Just thinking about next year and wondering if our son should skip first grade.

What would warrant a full skip? Completion of an end-of-the-year test for first grade at the beginning of first? Is it okay to ask for that?

What if a child's handwriting is only early first grade quality? Would you still ask for a skip?

Today the charter school in which we're hoping our son will be admitted draws their lottery choices. I'm on pins-and-needles waiting to hear from them, and want to go into this upfront about what I'd like to see for him, should he be chosen.

If the handwriting is legible, I say it's no reason to hold back. I always got criticism of my handwriting, all the way up to and including high school. It wasn't pretty, but it could be read. It didn't impact my performance or grades at all. It's not that I was incapable of writing neater... it just slowed me down too much, and was more bother than it was worth.

Sounds like your son is in a good place with handwriting.

DS will be skipping 2nd despite his handwriting which is close to beginning of 1st grade quality. It is also slow, and he tends to limit the amount of content.

In the long run trying to get instruction somewhat closer to his achievement level in reading & math seems much more important than some fine motor delays.

I've kind of always gone with the subjective, "can't get needs even close to met without the skip," as the test for skipping. Of course, we also went for having the school fill out the Iowa Acceleration Scale ;-). Have you had the IAS filled out for your ds yet and do you have IQ scores?

I really do think that early elementary is a very hard place for gifted kids as the options for acceleration are so limited. My dd skipped right at the end of elementary so I was less worried about long-term and whether she would still need the skip into middle school and high school as she was skipping to start middle school early and definitely needed it at that point (and still).

I guess that, in your case, b/c you're so early in elementary, I'd want a few things:

1) definitely the IAS showing him to be an excellent candidate
2) recent IQ scores over a group test (I haven't looked at your prior posts, so I don't know what type of testing you have as of yet)
3) some idea as to what the GT/accelerated programming looks like in your district and schools as he gets further into school and your best guess as to whether the type of programming they offer might serve his needs at all when he reaches that point

I might also talk to the GT coordinator if you have one who is reasonably familiar with your ds and get his/her feel for how different your ds is from other GT students s/he has seen over the years. In hindsight, even back to earlier elementary, one clue that we had that dd was not going to get her needs met in GT pull out programs, etc. was that pretty much every GT teacher and coordinator who had her in class was telling me that she was one of the most gifted kids they had ever taught and some of these people had taught hundreds of kids or more over the years. If you're getting feedback like that that makes it clear that your ds is never going to be the "typical" GT student in your district, a skip very well may be warranted.

I like Cricket2's advice.

My personal experience was that DD started 1st (skipped) with poor handwriting and we have no regrets at all. Handwriting was what we focused on at home for the year - 10 mins a day (before school) we worked on handwriting and despite a diagnosed handwriting disability that is likely to have lifelong effects she is now above average for grade in handwriting (speed and neatness). She's not ever going to be able to write volumes, so we are working on typing too, but our efforts at home were totally worthwhile.

I found this thread about grade skipping after checking into the Iowa Acceleration Scale. (Thanks, Cricket2!) After reading the stories, especially Aiden's, the most like our son, I've come to the conclusion that a grade skip is likely for the best. I could have replaced Aiden's name with our son's when his accomplishments were described at the end of his Kindergarten year.

We'll have our son tested this summer by a psychologist familiar with gifted children and go from there.

We've yet to hear from the charter school. It could be as late as next week.

That's encouraging. I'm glad that handwriting isn't a deciding factor.

DS' handwriting has improved over the last year, but we still think he needs tutoring. That's why I asked about Sylvan earlier.

I wouldn't stress over the handwriting - as the parent of a dysgraphic child, I have two pieces of advice re handwriting: first, even if his handwriting is hugely behind grade level, you don't want to hold him back, he still needs to be where his *brain* is ready to be. Second, I'm guessing that if you looked around, you might find the quality of handwriting one grade level up really isn't all that great We actually had a bit of a tough time arguing that our dysgraphic ds with illegible handwriting had any kind of a challenge in 2nd/3rd grade because, well, the writing samples from most of the neurotypical kids weren't all that legible either at that point in time

Re is a grade skip the right thing at this time, I like Cricket's advice. I'd also add that the decision is going to be somewhat school dependent too - we've found that once we hit middle school we were able to find a school that met our ds' needs and allowed him to stay at grade level, which is what our ds wanted. Elementary school wasn't perfect (or even "great" but I don't think that it hurt our ds in the long term to not grade-skip). It was also helpful to look at decisions like this once our ds was old enough that he could give us his input.

That said, if we'd felt it was necessary to grade-skip when he was younger, we would have done it with no hesitations.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Might be worth checking with your school to see if they have specific rules, too. At DD's school, they have to be two full grade levels advanced in all subjects to be permitted testing for a grade skip, which could still be denied. We're trying to decide about this now, but suspect that, with such stringent criteria, this means that we'll be met with a lot of opposition. So, a rising 1st grader would have to be working on a grade 3 level to be considered for a skip to grade 2. That's not just her school; that's district-wide.

Depends on your school so check the official policy. Early elementary is trickier. For our school and really district-wide since the central office has to approve the acceleration requested by the principal, the student has to test two or more years ahead. DS requested math acceleration in 2nd grade and was tested with 2nd through 5th grade tests plus an abilities typed test created by the district office.

Handwriting was one of several considerations that led me in favor of math acceleration but against a whole-grade acceleration. Handwriting should be considered but not necessarily a deal-breaker.

Other districts with these types of rules have been mentioned here before and, although it sounds like a high bar at face value, I actually think that this is very reasonable. Generally, I think that kids who are performing a year or even two years ahead of grade level in all or most subjects can get their needs met in grade with accelerated/honors/GT classes. Kids who are performing beyond that level in all or most subjects may not be able to.

My skipped kiddo, for instance, was probably right at about two years ahead in her weakest subject pre-skip and many grades (4-8+) ahead in all others. We had her take an above level test that was +4 grades prior to the skip and she was at or well above the 75th percentile on all parts save for her weakest subject again. Immediately post skipping she was still in the 99th percentile on grade level achievement tests for reading, writing, and science (the non-weakest subjects ) and tested at or above the level of the average high school student in reading and writing on the SAT (at age 10/grade 6).

I still wouldn't have accelerated her more b/c the one year up in math has been the right fit for her and I never think that you should accelerate beyond the area that needs the least acceleration. We wanted to place dd where she would have to work in one subject, not none, and b/c she has speed issues, the quantity would have been too excessive with more acceleration.

Wow. So you're saying they never get promoted to their real level?

Cricket2 I think there is a real personality component involved in how much a child should be accelerated.

A post from here from some time ago really stuck in my mind that was along the lines of there are 3 kinds of gifted kids:

1) the kids that drive themselves and consume input at an incredible rate - parents/school are driven by child to provide more data. The child is pushing the parents.

2) the kids that are happy to cruise along but if parent provides work kid will happilly do it and enjoy it - no-one is really pushing anyone here.

3) the kids (who may or may not be gifted) but are being pushed 12hrs a day by the parents to output beyond their ability. Parent pushing...

And there was a pithy observation about how in the "real world" everyone thinks #1 doesn't exist and #2 is the same as #3, while in the gifted world only #1 counts... My paraphrasing is no doubt atrocious, I apologise to whoever first wrote this.

But I think which of these groups one's child falls into really impacts what kind of intervention they need at school...

I am thinking your approach makes sense for #1s more than #2s - I am guessing your child is both NEEDING more and is also already thus driving themselves at their maximum pace for their lowest subject. That logic might be way off.

My own child is very much a #2, she's already skipped and she'd not be top of her class if we skipped her again, but she's not going to bother outputting more until she's in a scenario where she's got ground to make up, or at least where the instruction she's getting is at her level AND that is just normal for the class (ie she's not going to do the classwork and then ask for more appropriate work, or want to do different work to her classmates). Her first skip placed her into first grade, in a 1/2 composite class. She was far from the top of yr 1 (far from the bottom too) but with a definite weakness in handwriting (she has a handwriting disability). Just over a year later, one term into yr2, now in a straight 2 class, she is not getting any instruction at her level and it's not her peronsality to ask for more or to push herself to squeeze the most out of the instruction she's getting. She's just going to cruise along accepting that nothing will require effort and express her stress in seemingly unrelated ways at home (extreme negative perfectionism is clearly developing). We won't be skipping her again, for various reasons, but I am very confident that if we did skip her again into third, where she'd be top half of the class in most areas, but not top 10%, that she would be top 10% by the end of the year...Given instruction at her actual readiness level she will rise to the challenge. Given instruction below her readiness level she'll just meander along and enjoy life (sort of, not really, with lots of negative long term consequences).

She's 6.5, she's a little kid, I don't want to afterschool her, because she'd rather hunt lizards in the rocks in the backyard with the dog and I value her spending her afternoons doing that. But I do want her to learn at her level, and to learn how to learn, and how to work, how to make mistakes and think that's normal and ok... Her personality is not such that she will drive herself and do that "naturally".

Edited to add: she doesn't have any major splinter skills, she's developing pretty evenly, and in some ways math, her weakest area, is most in need of being forced to put some energy in through a skip. So she's not a kid with a 3yr gap between her weakest and strongest areas.

Cricket2- I thought my ds was type #2. Yet, this year in kindergarten, he has complained since August that he's not learning, when will he learn, etc. I think both #1 and #2 are valid. That is based on self motivation. Yet, as a younger child, I think wanting to catch lizards always seems more (unless you're afraid of lizards- my ds- lol). Yet, I know exactly want you mean. I also think its interesting how things can quickly change.

Melessa - DD asked for the first skip, she was curled up in a fetal position sobbing and begging not to go to school anymore in the mornings... But I don't ever want to wait for things to be that bad again!

I think that my perspective is driven by two or three things: 1) at the point dd skipped (last yr of elementary), we were getting close enough to the point where it "mattered" that we weren't willing to risk having her be placed at a point where she was not going to be a top student, 2) my dd has processing speed issues that make placing her at the level she can work a challenge b/c she probably could not have handled any more quantity and higher level is coupled with quantity at least where I live, and 3) no, I don't think that I'd place a child at the highest level s/he could work in all subjects.

The main reason I say the last piece is that, for us, the point of the skip was not to push her to her fullest extent but rather to have her need to work some so we didn't wind up with a kid who graduated high school thinking that all she needed to do was grace the school system with her presence to get straight As. We wanted her to have to work some in some area and, for her, that area of learning to work was by getting her into one class (her weakest area) where she was accelerated as much as she needed to be and would need to work to get an A some years and b/c the quantity itself developed work ethic.

In re to the types of gifties above, I'm not sure that I agree with the descriptors, but my skipped child would fit more into type one than the others. She is, however, not pushing herself to her maximum and never has. Pre-skip she was fairly okay with coasting as long as the repetition was kept at a minimum. She was amenable to the skip when the school suggested it though and is generally fairly self motivated b/c she knows what she wants in terms of her educational and career trajectory.

I also have another dc who is more a type 2 and we did not skip her.

Part of why we aren't keen to skip into third now (1/4 way through 2nd) is that we think she will need private highschool, ideally from 5th so that she will have the benefit of highschool teachers to provide extension (not possibly at public primary, our schools are k-7 and then 8-12). Given we can't afford to put three kids through $20k p/a schools we hope she'll get a scholarship from fifth. If she skips into third now she will do the national bi-annual testing in a few weeks time (and do quite fine but not perfect scores). If she skips from 2nd to 4th, she'll miss the testing altogether. If she goes for a scholarship for fifth grade they will ask to see that testing... And of course we don't want to skip fourth as she has to apply during fourth for fifth grade! We're feeling fairly pushed towards home-schooling at this point...

3 groups is pretty crude sorting, but the general idea kind of spoke to me. It's a lot more complicated than that obviously but the fact that some kids push their parents, while other kids will meander but willingly do more and some kids truly are pushed to far makes it very hard to talk to teachers (or anyone else relevant) who just don't get that #1 is possible and that #2 is not #3...

For my DD the problem seems to be more to do with being socially out of step and feeling too different than with being desperate for more academic "food" per se... The moments where you go "WOAH" are rarely to do with academics - but the speed at which she learns is definitely a major difference from other children.

Fun anecdote... I took DS7 to a math club yesterday. It was aimed at 4-6 graders, but had a range of ages and he seemed to fit into what they were doing.

The next youngest kid was 8 and his dad mentioned he was in 3rd and had skipped 2nd. Afterwards DS7 said he thinks he should skip 2nd (the skip has been set for about a month, and we were waiting to tell him for end of year to avoid him bragging or such.) Asked if he had any concerns, he said that there would be more writing, but otherwise, no. So with his total buy-in he has agreed to do practice writing throughout the summer and make sure his social studies cover what would be in 2nd "if" -wink- we can arrange a skip for him.

With everyone on the same page it seems pretty easy.

I think this depends on much more than the child's level in various subjects. There is a lot to think about -- will the child want to do academic or sports competitions that may be grade based later? Will he likely be ready to leave home earlier? Are there good options for delaying if he doesn't want to do early college? What options exist for learning in the current grade? in the grade above? In middle school? In high school? Is there a level at which the district might meet his needs, or will this always be not enough? Is there a gifted program that might help find peers but not begin until a certain grade?

One concern is whether a year skip helps much. If a student is advanced by a few years, one skip doesn't offer much benefit academically. It may be worthwhile to get to a higher level sooner if another school or program fits better, but one year isn't that much different. One thing that does change with advancement tends to be workload and if you have a kid who is pushing and wanting to learn, increasing too easy school workload can interfere with time for enrichment learning at an appropriate level.

These are very individual decisions based partly on ability, but also on local resources, family dynamics, future goals, and personality.

Mumofthree-( I just got back to looking at this thread.)
We are awaiting some advice from a private neuropsychologist about what to do next year with ds. I had been given some indication that k would not go well, but had no idea it would be this bad. All I know is neither ds or me can survive another year like this one. Something has to change.

Agreed. I also like Kaibab's remarks above. It is VERY individual.

And also noting that the three-category descriptors completely misses some kids entirely. My DD fits none of those categories. She's simply not externally motivated. Ever-- so 'push' parenting, as described by 2 or 3 either one is simply a non-starter. We have to turn up the heat to get her to crank through the stuff that she is more than capable of... but sees as a complete and total waste of her time and energy (and mostly, she's right about that).

As Cricket notes, it's often not clear what the actual working level of a child like this is-- because you so seldom get their complete buy-in on evaluations of said working level, and because they may really prefer to work at a level that feels "effortless" even in enrichment activities... and how much of that is perfectionism... chicken, egg, rinse, repeat.

One thing which we found quite telling has been that additional challenges have been adapted to with mind-boggling ease. We were a bit concerned about the 3rd acceleration (in high school), but in retrospect, shouldn't have been. She's managed that one every bit as handily as going into 3rd grade as a 6yo. It would be easy to look at current working level and make assumptions on that basis. But there's no easy way to predict whether or not a particular child will relish the challenge and triumphantly conquer it (and then what, really? What do you do for the next act at that point??), or will decide that it's now "too hard" and that they are unhappy.

We simply have no idea what "throttle wide open" looks like, other than a few glimpses here and there. We certainly haven't wanted to put DD into a situation where that was required of her routinely, though, because that didn't seem appropriate for her given her relative youth. She needs to have the ability to be flakey, since she is at an age where that is completely appropriate. On the other hand, as Cricket notes, we also didn't want school to be effortless. Definitely NOT.

We settled for 97th percentile and up across all but one domain... but that, too, is a moving target. Within a year of each placement shift, that was usually back at 99th again, and the weak domain was edging from 85th+ up toward 95th+.


I think that is how you decide, honestly. Our thought process has been much like Cricket's.

That "breaking point" mentally was, in retrospect, often what indicated that it was time for an additional placement change.

When we were all miserable enough to feel like giving up and bailing out was the answer, it often meant that an additional acceleration was the answer.

HK it's funny, you and cricket are agreeing with each other and disagreeing with me, while I read crickets 1st post and felt I disagreed, but your post almost exactly described our child, ad our reasoning, except the last bit about percentiles, in part because our system doesn't use measures that would allow us to have that data, not in primary school. Also partly because my child seems better suited to being well placed in the class, rather than way out in front. The way our current school delivers the curriculum is also playing a part in our feeling she needs a second skip into 3rd (that she's probably not goin to get), I am fairly confident that at some other schools she would be less badly catered to.

MumofThree, I don't know that it is so much that I am disagreeing with you as realizing that there is no way to place a child who is many, many grades ahead of level in many areas at his/her instructional level and, even if there was, in order to do so, you'd wind up with putting a little kid in high school or beyond and also risking having said child have fewer opportunities as a result.

For instance, having our dd be about a year and half younger than the average kid in her grade and as much as 2+ yrs younger than some, already puts her in the position where we are not absolutely positive that she'll qualify for things like, say, National Merit semi-finals. If she were an 8th or 9th grader this year, rather than a 10th grader, all she'd have to do is show up for the PSAT in her junior year and she'd pretty much be a shoo in for NMSF. While she's pretty consistently testing at the 99th percentile on tests that give a clue as to how she'll do on the PSAT, it is possible that she'll have an "off" day and fall just a tad short.

I wouldn't *not* accelerate a kid at all in order to ensure that she wins competitions, is the valedictorian, or gets scholarships, but it is something that is in the back of my mind as we get toward the end of this K-12 journey. We've compromised. Dd is placed appropriately, like I mentioned, in her weakest subject. In her other subjects, she is placed more appropriately than she would be had she not been accelerated, but she's never really been placed at her instructional level in those areas. The quantity alone, though, of higher level work makes it such that she's busy and couldn't do more without feeling overwhelmed and without sacrificing a life outside of school.

This is all good information for us as well as we consider whether subject acceleration or whole grade skip is best.

How does it factor in if your older child keeps advocating for your younger child to skip a grade?

(Just injecting a bit of levity, really, but you'd be surprised how often this comes up. I don't even know how DD9 really knows about skipping, since we don't know any grade-skipped children that I'm aware of and she's never heard us discussing a skip unless she's eavesdropping after she's gone to bed, but she keeps saying how DS5 needs to skip kindergarten. "Mama, he really shouldn't go to kindergarten. He can already read so well and do so much math. What is he going to do all day? It's not a good idea." I'm thinking she's remembering what kindergarten was like for her....)

I will say, though, that neither dd nor I regrets at all skipping her. We did try subject acceleration before the skip and it wasn't enough. Even if she places lower in her class than she would have without the skip, she is far better placed both socially and academically and we would do it again if we had to do it over.

I mention that b/c I don't want people to think that I am anti-skip nor try to talk anyone out of it. When the alternative is totally unacceptable or, like others mention, your child is miserable, it is sometimes the best thing to do. We tried everything else before the skip: three different elementary schools, subject acceleration, homeschooling briefly when one year was unbearably bad, and GT pull out classes that met daily and replaced core subjects. I think that, when you get to the point that you've tried it all and are still desperately searching for something better b/c it isn't coming close to working, you're at the point of trying something more radical like a skip.

Ametrine, I tend to take a more holistic approach to these things. I favor keeping gifted kids with age mates for many reasons. One reason being that so many skills are purely developmental. Handwriting is a good example--not just handwriting, but writing. Social maturity. Interests. There is eye stuff, attention skills, executive function.

I do think academic fit is important, too. I think a skip might be a good idea when the need for academic acceleration is clearly greater than the difference in developmental skills compared to their new grade-mates that would be caused by the skip. So if a child with a high IQ is typically developing in all other areas they would be one year immature if skipped. Personally, I would want my child to be operating at least two grade levels ahead academically. I feel like only then would the skip be warranted.

So maybe that is where the "at least two years advanced" comes from. Also, depending on the school, there will be many kids operating comfortably above grade level in their respective grades. Again, depending on the school, a child who tests one year advanced might be in the middle of the pack.

Yes. Our DD13 is just a year ahead of Cricket's and this is precisely the trade-off we've made. She is likely to not make the cut as a national merit scholar because she had a less-than-stellar outing that particular morning, basically. Still 99th percentile, and we recently found out she's in the top 50K nationwide, but honestly, with her age cohort, she'd be more like the top 50. It's just that there is no way that we could have flexed everything else enough to keep her from severe mental health problems in the interim.

Don't get me wrong-- she's still a "stellar" student, and looks that way even if one takes her age completely out of the equation and just examines her as an 11th grader. It's just that she looks like "Ivy material" and not slack-jawed "WOW." When she sets her mind to something, though, there is a question of success... not the assumption of it. Personally, we tend to think that is a better thing in the long run.

KWIM?

As I've highlighted in bold, the real problem is that a PG child simply cannot really be placed in a routine schooling environment with true peers-- and even if they could, each of those peers has an individual profile of idiosyncratic asynchronous development that rapidly makes group instruction impossible anyway. It's a no-win situation, and you have to make the least-worst choices with the individual child in mind. For us, that was three skips with early entry and other differentiation tricks like enrichment, GT/advanced coursework, and home instructional environment. For another child, it would be a different mix.

I hadn't thought about the too easy workload increase crowding out time for what he really wants to know. He's a rusher who makes silly mistakes/omits info when it comes to things he already has learned, so increasing worksheets in that department may backfire big-time for him during grading. Not what I want for him. He's very A ("A plus-plus, actually, mom!) oriented and would feel penalized by a swamp of too easy sheets.

Total side conversation here, but this is our first kid through high school - I thought that 99th percentile composite in your state was the cut-off for NMSF. If not, what is it?

NMSF is the top ~16K-- which is more like the top 99.7th percentile, and that is where individual state scoring norms come into play-- national merit commendation is the top 50K (99th percentile) nationwide.

In low-scoring states, the cut-line for NMSF is much lower, and may be well below the 99th percentile nationally. Our state is a bit over the median there, so a cut line of about 211-218, depending on the year. Her score is at the low end of that range. We expect that DD will miss the cut-line for semi-finalist by about a single wrong answer, basically-- she's that close.

This is her first year into the most recent skip, too-- so she didn't get a practice run at the PSAT since she skipped 10th grade. This was her first attempt at a standardized test in that kind of format.

My dd's high school wouldn't let the sophomores take the PSAT this yr due to space constraints so she didn't get the practice either .

I hope this doesn't upset anyone responding to this thread started by KADmom , but I thought the insight given dovetails with my question.

Thanks everyone for the further thoughts in this thread, I've failed to convey my own thoughts very well I think... HKs first post speaks to why we did the first skip, a recent one of crickets is (sort of) why we're not keen on a second, but also pouts out a lots of things that just aren't relevant in Australia. Our DD is not back at crisis point yet, but she's scarily close for only 1 year into the skip. I am really not sure how to get her to highschool sane.

Ellemenope - our daughter really does not fit with age mates, being wih age peers was one on the major problems per skip. She's not socially or emotionally her physical age. She's most like children two years older. A lot of the reasons you list not to skip were reason why she was too different from age mates and needed a skip....

That is our case as well. We've always referred to dd as an old soul. She seems more like 16 or so socially (she's 14) and three of the people she counts as her closest friends are between 17-18 and in higher grades than she. Kids in her grade pre-skip did like her and she had friends, but she fits better with older kids and is more like them in many ways than she was with her age peers. FWIW, my dd is HG not PG.

Our dd is also HG(+?) but not PG.

Lol - yeah, there is possibly a + in there for our dd as well. She's always run a bit shy of DYS qualifications so I'm just going with something in the HG or so range.

Just an update: The blended grade charter has drawn DS as a next year student! Last night we went to the preliminary meeting attended by the parents of three other (out of fourteen applicants) children who made the lottery. So far, everything looks good. The teacher DS will have next year has had her own children go through the school and wasn't fazed a bit when DS started to cry about not being able to stay late to do worksheets.

Wow, after reading this I'm wondering if we should consider skipping? My ds was recently identified as gifted, he's finishing 2nd grade now. The school system's policy is not to test at all for gifted until the end of 2nd grade. My ds loves school work so I've gotten on the dept of education's website and given him the standards of learning (statewide tests) for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade reading (he loves to read) and he's passed all of them.

I have no idea what our school's policy is on skipping, but is it something you would consider with those scores?

For future readers of this thread, there is an article linked in the post to which I am replying, on the first page of this discussion thread. That link is no longer active. Fortunately, the article exists on the Way Back Machine, internet archive: Whole grade acceleration success stories (2010).

I feel AWFUL when this happens... new member signs up... their posts may be overlooked, and therefore the new member does not receive an answer... looks like this person logged in to the forum for about a year. No one noticed their two posts, to be able to reach out to say "Welcome!" or bump their posts.

Many here could've offered information and encouragement, if only we had known.
Hope their child is doing well!!