I am not against grade acceleration, actually am probably for one but...here are some examples from a friend of mine who accelerated his son because they had no other options. The boy skipped first grade. No problems till he hit middle school - seventh and eight grade. He was still on top of his class academically,but looked very small and underweight compared to classmates, especially girls. This lasted about four years, started looking more like his classmates around 10 grade. Then came the driver permit issue. For some reason it was torturing to him that he couldn't drive while all his friends did.
He is now a a senior at an IB school. He is not a shining star any more, had a bout of depression requiring medication.
Now, I am not saying that this is all happening because he was accelerated. This has most likely nothing to do with acceleration, but that fact that he was accelerated DID NOT help his situation. Every case is different. But while considering grade skip we should not forget that our 5-10 year olds will be young men and women sooner than we think.
Grade skip does not put our kids with smarter ones, it puts them together with older ones. This is an important point to consider.
Ania
