Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Skipping grade and collage admission

My son is in kindergarten and his teacher suggested he should skip a grade and start second grade from September.

Someone suggested it is better to be in advance class than skipping a grade for collage admission.

I am new to this system. This forum seems to be the right place to get answers. Any insight will be appreciated.

I don't like generalized answers. It really depends on the child: personality, LOG (Level of giftedness) and parents' comfort.

If his teacher is suggesting a skip you might want to look at the IOWA Acceleration Scale. Many gifted children are accelerated whole grades. Some, depending on their LOG, are accelerated more than one grade. The point to all of it is to challenge them. There is a possibility that being left in the age group grade can lead to boredom and distaste for school in general. And this is a huge problem later on in their school career if you are trying to wait for the advance classes.

Hi Shitu - Welcome! I hope we can be helpful!
I don't really understand what you mean about the advance class. Is an 'advance class' availible at your current school?

Try reading up on the research that's been done on gradeskipping here:
http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Nation_Deceived/Get_Report.aspx

Can you say more about your child, how they feel about school, and how the social aspect is going?

Smiles,
Grinity

Thanks for the response.

I am from central New Jersey. We do have accelerated programs. Kids are evaluated for Math for K-2. For grades 3-5 they are evaluated for language , math and science. And based on their skills they might be send for a accelerated program where they will attend a different grade for the specific subject and for rest of the subjects they will stay with their peers. My son goes to first grade for math under the accelerated program.

Last year his pre-school teacher suggested he should skip pre-school and be moved to the kindergarten class in his daycare. He did fine with the older kids in the class. In fact he was happy to be around the older kids.

Being a working mom he is going to daycare for most of his life which makes him a very flexible child. Currently in the community we have kids ranging from 4-8 and he have no problem playing with them, so near future socially it won�t be a big problem.

I am bit worried about how it will work when he starts middle school. Being a July baby makes him one of the youngest in his current class. And after reading a lot of negative response on the internet it makes very confusing.

You have some good advice already to get Iowa Acceleration Scale and Nation Deceived.

Also, I would suggest reading up a bit on the idea of a Gap Year. My son is grade skipped and young for his grade anyway. We plan (though plans change!) that he'll do a gap year or possibly a 5th year overseas as an exchange student before college. If he's ready at 16 to do college, then that's fine but if not we have options.

I agree with the other comments and will add the following thought.

American educators are generally biased against acceleration, not for it, as some books on gifted education have documented. Therefore, if a teacher told me my child should be accelerated, I would give her opinion considerable weight.

My son, now 14, is a July baby, started daycare at 7 weeks, one of the youngest boys, and was gradeskipped for a while. Mine was never a very flexible child that anyone could tell, though!

I think that there is so much negative response over the Internet and at the bustop because the kids who really need the gradeskip are pretty rare, and it's hard to sort out. Perhaps it's worth hiring a professional to do a psychoeducational evaluation to help sort out what we call 'LOG' - or level of giftedness.

You see, no one agrees on how unique a kid has to be before they are 'gifted.' There is no standard definition, so one has to check terms before hearing any story.

I've heard of schools that start their gifted program for the kids who are 'top 10%' in their school. I love this idea, because I would bet that all of those kids are spending way to much time waiting around to learn! But do those kids need a gradeskip? Probably the vast majority do not - well over 75% are getting a really appropriate education with the additional programing, and many would do quite well even without the additional programming.

Now let's think about the more common defintion of gifted in school, say 'top 3%' - this group needs to be well thought about to see if they need advanced classes, a single full gradeskip, a single full gradeskip plus advanced classes, or multiple gradeskips with advanced classes. Some kids are found with IQ scores in the 'top tenth of one percent.' In schools without advanced classes, those kids can get a gradeskip and still have a terrible time, so folks think gradeskips are bad, when really it was the lack of additional gradeskips that caused the problem. It gets confusing very quickly.

I can say that your school district is very unusual in that they offer advanced classes in Math and Reading at a very young age. I keep hearing that most districts have no programing for kids who are ahead until at least 3rd grade. Which tells me that your district must have many gifted kids in it - which is good. And it also should reassure you that the teachers have some clue in what they are seeing. If the teacher is seeing your child compared to the other kids in the advanced courses and STILL wants a skip, it's quite probably that your child is 'unusual' and needs the extra challenge AND the advanced classes.

Contact the New Jersey State Gifted Association
http://njagc.org/
for local suggestions for getting a psychoeducational evaluation and some advice, and also
www.heroesgifted.com/
which is a New Jersey group for families of Profoundly Gifted (over 99.9%) children. I know that number can start sounding very strange, but really, if the teachers in your gifted-friendly school district is suggesting a gradeskip when there is already advanced classes availible, there is a good chance that your are looking at a very high LOG. Time, and perhaps testing, will tell.

Peace,
Grinity

Hi, my DS is a late June baby & started K as a young 5. He skipped 1st & is now finishing 4th grade. It has not been an issue at all academically. Socially it took him about 1/2 of 2nd grade to make some good buddies. I do not see that he significantly less mature than his classmates now though he can be too sensitive & adamant in his views. Some of that might be personality over age.

His future HS has a great program of AP, dual enrollment & other options so I think he will find ways to stay busy until he's ready for college.

I did a research paper on acceleration and most articles are in favor despite the negative views among schools & some parents. Just last weekend, we had SIL's sis comment that "oh, don't rush too fast through childhood". I think he's doing great but comments like that are annoying.

As long as we (societally, I mean) regard a high level of cognitive activity as the sole purview of "adulthood," then we are necessarily telling HG children that they have to wait for fulfillment until childhood has ended.

The answer isn't to treat children who are eager for greater cognitive and academic challenges that they need to BE OLDER to enjoy them...

but to allow them to be themselves in the first place, and worry about labeling and categorizing on the basis of observation/activities a distant second, if at all.


IMO, anyway. My DD is eleven, and yes, she is eleven. She isn't twenty, but she can discuss Shakespeare like she is. She isn't forty, but she can appreciate chamber music like she is. She isn't seven, but she loves Star Wars like she is. As long as I insist that she IS NOT nineteen, I don't see any reason why letting her do some of the cognitive activities more typical for that age is wrong. Or why it is 'rushing' her if we allow it.

As the others have all pointed out... it depends on the child, and I strongly encourage the use of the Iowa acceleration scale manual. DD was grade skipped and is still at the very top of her class. Some worry that by skipping, they will lose being at the top. That's possible, but there are bigger worries if a child is never challenged, doesn't learn how to study because he or she has never had to, and then when faced with a challenge won't know how to handle it.

Worse yet, keeping a child at the wrong level of learning is even more harmful than worrying about college apps. The child may be so turned off to schooling by then you might have bigger issues to worry about if nothing is done in the 12 years prior to college.

My DS is 4 and has finished 2 years of pre-k, but now at the situation where the public school will not allow him to test into kindergarten because he misses the cut-off date. He has already excelled in the pre-k. And now at the situation where he has to go to pre-k again because of the cut-off date and the school will not make "exceptions". He has already done all the kindergarten curriculum, I had looked into all the private schools around our area and none of them will test him because they all say they have to follow the Board of Education rules about cut-off date. The school he's been at offers and is willing to put him into Kindergarten, but my husband and I feel that they only want the tuition and as long as they get the money. Besides this school no one else is willing to test him. And now I'm stuck where he's asking why he has to repeat pre-k and not advance into kindergarten like his friends. And I know he was bored at the pre-k and he will be more bored when he repeats. Is it easier to have him skip a grade when he goes into first grade? Now with the budget issue is New Jersey I don't know if that would even be my option in the future. He is physically, mentally and intellectually ready, but public school only looks at the birth certificate to determine the readiness.

Hi TBMom, welcome!
My DD#1 went through this too, her private pre-school agreed to test her and determined that she could just skip kindergarten and go straight into first grade...some loophole, apparently in Texas, you couldn't start Kindergarten early but you could skip it completely(!) With the test results, we were able to get DD#1 tested for the public gifted magnet school that started with first grade. She went from being a bored bully in her 2nd year of preK to a perfectly happy 5 year old first grader. She ended up skipping 10th grade and graduated from 11th grade with a full academic scholarship.

DD#2 tested higher than her big sis in every school achievement and aptitude test, but she was not as social and was physically very small so we decided not to accelerate her, despite the fact that she wasn't learning anything new in school...she didn't complain, just sort of drifted off and eventually checked out. We are dealing with the consequences now and I keep wondering how things might have been if we had gone ahead and skipped her too. She has recently been diagnosed as ADHD inattentive, I wonder if we would have discovered that much sooner if she had been placed in a grade that actually challenged her so she couldn't skate by for so many years based on already knowing all of the material presented in class.

I guess my new perspective is "if in doubt, skip" its much easier to take a year off down the road than to make amends for extinguishing the spark or letting your child slide into lala land.

TBMom:
From my experience, grade skip has more to do with the school than the state. Also budget wise it would be easier to let the kid skip a grade than provide him enrichment. This year I know few kindergartners who were accelerated in math to 1st grade. So I am assuming they are looking into it.

Did you try getting him interested in music or art? That will help him relive some of his boredom.

Shitu,

If you want to send me a PM I would be happy to connect and discuss options, and if you are looking for testing, give you some ideas.

Cat

HI! Do you have any Montessori Schools around you? They group them 3 grades at a time. So, you could sign her up in "pre-school" but she would be in the same class as the kinders and most likey able to do work with them, or above them, as the Montessori Philosophy is to "follow the child." The generally choose their work even if it is advanced work. This worked very nicely for our daughters who are now in public (age 5 and age 9) and trasitioned very well.

The next year, if the school thought she was ready (which they should) she would go to the 1-3 classroom, and would be exposed to 3 graders. Ths works well, until the child IS in third and is the oldest in the class. That is when we pulled my DD. She did 3rd grade in public.

Just a thought. They also learn a lot of science and history and geography..which is a very nice way to "round out" their education. There was a strong focus on social skills in our Montessori School and "self-help" and each child was tought to focus...to their ability. This focus time became longer and longer as the child was ready. Rather than moving them along from one subject to the next because the bell rang!