Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Accelerate or Wait??

My 5-year old daughter was tested by our school district gifted and talented program to see if she would be a candidate to skip kindergarten and go into the 1st grade. We received her results today from the program office. The program coordinator advised us that from her test scores, we had two options: 1). Skip kindergarten and accelerate her into the first grade (which she suggested we NOT do) or
2) Keep her in kindergarten, and next year enroll her into the 1st grade "gifted and talented" program that is being piloted next year. We are very torn as to what to do. The whole point was to move her into the first grade because she is doing work well above kindergarten level already, but the gifted and talented program coordinator suggests we keep her there and enroll her next year into a gifted and talented program in first grade. Please I need thoughts from parents with gifted children...

What accelerated material will they be engaging her with this year? The answer to this is important, because I think that being told that you have to wait 1/5th of your life so far before you can get access to work that might be appropriate is a lot to ask of a young child. You definitely don't want her "checking out" or, worse yet, finding her own ways to make the classroom "more interesting"...Any chance she can just homeschool this year and go directly into the GT program next year? That assumes, of course, that the GT first grade will actually provide work that is at her level.

Hello,
Thank-you, that is a good question. Something we need to bring up to the principal when we go in to discuss our options with her. We just received her test results today, so we haven't even spoke with the pricipal yet. But honestly, I do not think they will engage her in accelerated material becuase kindergarten here is only half days(2 hours and 40 minutes).

She was so excited to start kindergarten, but since starting she is already losing interest...she's asked me if she can have a few days "off" because its boring and not as fun as she was expecting.

That was the other thing I was thinking about as well, if she has tested and her scores allow her to accelerate to the 1st grade now, I don't see how waiting until next year for the GT first grade will keep her engaged.

Do you happen to know what test she was given and what her scores were? Sometimes, test scores can help you figure out what grade level work a child is ready to do (sometimes they can't ), but if they can, that can make placement decisions a little easier.

She was given the CogAT Form 6, Level 1...her composite scores for Age Percentile Rank is 95% and her Grade Percentile Rank is 98%.

I'm not fully up on the scoring system, while I understand the score for her age, I do not really understand the GPR since she has only been in kindergarten for three weeks.

You might find this site helpful:

http://www.riverpub.com/products/group/cogat6/input.jsp

You can input your child's stanine and profile information and get some further interpretation about the scores.

I'd personally choose the grade skip, 100%. The material in first grade may be less boring, and the program should be full day, so she will get a lot more out of the fun aspects of it (social, gym, music, computer, etc.). She's less likely to start hating school that way.

In addition, nothing necessarily rules out entry into the GT program at a later time, or actually the same time. Do you know the cutoff score? Can she qualify based on APR or GPR, or just GPR?

What do you not understand about your daughter's GPR? Just like she was tested, despite being there for only three weeks, other kindergartners were tested too, so she can be ranked against them. Is it the difference from her APR? That's easily explained if she is on the old side for her grade.

I think that's the question. She is complaining now, and needs an alternative now.
She can always do 1st grade again next year with the gifted program if it
a) actually happens
b) is all that
c) seems like something she would benifit from

Everyone makes a big deal over how great the social benifits are of being with 'similar' kids, but I don't think that social can ever make up for not having proper academic fit. Of course it depends on the child, and both is best, but few of us are in the situation were we get to choose a great option. Only the least-worst option.

Remember that a bird in the hand is worth 2 promises for next year.

Remember that flexibility is the key when one has a child who is 'locally unusual.'

Smiles,
Grinity

Because of that, I vote for the skip.

I'd vote for the skip for this reason.

Our 3 year old son was accelerated into PreK with 4/5 year olds and loves it. His comment after the first day was, "They can talk!" referring to his classmates. He still gets a little bored, but keeping up with older kids and the new material gives him a bit of a challenge.