We decided to send our son to kindy with agemates and then skip first grade, but we were happy to have the testing and results before school to help with advocacy.
I have read about this option on here, and feel that this may benefit my DS, who is starting K this fall and is much ahead academically compared to his classmates.
He just missed birthday cut-offs, so he will also be one of the older ones this year (which makes him seem even MORE ahead). So if he skipped first grade, he really wouldn't be that much younger next year than the other 2nd graders.
What criterian did you use to determine this route? Have you found there were basics your kiddo missed that were learned in first grade? Would you do it again?
We will be supplementing at home this year no matter what, but if we think we might try to skip 1st grade, then I would like to consider going along with the parallel first grade curriculum this year (have lots of friends with first graders in same school, so would not be hard to do).
...sorry for hijacking.
Continuing the hijack... but I recommend you do a search for skipping 1st grade on this forum, as there is good info out there. To answer your questions, skipping first, along with going to K with agemates instead of early entrance, is what the psychologist who tested our DS suggested. She said there would be a lot of accommodations needed in our kiddo's schooling, and we may as well let him play another year at home instead of starting K early. She also thought the more fun K year, with less focus on academics, would be better than 1st grade, which is usually a learn to read/learn to do basic math year that can be very hard on HG kids who already know the material. We got a copy of the Iowa Acceleration Scale forms and filled them out, and had the school also fill them out. We all came to the conclusion that he would be an excellent candidate for a grade skip.
We do not regret the skip. It turned out it wasn't enough, and mid-year second we transfered our kiddo to a school for HG kids that was accelerated at least one year. My kiddo had poor handwriting, which was an issue at the local school (they didn't want to accelerate him where he needed to be in some subjects because of his handwriting). The HG school worked around the handwriting. Besides handwriting, DS was small for his age anyway, and so smaller after the skip, and he's not especially sporty. He's coming around now and can hold his own in sports (he's 8 and a rising 4th grader), but I think it was kind of hard on him when he was always the worst at sporty stuff.
I would suggest investigating what sort of acceleration policies your school has.
