my daughter 4.10 old, after IQ and ability testing in her prospective school, was advised to go to first grade
GT teacher said she would be bored to death if we keep her in K
We are nervous to do one way or other
please suggest

Yannam,

My first reaction is boy are you lucky, to have a school suggesting what so many people on this board have to fight quite a while to achieve.

But I can understand that it is still nervewracking - I would suggest you read as much as you can and also consider your daughter. It might help you feel more confident if you could look at the Iowa Acceleration Scale and see how she does on that (although I am not sure how well it applies to kids who are not yet in school, I am sure someone else can answer that question). I do know you can find the worksheet for the scale online.

If you do a search, you will find plenty of other folks here who have had to make the same decision. Good luck, Cat

I don't know your child, but in general, American educators have a bias against acceleration (docmented in "A Nation Deceived"), so when a teacher goes out on a limb and recommends it, I would take the suggestion seriously. What does your daughter want to do? You could discuss with her what the activities would be in KG and 1st grade and ask what she prefers.

There is some good advice on this board.

One thing that we took from it was that it would help if you observed a class were she would go - first grade. I think you will see that your child will be at home there.

We observed a number of classes at schools before we placed Mr W. We saw that his age-peers classes were NOT appropriate for him and that the older aged classes matched who he was. It gave us confidence that our decision was right.

If your daughter doesn't skip, would the school provide any kind of differentiation for her in kindergarten? Is it an academic kindergarten? More play-based? Is kindergarten full day? Are the class sizes in kindergarten and first grade the same? How old are most of the kids in first grade? Has your daughter done full day preschool or day care? How well is she prepared for school?

Make sure that everyone at the school is on the same page with letting her skip a grade. We had that happen to us at the beginning of the year. DD's teacher and reading specialist suggested that we skip her to 1st and once they presented it to the principal and 1st grade teacher it went down hill from there. They suggested we try differentiation and cluster groups and half of the time that never happens. They forget to send her up to 1st or the reading specailist is working with the older kids and doesn't have time to help her twice a week (my DD tells me this stuff all the time) I hate to say it but she has fell to the back burner. And to top things off she has been going to 1st grade for reading (suppose to be anyway) since the beginning of the year and next year they just want to keep her in 1st to do reading and not defferentiate with her at all. Hello but hasn't she been doing 1st grade reading this whole past year. Why should she have to do it all over again. So YES...if they are allowing her a grade skip and you have done your research and are in agreement to it....GO FOR IT but definitley be comfortable with it first. You will know!!

msfriz
she is going to half day school at local montessori which caters 3-6 years old for the last 2 years
initial 6 months were tough for her because we moved from India and she did not have any exposure to english, she was shy in the class and gradually improved and in the last 1 year or so she did lot of things which made us wonder that she is gifted
she read about 800 books in the last year average 3-5 per day
she finished over the counter first grade books and almost completing her saxon math and shurley english first grade curriculum
she is going to academic kindergarden , per class 20-24 students
my daughter went to half day school and we could not aford for full day school...but she pleads us for full day school, we are helpless at that stage..
thanks
her preschool teachers were telling us they finished their max curriculum and asking for their elementary collegues to give them ideas- in their own words
library staff commented that "now that you finished our library what are you going to next"
i understand when somebody comments they never tell complete truth - means negative points-
but still being new to this country and syllabus taught in school we are overwhelmed about the decisions....
any advise would be great and appreciated...

It sounds like your daughter has had enough exposure to school that she won't need kindergarten just to learn "how to do school." If the kindergarten isn't going to include differentiation, I would seriously consider the skip. We didn't skip kindergarten, but we skipped the last year of preschool and started kindergarten a year early. It was nerve-wracking but clearly the right thing to do for us. I agree with the others who have said you should spend time in both classrooms to see which you think is the better fit. You may find that your daughter is ahead of even the first grade curriculum.

her grade levels varied from 2.3 to 3.6 in various parameters tested
thanks for your input

From what you have told us, I would say go for it. My son was so excited to go to kindergarten. But after two weeks he was bored out of his mind and wanted to go to first grade. They have tried pull outs and differentiation in the classroom, but that is only, at best, a couple of hours a day. The rest of the day everything is so beneath his level. This lack of challenge, when he was so excited to get challenge, has resulted in underperformance and lack of initiative.

If you haven't already done so, take some time to read through the report, "A Nation Deceived"
http://www.nationdeceived.org/

There's an executive summary to get your feet wet (http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Nation_Deceived/Executive_Summary.aspx), and then you can plow into the full report for all the gory details.

You should also take some time to read some of the Personal Stories at the Nation Deceived website from students, teachers & parents:
http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Personal_Stories/Read.aspx

This article might also be of interest, because it addresses some of the concerns of NOT putting your child into an appropriately challenging environment:
What a Child Doesn't Learn
http://www.wku.edu/academy/?p=430

Our son skipped K, starting 1st @ age 4y11m. As with your child, the recommendation for skip came from the school... just a couple days before the start of the new school year! At that point, I was extremely ignorant about the world of GT-Ed, and even more clueless about all the potential testing. I'd have to say that reading through the personal stories above helped me the most.

Our son completed a second skip a few months back (at age 8) from 4th into 5th (6th for math) and is doing very well, both academically and socially.

Despite my frequent recommendation of the "Nation Deceived" report, I'll be the first to acknowledge that grade-skipping (single or multiple) isn't for everyone. And, as many have discovered, grade-skipping doesn't always provide a "fix" in and of itself.

But you're off to a good start -- you're asking questions.

My daughter started 1st grade at age 5 years and a few days. The school tested her, and it was a no-brainer to do the skip from their perspective. They gave her extra acceleration in a couple subjects immediately.

They made the decision after she spent a couple days in school last May. The visit was a wonderful experience for her because it gave her a precise idea of what to expect from school. From that point onward, she was very excited about school. There was no anxiety at all. So, put me down as agreeing with Austin's suggestion to let her spend some time in the first grade class.

It was clear that she wouldn't have got anything at all out of kindergarten. She's been very happy and has actually been learning stuff.

Val