be a little on the immature side. But it could be a case of serious boredom. Engmom, does your little guy "light up" when he finds something challenging at home? Does he have a favorite subject that he loves to explore? My guy was constantly doing more advanced work at home that what he was offered in school, and would just shine during those moments. That might help you to guess as to whether he is bored and needs more challenging material, or if he needs some time to grow and development?

Oh, man! And here I've been exercising! I burn up at least 150 calories a day!! Thanks, Dottie. I needed a laugh today.