Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy DS resistant to grade skip

First, I should say that I am new here. I have been looking around for a few weeks. Now I am hoping for some information.

DS7 is in 1st grade. We have advocated for him since he started K last year and have been pretty successful in geting various accomodations. Last year they advanced him to 1st grade reading. This year he started the year going to a 3rd grade reading class. He is also advanced in math. His fall MAP scores were 217 for Math and 206 for Reading.

At his PT Conference in November, the principal also attended and made some suggestions on what they could do for him in math, etc.. #1 was adjustments in his 1st grade class with computer based curriculum, #2 was sending him to a 2nd grade class for math and #3 was a whole grade skip. We chose number 2 for now so he goes to 2nd grade for math (but it is still below his level). We also discussed possibly the full grade skip at the end of this semester (or year). The principal also requested that she be allowed to go ahead and do the cognitive/academic tests now which we agreed to. We met a few weeks ago about the tests - they did the WJ for both cognitive and achievement and his general results were 140 for cognitive and 148 for achievement. They also did the Iowa Acceleration and he is an excellent candidate for a whole grade skip.

After all of this, my DH and I have gotten fairly comfortable with a full grade skip for DS. Our DS is old for his grade, extremely outgoing and makes friends easily for the most part, although I notice that he has interests different than most of his same age peers (i.e. he was Huck Finn for Halloween last year and a classmate accused him of making the character up). He has been in classes with older kids since he started school and everyone seems to know him at school.

Anyway, I post all of this because my DS is adamant that he does not want a whole grade skip. The problem is that he does not articulate why. He just says he wants to stay in his grade. He is only in his same grade classroom for 2 hours of the day and he seems to like going to different classes.

So I am wondering if anyone else has had this situation and what you all think about his reaction?

Hmm, that's a hard one b/c he isn't giving you specific reasons why he doesn't want to skip. Having been through an IAS with dd12 when she skipped, I do know that the child not wanting to skip is an automatic disqualifier for further considering the skip.

I usually would say to not push it, but it does sounds like it may be in his best interests both socially and academically. He certainly sounds plenty able and high enough achieving and, with being on the older end for grade, he likely won't have major issues with being smaller or worse at sports which seem to be things people worry more about with boys. I can also say that, for my dd who was already the youngest in her grade, the skip worked very well both socially and academically.

Could you present it to him as a trial? Would they be willing to start sending him to 2nd after the holiday break since he is there for a good chunk of the day already? He might find that it isn't as big of a deal as he thinks and it might be less intimidating if it is presented as a temporary option you are trying to see what he thinks.

Do you think that it is possible that he is concerned that he will no longer be viewed as the smart kid if he is placed with older kids all day? My dd10, for instance, is in a 6th grade math class with other 5th graders (she's in 5th) and one 4th grader. The kids all think that the 4th grader is a genius. She also has a child in her GT reading class who, after starting K a bit later, skipped a grade & who is actually older than dd, but, again, the other kids are really impressed with how smart she must be to have skipped.

I don't know your son's personality at all so I don't know if losing his status as a "big fish" might be coming into play, but it's a thought. For my dd12, she isn't at the top of her math class after skipping, but she's as much as 2.5 yrs younger than some of the kids in her grade and she's still in the top 10% of her grade for math and still in the 99th for everything else. It hasn't put her in the position of being average.

Maybe reassuring him that it is uncommon for the school to recommend this and that the adults really feel that he will be successful in the next grade might help.

My dd was just skipped from K to 1st at the beginning of Dec. She was really resistant to it at first. We asked her why and her main thing was friends. We explained to her that it would really help with her boredom (She was waking up every morning complaining of a stomachache in Kindergarten because she was so bored and just didn't want to go). My husband and I and our whole team of school staff talked about it during our GIEP meeting and decided it would be best for her. Almost a month later, no more problems with her getting up. She wants to go to school. She likes school (She's still a little bored but they are working on that, she's currently doing 3rd grade math and reading in her classroom and taking Spanish). DD still says that she wishes she was in K (She really doesn't see the kids except in the hall) she is much happier in 1st. There is currently some talk of moving her to 3rd next year when she goes to the bigger school (Our school has K-1 in one building and 2-5 in another and the didn't want to skip her 2 grades because they didn't want to take her completely away from the school so early) and we figure we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I vote for offering the trial run as well. I think it's a little less dramatic when done mid-year, and I'd tell him it wouldn't be advertised as an "official" full-skip until after the trial period. The trial also makes the move very easy to unwind, if necessary.

Our son skipped from 4th to 5th mid-year with a trial period set for 60 days. His day was split with about 60% of the day being in 5th, sometimes more.

Thankfully, the receiving teacher said that he was satisfied with making the full & complete skip after only a couple of weeks, and the principal approved the change. I was happy because it turned out that DS was missing out on quite a bit when schedules didn't mesh perfectly. For example, he often found himself sitting for a test for which he had missed the preparatory class time.

Hopefully, your son will be more forthcoming as to his reasons and/or he will be agreeable to the trial period. The IAS is pretty firm on the issue of the child not being receptive.

Please do keep us posted.

I don't have anything to add to the excellent advice above, just laughing at


Because, of course, you aren't allowed to use made-up characters for Halloween! You must stick with whatever has been on TV in the last week.

Could you plan for and approach an end of year skip instead of a mid-year skip? Maybe a skip in the middle seems hard, with disruption, not knowing the "rules" of the new class etc. But just making the jump with his math friends at the end of the year would be easier?

My son did a Christmas break skip from 1st to 2nd last year. His biggest concern was that he would get in trouble for sitting at a different table at lunch. It took a while to get to the root of what his concern was because he had been asking for months for the skip. We reassured him that the principal would take care of everything. Sure enough, the principal forgot to notify the lunchroom monitors and DS got in trouble for being in the wrong seat.

Sometimes it's the little things that get in their head and cause panic. If you can figure it out and smooth the path, it might be much easier.

My DD (then 5) was grade skipped from K to 1st Grade after one week of school. She was originally concerned about the skip because she had made friends and liked where she was. Her school allowed her the option of a grade skip with the potential to change back if things did not work out. That seemed to give her the extra courage to make the skip. Two years later, everything has worked beautifully with the grade skip and there have been no regrets.

With your son, you may want to ask him specific questions. Are you concerned about being the smallest or youngest kid in the class? Are you concerned about other children making better grades? Are you concerned about P.E. or physical abilities? Are you concerned with learning cursive writing? Are you concerned about harder work or more homework?

Once you narrow down his concerns, it will be easier to work through them.

Good luck!

I know this is part of the IAS, but it seems like a very difficult issue to put before a young child, no matter how intellectually advanced they are. My guess is that the first thing that would go through a child's mind would be all the things they would miss about their old class.

My 8yo was asked by her school if she wanted to grade skip a month ago. We hadn't discussed it a home with her before hand because we didn't want to promise her something that the school wouldn't end up delivering and we wanted her to answer the question without feeling like we were putting words in her mouth. Her first response to the guidance counselor was hesitant. Luckily, the principal knows my dd well enough that she showed dd what her new daily schedule would be and they highlighted the recess and lunch times when she would be able to mix with her age peer friends. Actually seeing the schedule, helped my dd get her mind around what exactly she was being offered and all the new opportunities she will have as a 4th grader.

Now, is that she is really looking forward to the skip, ie has insisted on new school supplies, a new first day of school photo, a raise in her allowance, etc. (She thought all that up, I promise no bribes!) Also, She is going to continue to do gym with 3rd grade because it is a better fit for her physically as well as for her math class schedule. She is young for 3rd and not so coordinated, so I think the fact that the 3rd grade gym fits into her new schedule better helps boost her confidence about the whole thing.

Deonne, if your child does skip, what can they look forward to in the new class? Does science meet more often? Do they do something new in music? Is there a kid in the class they really like?

In the absence of any other mitigating factors that haven't been shared, the fact that he is already old for his grade would decide it for me.

I've got a child who is young for his grade, and the alternative placement would have been unbelievably inappropriate. His borderline birthday turned out to be a stroke of luck.

Obviously you need to deal with his reluctance, but my focus would be "How can I make him OK with this?" not "Should we do this?"

I like CAmoms suggestion of maybe waiting until the end of the year if you think the negatives would outwiegh the benefits of the immediate skip.

I've thought the same thing a few times especially about my older one. Both of my girls made the cut off by days and the youngest only b/c one district pushed the cut-off out by two weeks the year she started making her eligible that year whereas she wouldn't have been in years prior.

I was unaware that people held kids out a year until my oldest started and I started hearing from people that she was too young and should wait a year for K. I'll always remember calling our neighborhood school to ask the principal about this. She told me that "the younger students invariably fail" and that being younger would get harder and harder academically as she got older. I believe the final words from her were something about how she'd need remediation in K and throughout school and I would be doing her a great disservice starting her that year. Having learned more later, I know that pretty much everything she told me was baloney and I can't tell you how glad I am that we didn't wait especially since she wound up skipping a grade later even with having started on time.

I'd agree that your son not having the good luck to fall on the younger side of that cut-off does make it seem even that much better of an idea to move him ahead.