DH went behind my back at the end of last school year and got DD skipped from 2nd to 4th grade with the understanding that she would be monitored to make sure she wasn't failing.

DD ended 2nd with MAP scores of 221 for reading and 223 math (both 98%). Her reading during 2nd grade went from level Q to level S by the middle of the year (January).

Now for this school year:

At the beginning of this year, DD tested on MAP at the 4th grade level. Her reading fell to 83% in MAP (214) and math fell to 86% (218). Winter MAP she tested at 93% (230) in math but only 85% (219) in reading. She read one book during the semester that was 200 points below NWEA's suggested Lexile. Her middle of the year report shows that she is still reading at level S which is the same level she had as of January of 2nd grade.

She has made no progress after showing alot of growth in 2nd grade reading (went from level Q to level S in only 2 months in that time frame). Her teacher this year IMO has not been real supportive of the grade skip. When I spoke with her about my concerns in reading at conferences in October, she was short with me and simply said "I get it". Then DD went on to show negative growth on her winter MAP. I don't feel she got it.

Now this middle of the year report is horrible and our school transitions kids to intermediate school for 5th grade and DD has no chance of any accelerated placement in reading because of it. When I read with her I can tell she is not where she should be.

I could really use some advice on how to deal with situation. It feels like it's snowballing and I feel DD will be really harmed by going to the general classes in middle school when she was formerly at 98%. DH is hostile and says reading doesn't matter. Only math. i just feel that when you are transitioned to a low class in middle school you can never rejoin a former peer group and DD's future is irreparably damaged.

Do I have any rights in this situation? Is there anything I can do? Who would skip a child to see them fall to the 80th % and stagnate? It feels like educational neglect which in my state if a parent does this it is a felony. None of it makes any sense to me.

I know that MAP can feel like a nice, objective check on progress, but how is she doing in school other than on MAP? Is the reading level possibly due to topping our at the school (since you mentioned they switch schools after 4th)?

The comment that you made about the teacher not really being supportive may be key here, too. That can make the overall situation just difficult for your DD. Kids are resilient, though...I would not worry too much about irreparable harm.

While I understand your concerns about placement next year it is not a bad grade skip unless she is miserable. Going from the top of 2nd to near the top of 4th is a good outcome. If she was still on the 99th percentile she would need another skip. Can you talk to someone at the next school about entry requirements and testing? Here when we had an extension programme they did their own testing.

She loves the skip and has A in math and reading.

But on paper, she looks like an "average" student and won't qualify for the district's high ability program. This requires a 95% or greater on the MAP test. She is nowhere near this and seems to have alot of gaps in skills.

I agree with others not to worry about irreparable harm. I'm sure if she's getting As, she'll be put in the honors classes at the middle school.

I do like MAP tests as a measure of growth, but sometimes a kid has a bad day or the computer glitches or any number of reasons could cause one of the measures not to go up. I would ask for a meeting with the teacher and maybe the principal to discuss it, though. And I would tell them I'm concerned about why she seems to not be showing growth this year and wonder if there's anything happening in the classroom. Maybe you need to switch teachers?

But I think happiness is key. If she's found friends, is making good grades and shows growth overall, I'd try to sit tight.

Good advice above. Also, think about the difference between 2nd grade reading and 4th grade reading: in 2nd, children are working mainly on decoding, and a very little bit of literal comprehension. By 4th grade, they are all supposed to have mastered the fundamentals of decoding, and are now working on expanding higher-level reading vocabulary, literal comprehension, and the beginnings of inferential comprehension. The rate of growth (measured, keep in mind, by not-very-scientifically-determined levels in a reading program) shouldn't necessarily be as rapid. One always hopes to see a little more improvement, but she didn't truly stagnate from fall to winter (essentially maintained her percentile, and picked up 5 scaled points). She is also still a full standard deviation above the mean of the class, which roughly translates to functioning nearly a grade level ahead of her placement (which I would view as falling in the optimal range for grade-advanced students).

In what way do you feel that she is not where she should be in reading? Are her grades not good? Are comments coming home from the teacher regarding not comprehending, or not keeping up with class expectations? Sometimes, as parents, it can be hard to get a good handle on what "should" looks like, because we don't have a wide enough perspective on "normal". (Case in point: SO thinks our youngest child doesn't have a good sense of pitch. We went to a very respectable student recital this weekend, after which it became clear that, in comparison to a wider sample of children, that was not the case!)

A few other thoughts: very little is irreparable. There are many paths to equally satisfying educational (and life) outcomes. Reading, in particular, is one of the areas where extracurricular self-education is as important as (or even more important than) formal education.

But I think the most important consideration here is actually (and I am trying to say this as gently as possible) the distance between you and your spouse regarding this parenting decision. For most children, almost any non-abusive schooling situation will be at least bearable, as long as her parents are united in supporting her through it. If she senses the discord between you regarding her education, the risk is high that she will begin to believe that she is the cause of conflict between her parents, which, I need not say, will be far more damaging than anything an educational mismatch may do.

Please believe that I am not judging you--we've all found ourselves in situations where we've cared so much, or been under such stress, or been so exhausted, that we've lost perspective. I do encourage you to take a step back, find some time to have a private, uninterrupted mutual listening session with your spouse, and get on the same page. It is apparent that you both care deeply about your child. Start from this point of agreement, and you will, given enough time and listening, be able to find common ground.

DD's older sister had the same class last year and we felt like it could go fine based upon that experience with that teacher.

But this year, it seems the school has decided to switch up things and have teachers "co-teach" on subjects. DD's reading/grammar teacher is now another teacher so she switches rooms for that.

It's a very weird situation because even the recent e-mail to the teacher was from DD's assigned teacher, while DD says the other teacher does all the instruction for reading so somehow the teacher who is actually teaching reading is not even in the loop. I don't even know how to approach her because we didn't know nor were we told that she would be the reading teacher this year. We don't get reports from her or anything. It's very weird.

DD also showed no improvement on the MAZE test for comprehension, actually showed negative growth on that as well.

As for friends, the school put 2 what I would call "manufactured" friends into the classroom so DD would be happy. One who has had speech therapy like DD has and was going for half the year with her and another who lives nearby and rides the bus with DD and coincidentally sits in the same seat as DD. This year is fine for that.

But next year, the middle school is huge. It's over 1300 kids and the school is currently trying to get people to transfer out because they are 300 kids over capacity for the next school year.

Older DD who did very well last year and had great friends has struggled in her classes to make friends because she is in with kids she has never met before and doesn't seem to have much in common with. There are quite a few advanced classes and some kids never get a class with those elementary friends ever again. She has no friends from school this year and it's been hard.

I worry about younger DD because she has been labelled "shy" by her teacher and she doesn't have any girl friends in her class outside of those 2. Without them, I feel she would be right back to being unhappy.

You've received great advice above.

Some may say that because your daughter is happy, is earning As, has two friends, and the school is caring and supportive enough to have matched-up these potential friends... the grade skip is successful.

Was the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) utilized to assess for the likeliness of a successful grade skip?

This old post contains a roundup of advocacy ideas, tips, advice, and resources.

Curious, did the child take the MPG test in 2nd, or the 2-5 test? Also, I've heard that with a grade skip, there might be a year of somewhat lower scores while adjusting to the acceleration and then in the second year, they might jump ahead again.

In my experience, the reading ability of a kid doesn't always follow this nice progression of predictably, gradually getting more advanced. Some kids will plateau for awhile, only to jump back to grade level expectations (or above) out of nowhere.

DS did that when he was 6. He was not an early reader (at all) but suddenly around 6.5 started reading chapter books and was barreling through Harry Potter several months later (with full comprehension). I'm pretty sure that can happen in the older years, too.

This.
IIRC you and your DH have a history of coming on this board to complain about one another? And you have been stressing out about middle school and accelerated placement for years?
This grade skip sounds successful! She is getting As. She is happy. She has friends that SHE feels are friends. Take it year by year.

And as far as having no access to the actual reading teacher is concerned, this does not sound like such a hard problem to solve. This can't be classified information. Phone the school.

Also, as far as I understand (I do not live in the US) it IS only math where falling off the accelerated track could create problems down the road. There is no such clear cut progression in reading or English lit, right? Or does your school system actually do that? The one I live in actually does, and not making accelerated track for middle school could be a disaster for some kids, but I'd be very surprised if things were set in stone by fifth grade in yours, as you appear to be worrying. A school this large must have tons of options and flexibility.

2-5 test. I noticed something really odd about the test this year. Each year both my DD's have taken the test, in the following fall they maintained their reading (both are avid summer readers through the local library summer reading program). But this year, both DD's fall scores fell significantly. Older DD fell 10 points which was never seen before. Younger DD fell 7 points. Both taking the same 2-5 test that's been given at school since older DD was in 2nd grade (3 years now). I'm wondering if anyone else noticed something wonky like that with scores this year? We had never seen such a dramatic drop in scores before this school year.



She got an F on the last reading test which concerned me. At this level they are allowed to make up tests which renders the official grades useless as so many corrections are allowed. From the combined classes of students (about 50 altogether), 7 students failed. DD and one of her friends both were in this group. The teacher had spent alot of time in class going over the unit (propaganda, bias, etc. as it relates to non-fiction, advanced reading) and the whole lesson flew over DD's head. Her teacher chalked it up to socializing during reading and has since moved her. I had to work with her for a week in order to get her up to speed. She kept saying she didn't understand. She took the test twice and passed the second time once I worked with her. Granted, she had never taken a written test like that before. But these sorts of corrections are not allowed in middle school. I don't even know why they are doing it in elementary. DD always has an A because "corrections" are allowed. Without that, she would be more of a B/B- student. With the F on that last test she would have a C.


No and that is what is unusual. DD's older sister went all the way up to level V with this same teacher. No stagnation at all. While younger DD seems to have regressed. But she is not receiving the same amount or quality of instruction older DD did. About half as much. The class was entirely changed this year in format compared to what older DD received last year. She doesn't have her assigned teacher for reading, she has another teacher who is co-teaching.


No. As far as I know no testing was done. I do not know how DH was able to do this behind my back. He had many conversations with the school and with the staff which I was not involved in. Should there have been some type of testing? Isn't this required? What types of metrics determine success? Shouldn't this process be more formalized? I can find so little about the formal process of grade skipping. I will be reading through the link you provided.


Earning A's with "corrections" and at what cost? I know others place alot of value on socialization, but in my experience, I am more concerned with outcomes. A person has a lifetime to make a friend. Unless a kid is miserable, which DD never complained about before, I feel this is overrated. What concerns me is that it seems in this district where you start at 4th grade is where you will also be in 5th grade. There is no period of "high growth" on the horizon that I can see so far.

I know the middle school environment because older DD is already there. She is in an advanced class and has had zero growth as well for the first semester. She has read no books at all this year at her Lexile and the school uses the Achieve 3000 software for instruction. This is it for next year. I don't expect younger DD will move up in any way with this. Older DD hasn't. There are no reading groups, etc. It is self-guided through the Achieve 3000 software.

And while DD may do OK in this type of environment and "get by", she will never be a top student. There is no way she can compete with those students much more astute than herself in a large district where there are alot of advanced students coming in at the middle school level without massive after schooling which DD is loathe to do.

Myself, I never would have been happy with graduating in the middle of my class. Both DH and I were in the top percentile of our own classes.

To see DD in this position as an 85% student in any grade is horrible for me. This to me is failure. I never had 85% in school and DH never did as well.


While I do believe this in earlier grades, I feel once a child starts middle school the die is cast on placement without massive work outside of school. Kids in the low math classes don't suddenly jump to the high classes. I feel the same with other subjects. In fact, my sister who sat on the board at her school and I were just talking about how difficult it is to get out of a low placement situation in middle school. DH feels DD can "catch up" on reading but from what I've read, after 3rd grade, the gaps only get wider. It seems true with the current stagnation. DD can't catch up to 4th graders who are already advanced and maybe themselves should have been grade accelerated.

You may want to look into this and have a factual answer, for your own benefit.

It appears that the school, child, and participating parent were in agreement.

As stated many times on these forums, use of the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) is recommended for full-grade skip.

- You may want to check your State's education laws to see whether anything is mentioned about full grade acceleration (grade-skipping).
- You may want to check your school district's website to read their policies on acceleration.

The IAS looks at several factors including academic/intellectual, social, student's preference, and level of family support.

This acceleration information has been presented many times in the 3 years that you've been registered on the forums. A large part of advocacy is proactively educating one's self, in order to be well-prepared with facts... rather than emotion.

Unfortunately, your posts indicate that if your child does not score not in the the 98th-99th percentile in reading, you are looking for someone to blame... the school... the spouse... the child... this will tend to poison one or more relationships, ongoing.

As noted by others, it sounds as though you and your husband might benefit from a few sessions with a third party to talk through all these mindsets and philosophies re: education that are causing so much angst. I am troubled by your thought that 85% is failure. That said, that you two were not on the same page re: acceleration and he got the school to go ahead without discussing it with you speaks volumes which are very concerning. This alone seems likely to cause issues for your children. It would behoove you both to fix this situation.

On a side note, our son is in 7th grade (two grades acceleration) for math and language. The students are allowed to go back on certain assignments and revise their work for a partial grade increase (if done correctly the second time). I am a fan of this approach, because to simply grade and then penalize children (with a "bad" grade) at those ages does nothing except encourage perfectionism (imo). I think it far better to learn that writing is a process and to have a chance to understand what went awry, fix it and do better for the additional effort.

I think it's normal to take a hit in terms of percentiles after an acceleration because the child is then being compared to more advanced kids. Most kids who are gifted will then quickly catch up to their classmates once they acclimate to the advanced material. I understand your concerns about how maybe she won't get put into appropriate gifted programming in the future. Hopefully the school has enough common sense to not track a kid indefinitely in a lower group based on a couple tests in a certain time period right after an acceleration. If she stays at 85th percentile, then maybe she doesn't need any more accelerated or enriched placements and you have nothing to worry about KWIM? As long as she is placed with kids who score about the same, she should be challenged sufficiently in school and able to continue to make progress. I don't think it's ever a good idea to try to push a kid into classes where the other kids actually are more advanced. I also would keep in mind that scores like MAP scores in the early grades seem to relate a lot to what the parent is doing with a child and 98th percentile kids might start to drop in 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. So much depends on their cognitive ability level and what is going on at home. My son's reading scores have stayed very high because he is a bookworm and constantly reads but my other child isn't making as much growth because she doesn't read that much at home. As long as she stays at grade level, at least, and isn't struggling in school, I've decided not to stress about it. She was grade accelerated a long time ago. Her perecentiles would obviously be higher if she was compared to kids her age rather than her grade. But the point of an acceleration is so that the child is challenged at the right level and not bored in school.

My take is there is no perfect answer. It very much depends on your and your kids mental makeup. Note both these options assume the kid is more than academically ready for a grade skip.

Option 1: Do not grade skip if:
- Kid is happy and not complaining
- You are able to deal with academic challenges outside of school
- You or your kid tend to get stressed out about grades.

Option 2: Grade skip if:
- Kids really want to move up
- You believe the path of education predominantly channelled through the school

In either case please note decisions are always reversible.

Not sure it is that reversible in this case.
A) It was her husband (ex?) that arranged the skip.
B) It would be hard to justify a kid doing so well repeating a grade.
C) If she did repeat it would dent her confidence and she may not be considered for advanced classes anyway.

It doesn't sound like the advanced classes are that good anyway and maybe her current placement is a better fit.

I'd like to start by asking a simple question. Who was the driving force for her great MAP scores at 2nd grade? Was it herself? Or the parents? The fact that she read one book in half a semester would be the most worrying signal, imho.

You seem to put a lot of faith in numbers from standardized testing being an indicator of future placement. Here is my opinion for what it is worth: when a child is grade skipped, she might need a long period of adjustment - there are a lot of factors involved - new levels of expectations from teachers, harder academics, older classmates with whom she needs to figure out relationship dynamics, higher level of executive functioning skills, more rigor in homework and tests, etc. etc. It is not unusual for a grade skipped child to not perform well immediately after the skip. Also, her scores are NOT poor - anything around 80% and above shows ability to keep up with the majority of the classroom. Do not compare your child with yourself - each child is unique and has their own strengths and challenges. There is no educational neglect involved if a child skips a grade and gets above 80% in scores. When I request a grade skip for my child, I do so because he consistently scores 99% in all the tests - this is an indictor to me that he has mastered all the material for his grade. If my grade skipped son scored below 90% in the tests in the new grade, it is a rough indicator to me that he has room to grow and improve in that grade because he needs to master more material to get a perfect score - I actually think that it is a good placement when that happens.
You might want to provide some fun reading materials for your daughter to read in her free time if you want to work on her reading levels.

Agreed.

I'm also very concerned about 85% being a failure. Bottom line: it isn't. Really.

Developing from being a child into a well-adjusted, responsible adult involves much more than high grades --- and being expected to constantly perform at an unrealistic definition of acceptable can be emotionally damaging. I've seen this in others, including my kids' friends.

People learn from lessons taught by their mistakes. When mistakes aren't allowed, a child can develop a dangerous type of perfectionism that can make him or her afraid of challenges for fear of not getting it 100% right every time. This fear can be crippling and can lead to all kinds of serious problems. In particular, it is a path away from meaningful success and self-actualization.

If an individual has an internal drive to get As every time, that's one thing. But when pressure from a parent turns a B into a failure, the psychological consequences can be devastating.

It seems to me that to many successes are being overlooked.

An 85% is not horrible, especially after only 2 MAPs test after a 2 year skip even if your dc was scoring way in the 99% in MAPs leaving 2nd, JMO.

My ds in 8th still gets a shot at fixing mistakes for credit at times if he brings up up with the teacher. I believe this is a great way to learn and it teaches them to take ownership of their education, especially in math.

You have gotten some of the best advice above.
Parents need to have one voice.

99th percentile on MAPS test means that out of 100 children, only 1 can be expected to have a higher test score. It means there's virtually nothing left to learn. A 99th percentile score in Winter means a child will sit through the next semester and learn nothing.

85th percentile means out of 100 children, only 14 can be expected to have a higher test score. An 85th percentile score in Winter means a child still can learn something in the classroom.

Do you want to see 99th percentile or do you want to see growth? You're not going to see both at the same time on MAPS.

This is the exactly my point as well. Note it is not a straightforward answer. For a lot of people their self-esteem comes from placing in the 99%.

Have you talked to the teacher and/or your DD? Is there any particular reason she didn't know it? It seems to be a widespread problem, so likely not. Could you discuss your concerns with the school? Maybe it's significant, maybe not, and likewise with the MAP.


Once again -- it's very easy for other parents, schools, etc. to distort this perception...could you talk to the school, principal, maybe your other DD's current middle school teachers about it? IMO, it would be crazy to put such a smart child, who has been grade skipped as well, into remedial classes -- if there was a problem like that, it seems the school would contact you about it.

Overall, I think it would be in order to schedule a meeting with the teacher, principal, etc. to "discuss and check up on DD's skip". You could address these concerns -- hopefully WITH your DH -- and move forward based on whether the information presented is comforting or alarming.

Best of luck.