As strange as it sounds a child should be working two grade levels ahead in order to support a one grade skip. You want your child to still end up at the top of the class they skip into, albeit with a smaller gap between him/her and the other classmates. Because of this, most whole gradeskips end up being stop gap measures which require further tinkering. A child should be able to perform well at the grade level above the one that he/she is skipping into, or other options such as subject acceleration should be pursued. A child shouldn't be put in a situation where they are struggling academically as well as socially.
Just wondering: why? I'm not sure I fully see the reasoning here.
It seems to me that if a child understands, say, grade 1 material in kindergarten, s/he should be able to skip to grade 2. Given that the child would have to be reasonably bright to do this, the grade 2 curriculum shouldn't present a huge challenge. From what I've read, even if second grade is challenging initially, many, many gifted kids will catch up by quickly and be ahead again soon.
Although I see the point about not wanting a child to struggle academically and socially, I'm not sure I agree with ensuring that the child remains at the top of the class? Why is this necessary? To me it seems beneficial to have to learn to work a bit at understanding something. I see and meet too many gifted kids and adults who never learned how to work through a challenge, and I'm convinced that the problem starts in primary school.
My DS skipped 3rd grade this past year and had an +3-by-age acceleration in maths. School was still too easy. The major benefit was that it was merely
too easy, rather than
mind-numbingly dull. And I don't think my kids have IQs near a lot of the kids I read about on this list.
I guess all this is a roundabout way of saying that gradeskips should be more widely available.
And finally, most of us are stumbling through this trying to do the best we can.
That I agree with.
Val
