Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Any PG kids never skipped a grade?

Unfortunately, although these anecdotes are interesting, it doesn't answer the question- what percentage of grade skippers have an outcome like that? The 15 yo valedictorian wears a headdress and comes from a foreign country, which also is helpful in terms of applications for diversity, etc.
I remember a PG boy who was a prodigy who cracked under the pressure. (I can't think of his name and I'm sure others have read about him). He ended up being basically unemployed and his hobby was memorizing trolley car schedules.
Some grade skippers are very successful and some aren't. Obviously, it's complex in analyzing what features make some successful and others not. This is simply food for thought!

I'm not sure what I'd be classified as technically, but there were long periods in which I was left at grade level. After a couple of months of hell after starting in 1st grade, my parents wound up pulling me out of school at times because of the bullying, my growing frustration/depression, and the teacher's approval and sanctioning of the bullying for not fitting in right. When this would happen, my parents found ways for me to audit/take college courses, help with research, read widely on my own in addition or as an alternative to school.

This was pretty much a cycle until partway through middle school, when I found drugs/alcohol to help me survive going to school (boredom in classes, teachers who didn't want to help me, and students bullying me/beating me up). Not good at all. Ironically, this was when administrators saw me as a gifted student--4.0 and apathetic about not learning anything new--and gave me a token grade skip in math and science.

To contrast this, DC20 was okay at grade level (also pg, but 2E) once he switched to a school serving a large gifted population. Middle school and high school honors and AP courses, along with athletics and academic extracurriculars, really allowed him to thrive and enjoy school.

However, if there is a major problem (situations that could end in a kid wanting to harm themselves to fit in or learning that they never have to work to succeed), another school or skipping might be a good solution to consider.

FWIW, that boy was William James Sidis.

I think "PG" describes something about a child, but doesn't address so many other issues like personality, drive, social skills, and academic level, that it's very hard to predict what a given PG child will need. I know many PG kids at grade level (many discussed on this board). I asked very similar questions with my kids were younger and I was trying to figure all this out, but having anecdotes about other children don't help me figure out what's best for mine.

If I had a happy child at grade level, with maturity typical of his age, who had friends he enjoyed, I wouldn't think about skipping no matter what the IQ score. I think it's hard to plan for what a kid might want later whether that is social fit in middle school or need for more radical acceleration. I've found it works best for us if we deal with the kid currently and adjust later as needed. Skips can be undone, they can be increased, or the kid can give up a traditional path later depending on needs.

Whether skipping makes sense depends on a lot more than intellect. Maturity, social inclinations and abilities, other interests, available schools and school flexibility, peer group in each grade can all matter. A skip from elem to middle school might make a difference in available courses, but a skip from 1st to 2nd grade might not change much. Some kids need many skips in all subjects and subject acceleration or skipping one or two or three years wouldn't come close to the right academic level, so then the kid needs to be with kids much older or needs homeschool or needs to sacrifice academics to be in school with peers. Which works for a given family depends on the family.

Dottie I haven't been here long, but I will miss you! Thank you for all the times you have already helped me both personally and through reading your insightful comments to others.

I think that A Nation Deceived is going to be the closest you're going to get to research on the long term outcomes for accelerated students that is actual research and not anecdotes. I also haven't seen any research (not anecdotes) that shows that many or most accelerated students develop ADD (which isn't caused by environment or stress, FWIW) or wind up not in the top 10% of their high school graduating classes.

My only anecdotes would be a child of about the same age as Dottie's ds who started as the youngest in grade and skipped one grade. Thus far (entering high school in the fall), she's been a straight A student in the top 1-2% of her class throughout middle school and my grandmother who started even younger than dd12 and skipped two grades. That was a long time ago but she, too, did very well and graduated as one of the top students in her NY high school graduating class.

That is not to say that all gifted kids or even all PG kids need the same thing. As many others have said, it depends on so much more than the IQ scores and the choice you make today isn't set in stone for tomorrow.

OT: Dottie, we shall miss you! Who else will crunch our numbers for us?

Does a really late skip count? I don't claim to be PG, but I was the youngest in my class with a late sumer bday, and I skipped my senior year of high school to go to full-time college, dual enrollment without taking any classes at the high school. Until I got to college, school was a boring waste of time for me for the most part, and if I had ever heard of grade skipping back then, I would have found a way to do it. I was one of the top students before my senior year, and remained in the top upon graduation. I also had some ridiculously high weighted GPA with all the college classes on my transcript.

Depending on how you look at it, I'm either a GT kid who never skipped a grade, or possibly one who skipped one really late....but either way, in retrospect I wish I had skipped a grade or two in early elementary.

ETA: I guess my point is that even a not PG kid can sometimes benefit from a grade skip. As some wise person on this board has pointed out before, the Iowa Acceleration Scale was not written with PG kids in mind, it was written based on the fact that various forms of acceleration are beneficial to all GT kids. I still agree that grade skips will depend on the kid, no matter what flavor of gifted, but you don't need to be PG to benefit from a grade skip depending on the situation.

ETA - Dottie leaving! The horror!!!! We will all miss you and your insightful comments very much.

Thank you all so much for your wonderful inputs!

I have read all the replies and feel much more prepared. I was thinking this morning on my train ride, that I would approach to his teacher at beginning of new school year about the possibility to do subject accelerating, at least see what the reponse would be. The ideal case would be for him to spend morning in the higher level class for math and reading and come back to his grade level for art, music and gym classes in the afternoon.

I have another crazy idea of testing both my boys for Chicago regional gifted school this fall to see if they could both get in ( not sure at all for DS 4.5). If that works, we might considering moving.

First thing first, I've got his music teacher happily agreeing to write a recommendation letter for his DYS application. I hope to send the application by 8/1, if the formal evaluation from the tester arrives before that.

"Gifted underachievement is real. If a child isn't getting perfect grades, maybe they do need a skip!"

I'm interested in exploring Annette's statement further, as we're midway through the academic year in Australia and my daughters' grades are less than perfect. Is it underachievement? Is it boredom? Are there learning disabilities? Are there gaps in higher order critical thinking skills? Is it maturity? And how do you figure out the solution if you're not sure what's causing the 'problem'?

And to what extent is it a problem? One of the bits of advice I got when accelerating my girls was that the 'ideal' place for them to be was at the bottom of the top-third of students in the grade-skipped class - just higher than middle of the road, but well below the top of the class.

What do others think? What do 'less than perfect grades' tell you?

jojo

I feel similarly about my 10 year old. This lead to homeschooling for him starting as a 2nd grader. We could have done a 1 year skip, but that still wouldn't have come close to what we needed academically and he would have really resisted the additional output required. I'm still calling him the same grade because now I feel that we're going to cover every possible random topic we can because he doesn't seem driven and emotionally mature enough to go away to college early. If he comes to me in a couple years saying he'd like to do that, we'll re-evaluate.

All that be said, I know several HG+-PG kids locally that are still at grade level with enrichment or higher math. They're just the more easy going variety and tend to do a bunch of outside enrichment.


Love this! Totally agree. I know we're making educational decisions based on "least worst" at that moment. Nothing is perfect.