Hi all, I am interested in your thoughts on a decision we have to make.
My 7 year old 2nd grader was identified as HG, and as such, was placed into the pull out GATE program as a 2nd grader. In our district, GATE is a pull out class for one hour a day. All the other kids are 3rd graders in his group. He loves GATE, although he has struggled a bit with his fine motor skills, which are below grade level. Luckily for him, there has not been a lot of writing in his GATE class, but they do projects like build a space station as a group. He has a hard time meeting the standards of his group in a craft situation like that. Also, he is a little immature socially... although I think the 3rd graders have been a good influence on him in this arena. He has grown up a bit this school year.
The GATE teacher told us that he can move up with the current group for the next school year and be a 3rd grader with 4th graders. The other option is to go with the 3rd graders next year.
The benefit to moving up with the older kids is that he likes these kids quite a bit. Also, he feels special being with them and he kind of needs that because he feels misunderstood much of the time. The downside is that he would go to GATE at a different time than the other 3rd graders. The 3rd grade schedule is designed to have GATE occur during a regular classroom activity that is ok to miss. If he goes at a different time, he could end up missing math every day. It would be harder on his teacher, and that's a negative.
The benefit to going with his age mates is that he would get to know more of the gifted kids his age. There are a lot of kids that I think he would really like. He hasn't had the chance to get to know them because they haven't been in the same class. The negative to going with his grade is that he would miss his older friends. I don't know how big a deal this is, they are not close friends who come over after school, etc. He would miss his special status as the young one in GATE, which he enjoys.
I'm leaning towards going with his classmates next year. Any thoughts on this choice? Thank you!
