My oldest, D11, moved to a gifted program for fifth grade. He is now in 6th. One of the things he has enjoyed was moving from always being the youngest in the classroom to being smack bang in the middle of the age group - at least half of the class is accelerated as well.

While it remains anecdotal evidence, it is still quite a nice sample of how kids are doing a few years after acceleration. I thought I’d share a bit, since the subject comes up so frequently.

First off, I notice that outwardly at least, girls seem to be doing better than boys. Though the sample of girls is small and I know less about them than the boys, nor do I interact much with their parents, having a boy myself. They may struggle inwardly and not let it show. I know this is how it happens with my accelerated daughter,

The younger boys tend to struggle somewhat both sociallyand academically, and more so the younger they are. Fall or winter birthday, just a bit younger than the youngest non-accelerated kids? Tends to work better. Spring or summer birthday, a whole year younger? The struggle is very clear. Sounds like a no brainer once you write it down, but I rarely see th relative age distance referenced as a criterion.

My daughter (young for grade, born just before the cutoff) provides another daeta point: she happened to skip grades together with a girl that was almost exactly a year older, due to having been redshirted In the first place. They both had been first graders in a split classroom, went on to be third grades in almost the exact same classroom with the same kids. Up till then, they had identical educational experiences, with the identical teacher and identical kids. Older girl integrated seemlessly, it’s truly btu a grade correction for her. My daughter struggles socially (fairly invisible, she is not bullied or rejected, just lonely, and feels she is really friends only with her fellow skipper.

Early acceleration (early entry or skip in the early grades) appears to work much better than later acceleration. A few kids have skipped 4th grade (the “transition year” that the IAS counsels against), and boy, does it hold true - those kids, no matter how smart they are, really struggle with with writing and languages.

Neither of my kid struggle academically, by the way, with the exception of some EF issuesm they soared effortlessly to the top of the class wherever they are. Particularly in my daughters case (she is also tiny, whereas my older son is physically indistinguishable from the non accelerated kids), all of which makes the academic/social mismatch in development that much more glaring and continues to convince me that grade skips provide bandaids, but don’t work very well as the only or best solution.

Thoughts? Of those who have more than just one or two data points, dos your experience tally with mine?

My experience has been identical with gender. I am probably the opposite of most parents here, I worried more about the social impact and (stupidly) believed the school would adjust for academics. My DS9 is a late summer birthday, so we had him be the oldest in his grade. The school kept bugging us to move him up a grade (essentially because they could not/would not differentiate). We agreed to subject accelerate him only. Each upper grade teacher would say how great he did in their classes, and continued to recommend moving him up entirely. Then the next year, when they actually had him in their real class, they recanted and stated that socially he thrived being the oldest in their class (so it was helpful having them see him in both groups). DD7 did an early admit for kindergarten, with the intention of us using it as babysitting for us, and the school getting extra funding for her (very small school and it had a low kindergarten enrollment rate that year), and we were told and agreed that she would do kindergarten again the next year with her same age peers (spring birthday). She thrived, and the school changed their minds and pushed us to continue her with that grade. We did not want her being 16 most of her senior year in HS, and refused. She redid kindergarten in a different, much larger school, and is now at the end of her first grade year. She has never bounced back and does not thrive at all. She will state that she is at such a different level than her peers, and has asked repeatedly to be grade skipped again. However her new school will not do grade skips at all. So grade skipping was a better choice for our daughter, but not our son (they are both equally ahead, not much intelligence differences between the two).

My elementary school called a parent meeting on two separate occasions to recommend a full-year acceleration for me, but my parents declined on social grounds. In hindsight, it's difficult to fault their reasoning.

For DD13, we found that none of the social concerns that applied to me applied to her, so we skipped her without reservations, and to be perfectly honest, a second one would probably have worked out even better.

I skipped 4th, and my parents turned down a skip from 3rd to 6th on social grounds. Their choice provided insufficient acceleration, but it meant no academic disruption in terms of class rank. I later cut out the last year of high school and received university credits in high school for first year. By university, I was 3 years younger than my peers, but it felt like there was no gap in any area. (I suspect male accelerants might have a harder time with the social side here.)

DS6 hasn't skipped per se, but has telescoped 1/2 this year in a mixed-age classroom. A grade 3 placement next year will still be below his functional level in most subjects, so I'm looking to place him in a mixed-age classroom the following year that covers grades 4-6, in case he needs further acceleration, and provide some acceleration on the side in math/science in the interim.

For DS, I'm very conscious about ensuring that his output in the core subjects is >=90%ile for end of year benchmarks, as well as ensuring he is housed in a phys-ed class with similarly sized students. Because he's very large for age, I have less concerns in terms of impacts on athletics/leadership/social.

Several of my family members have skipped one or more grades, from small-for-age males with early spring birthdays to late fall females of average size, all maintaining their academic standing. The females seem able to adjust to later grade skips, with several (including myself) concentrating their acceleration in their teen years. The males have only skipped in K/1/2.

My view is that you really have to consider the individual learner at the point of each skip, as the child's academic/social/emotional needs will vary over time.

DS7 started K early so he is accelerated one year. He’s the youngest second grader at a large public elementary and is doing great. He doesn’t have social or behavioral issues and just qualified for the gifted program for next year.

It would be a poor fit if he were in first grade this year. He’s at the top of his class in second grade. He’d be really bored in first. For him being the youngest is no issue at all.

I probably know at least a dozen individuals who were grade-skipped, early entered, or radically accelerated, not including those who've been homeschooled for most of their education. What I know of their outcomes (and much of the research) align with many of the observations made by PPs. Factors that tend to lend to success:

-female
-taller/more physically mature
-early entry, or otherwise skipping at natural school transitions (e.g., into the first year of middle school, high school, or college; when changing schools)
-balance between instructional and executive function challenge (e.g., the greater the EF demands, the higher the student's achievement level needs to be in comparison to the placement; when instruction is more closely matched to the true ZPD, then EF often needs to be scaffolded).

The vast majority of the persons in the sample referenced above appear to have had net-positive experiences with grade-skipping or its variants, but there were generally trade-offs of varying degree. How one weights the trade-offs is highly individual.

Simplified version of my personal experience (which is actually much more complicated than this): early entered to K, skipped third, ninth, twelfth. Entered uni with a few credits from summer classes from the one summer between high school years, four years younger. But I entered university with a number of close relatives, ahead of me, close behind me, and in my cohort, and access to several proactively supportive communities on campus, which is highly likely to have contributed to my social transition.

My family and friend network includes both males and females with early and late skips. At least a couple of males declined an offered skip, or even reversed a skip, partly for social-emotional maturity reasons, with the declined (late) skip looking like the right decision in retrospect, and the (late) reversed skip not. My PG sib, who didn't skip at all early, made up for it with a multiple-grade late-grade skip split across two years. In the case of learners who need that magnitude of skip, I think the question of whether males/females, taller/shorter, etc. handle the skip better socially becomes much less significant than how urgently the individual requires acceleration for academic reasons (as well as to moderate all of the social-emotional sequelae of catastrophically-poor educational fit).

My son was homeschooled for K-4, skipped 5th, did 6th at a tiny private school where his class was combined with the 7th graders (with additional acceleration in math), skipped 7th (because he had done it the previous year in the combined classes), and did 8th at the private school. While the EF demands ratcheted up in each skip, the intellectual demands stayed fairly constant. So, school was challenging, but not in the right way and by the end of that year, he was begging to be homeschooled again.

So we did high school level work at home for two years and then he decided to go to the public high school as a 9th grader. He has been there for the past two years, and to the school's credit, they placed him properly in math. But the other classes, particularly English and social studies, have been a joke. So midyear this year (10th), we decided to homeschool him in those two subjects again. Next year, he will take three AP classes at the high school and three college level classes at home. And we are thinking about either graduating him at the end of next year with a gap year or doing a very non-traditional senior year.

The skips were an interesting exercise. I'm sure they work for some kids, but in our case it seemed like we just ended up trading one set of problems for another, and the main problem, the lack of intellectual stimulation, was never solved.

My DS11 skipped a few years ago, and is now in 7th grade. He is positively thriving, and there has literally not been one negative thing about it. In the least, one skip wasn't enough.

He is not a social butterfly at all, but he has made friends who have similar interests. He finds them immature, though, but tolerable. The fact that there are nearly two years older has helped.

He also has very strong EF skills.

I do wish that DS did early entry, so that way he could have fit in another grade skip.

Similar experience here. My son skipped 5th grade, and subject accelerated into 7th grade science, 8th grade math. He has EF issues. He does better socially in middle school than with age mates.

He is bored in all his classes except science (Which is more rigorous than the biology class I took in high school). The EF demand is challenging him, but intellectually he is bored. He has made progress on some EF, organization and study skills. But as soon as he adjusted and realized the material was easy, he backed off on those and isn't developing more ability in that area.

DS10 started K early but we ended up undoing the one year acceleration and spending three years in a K/1 classroom. He is my 2E son and around K/1 he was doing a lot of OT and remediation. He really liked his K/1 teachers. He was also in a small Montessori school at the time and grades didn’t matter much. He could always do higher level work.

When we switched to public school we put him in an all gifted classroom in the correct grade for his age. It has been a good fit.

So for him I’d say undoing the skip was a good thing.

DS11s tester recommended another grade skip at the time, which we eventually decided against. EF skills were a concern, which I imagine is more often the case for boys than for girls.

However, we knew that a gifted program within a college prep track was an option from 5th grade onwards, otherwise the decision would have been a lot harder. If there is a choice, I’d always choose to accelerate the curriculum rather than the child...

I have two kids with three skips (sort of) between them.

My daughter was happy about the skip up to the end of 5th grade, when she started noticing that the other kids in her class were "talking about things I don't understand yet." She would have been the youngest in her age-grade class, so her single skip was close to a double skip. She's in early high school now and is doing better, but is still aware of the age difference.

My eldest was double-skipped and entered a dual-enrollment program at 14. The kids in his class reacted to him like he was an oddity, and he didn't like that. He stayed in the program for an extra year. The one-year-ish difference from his classmates was much less of an issue. Now, he's finished a year of college and generally fits with the other students because his age is close enough to theirs that it's not a big deal. There's a student at the college who started at 15. He has to live at home and doesn't really fit in. IMO, college is about more than just studying, and taking initial steps on your own with peers is a big part of it.

In the early years, skips can be helpful. This is especially true when the kids are prepubescent and everyone is essentially the same in many ways. Things get different when kids get older.

This problem is very difficult, and it's complicated by lack of ability grouping in schools. Well, kids with learning problems are more likely (not guaranteed) to get work at an appropriate level via an IEP. Gifted kids tend to have more a challenge in that regard.

Overall, my advice is to be very cautious about more than a single skip. Your child will not die dead of moving a bit more slowly. Single-subject accelerations can help. When the child is older, s/he can look at dual enrollment programs and similar options, which let a very bright high-schooler stay with age peers while taking college classes. The program Tigerle mentioned also seems like a good option.

Our DD skipped mid 4th to 5th. . She was young for 4th grade so was almost 2 years younger than some of her new classmates. One of the Duke Tip team stated DD could pull off another skip but we chose not to as her sibling is only 1 year older, and that would have placed DD in the grade ahead of her sister. In 6th grade she and her sister took a fast track math class so by 7th they were in algebra.

DD continued to make all A’s although she struggled with EF issues due to ADHD (inattentive). We worked on that situation quite a bit. Socially, DD did much better in 7th when she found a group of snarky, quirky kids. This year, 8th, has been more of a struggle as we moved overseas where DD attends a small international private school. She hasn’t yet found good friends as it takes her a long time to develop relationships.

DD is still tiniest in the class but would be small even if not skipped. I used to fret about this, but what really does it matter for girls? I suppose for boys this would be more of a concern. We don’t have to worry about her obtaining a driver’s license or drinking at the same time as her grade mates because even the older kids won’t be doing this where we live.

Classwork is still easy for DD, and although she “studies” (glancing at a paper) with kids in class, she still receives all A’s. DD is taking Geometry at age 12 due to the fast track math class and the grade skip. Her other classes are 8th grade basics at this college prep school. We attempt to get her to “practice” studying, but it is hard to get her to understand that she will need good study habits someday. We are facing high school next year with both kids. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.


We did not experience this, but our DD is more a writer and artist than a math loving gifted kid.

My DS, who is currently in 9th grade, started kindergarten a year early and skipped 4th, putting him two years ahead. He's in a small school with multi-age classrooms, where this is not unusual, so it has not been a problem for him academically or socially. He's still at the top of his class and may skip another year in a subject that's in his area of strength. He's got close friends and tells me when the subject comes up that he cannot imagine being two years "behind" where he is. I've also had his teachers tell me that they never would have believed someone his age could have the social and emotional intelligence and maturity that he shows in his writing. Writing and languages have never been a problem for him.

I think it all depends on the kid and the setting. Knowing your kid and trusting them and your gut is everything.

True, these happen to be mathy/sciency Boys rather than artsy/literature-loving girls. I believe another poster talked about boys in her environment tending to skip earlier rather than later.

But this is one of my hypotheses after all: some factors appear to impact boys and girls differently - on average, or aggregate, of course there will always be anecdotes to 5e contrary.

Our son, 11 in February, is in 6th grade also. He skipped 4th. He did very well academically in 5th, scoring on state testing highest in the county in math and highest of the school's 5th grade in Science. He also scored "exceeding expectations" in LA.
Socially, early in this school year, he was bullied and we needed to remove him from that school and place him with Connections Academy. He's in 6th everything except for math, where he has been placed into 8th, Pre-Algebra.
He's scoring very well in this environment, as well. His LA is a high B and the math an A.
Social studies is the bane of his existence...but he's still pulling a low B.

So for us, skipping 4th academically has been no problem. Executive Function for him is, according to the psych eval we did, normal for his age...which puts him at a disadvantage in the higher grade. We're looking into ways to support him for next year when we plan to place him back into a B & M school in another district.

Socially, we were told, and agree, that he's normal for his age. But for him, his ADHD (inattentive type) sometimes causes him to become frustrated and when he is, he tears up. This has been interpreted as babyish behavior by some kids in his prior school and so made him a magnet for bullies.
We've been researching ADHD quite a lot, and working on strategies to help him, so we are optimistic for his coming school year success.

Had sone health issues that delayed my ability to contribute to this thread but the worst is now behind me - God willing.

We have one daughter now aged 13 who is about to complete 8th grade so that is the current ceiling on our experience thus far.

What we have found with our DYS and SET daughter is that unless a family has literally princely sums of money that there is no perfect solution and even being able to offer lessons from a modern day Aristotle as a personal tutor the child will still likely suffer in terms of social integration with age peers.

Our DD was miserable at school by second grade - she was so miserable that she became enraged over trivial things at home - really brittle. In desperation we had her evaluated and a whole grade skip right into fourth grade was arranged at the end of second grade.

What kept her ~sane was that I can mainly work from home and have been able to accelerate her Maths at her pace (well actually I got scared and slowed her down) so despite her pleading she did not start pre-Algebra until 4th grade - after school via AoPS. Maths is the easiest subject to accelerate in our experience.

Her 4th grade was awkward because we live in a tiny village so even with ka skip she had no real peers plus it seems that young girls can be very reluctant to except that a younger girl is better than them academically.

5th grade was happier and she had a couple of friends at school but the pace of school work bored her literally to tears but now we had 'baby CTY' and AoPS to keep her more stimulated in addition to some weekend G&T sessions offered by a local state college. She also needed to bring her EF up to grade level.

In sixth she encountered social issues because of her friends' puberty and the age difference became more apparent. The wheels finally coming off at the beginning of eighth grade with her former besties completely dropping her when their group merged with a another group and the alpha of that group took a dislike to our daughter. This was a very trying time for her and for us as parents as we are all empaths. Luckily she had CTY friends by then in nearby large cities but even so the prospect of sitting in the lunch room on her own was devastating for her. It all worked out well though in that she has a group of nerd boys to hang with and she is appears to now be more resilient and able to talk thing through with me. There were some horrible moments along the way that I still shudder about.

Our daughter will start HS going into pre-Calculus and a bio-medical 'academy' - we are hoping that larger pond of a regional HS will offer her more chance of meeting local peers.

In retrospect, I agree for the most part with Val - regarding the fact that puberty does impact things for skipped girls in our experience but this probably would be less of an issue for a girl who hits puberty earlier.

We have considered more than one skip in the past but we have no desire for our DD to go to college at even 17 let alone younger.

As someone said on this board before - when you have seen one high LOG kid all you have done is seen one high LOG kid - YMMV.

This would seem to be confirmed for my DD13, also finishing the 8th grade, who is as advanced physically as she is academically. Nobody has any reason to suspect she's younger unless she tells them.

You all are talking about the disadvantages of grade skipping and being physically small, but I see little talk about the disadvantages of not grade skipping. My older sister and I were both grade skipped. But then my parents moved to a new school district and that district claimed to have an etched in stone policy against grade skipping. My sister and I had to go back to our age grades. It did not feel like repeating a grade socially or anything. But suddenly, both of us who were very academically adept were stuck in with kids who had little interest in school. For me, personally, I felt awful. I wanted to learn. I could not relate to kids in my age grade who were so far behind me academically and intellectually. We tell people not to judge someone by their looks. But then, we withhold academics from someone who just doesn't "look" the part of an older grade, even if they are indeed there. I was miserable for the next three years. Finally, around 7th grade, things started to pick up. But honestly, I grew to hate school so much by then that I do not think I ever recovered.

You are right... other threads over time have discussed various PROs and CONs of grade skipping and of not grade-skipping... here is a roundup of acceleration discussions.

You are not alone in your unfortunate experience of negative results when a skip is withheld!

To help minimize the numbers of persons who suffer the lack of appropriate acceleration, the Acceleration Institute has conducted and presented research showing the generally positive results of a grade skip, especially when factors listed in the IAS are proactively considered/weighed in the decision-making. Two things may work against broader acceptance/adoption of acceleration:
1) Entrenched thinking of "peers" as being those of the same chronological age (rather than intellectual/academic peers)
2) Common Core has ushered in an era of extensive data collation enabling the evaluation/rating/ranking of schools and teachers based on achieving equal outcomes among their student populations. Closing achievement gaps to gain a positive evaluation/rating/ranking may often involve capping the growth of students at the top

For continuing growth and development, kids need:
1) appropriate academic challenge
2) true peers
For typical kids, these needs may be met in a general ed classroom, however for children with higher IQ/giftedness, these needs may not be met without intentional effort in providing advanced curriculum, and grouping for instruction with academic/intellectual peers.

Dd8 telescoped year 1&2 and is top of her class but still bored out of her mind. Socially she is probably the most mature of her group so she’s done very well. We are looking at transferring her to a more rigourus school next year - we have no idea what year level we’ll enrol her in.

Ds is due to be skipped at some point in the next 6 months. I don’t think he’ll cope well. He’s small for age and still very “young” for age. I’m not sure what we’ll do their either!

I’m on the side of girls doing better with skips.