Hmmm-- one more interesting thing to add to my DD's story about acceleration (or not), and how much 'accommodation' is appropriate in the destination grade for things like immaturity or lack of motor skills, etc. Asynchrony writ large, in other words.
When I asked my mother (a professional, long-time and VERY good elementary educator about this); shouldn't we let her do some stuff she's really really GOOD at? At the level that she's ready to do them, I mean?
She answered that if a child NEEDS accommodations (say for a writing deficit or adaptive technology to accommodate age-appropriate motor skills), then that child should NOT be accelerated otherwise in terms of content. They should spend all of that extra time (you know, since they already know the curriculum?)
working on skills where they are only 'good' or 'very good' for their age. Handwriting drills. Automaticity of math facts. Yes, this was my mother's answer for our educational conundrum with my 5yo who was reading at a high school level. MAKE her do handwriting until she could do a perfect Palmer hand. Show her who's in charge (I guess). Don't LET her get so far ahead in those areas of strength.
My mom's answer still sends chills up my spine-- but I mention it because this was an otherwise EXCELLENT educator. (Though I think it's obvious that this person would be all wrong for gifted students.) I'm ashamed to admit that we actually
tried our best to take her advice for a while. It was horribly harmful. My mother loved her granddaughter dearly, by the way-- she just genuinely believed that PG didn't exist, and that we were being overindulgent and short-sighted.
