Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School What we suppose to do? --updated on 1st page

You will have to determine if the school is "anti-skip", "very cautious with skips" or "acceleration friendly". Many schools want to be sure that the child will still be in the top 10% AFTER the skip.

Have you had IQ and achievement testing done? I can't remember what age children need to be to take the WISC IV but you should probably wait until she can take that one. She may hit ceilings on the tests designed for younger kids.

This kind of data will help the school determine how quickly she learns.

The IOWA acceleration scale is another tool that is used to help determine if a child is ready to skip.

Heh... I put that phrase on the bingo board.
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/114956/School_bingo.html

Take a look at A Nation Deceived, which indicates only 6% of grade-skipped kids at age 18 and 3% at age 23 saw negative effects of grade skipping on their lives. And while social/emotional outcomes are influenced by a ton of variables and thus hard to quantify, in general these outcomes are more positive from grade-skipping than negative. See volume 2, chapter 6 for the details.

http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/Nation_Deceived/Get_Report.aspx

It sounds like the principal will be hard to convince re a full skip. Would the school consider letting her go to 1st (or 2nd) grade for math? This is the area where she clearly needs acceleration according to their own tests. If it goes well, then you may be able to convince them to let her go there for other subjects?

Keep working on it. My DS had a difficult year in K last year due to boredom. It only got worse as the year went on.

You guys are awesome. Gave me lots of bright ideas and lots of homework to do. Very helpful. Will keep you updated. Thank you all.

Herenow, the school is definately anti-skip. The principal came from public school and feel kids need to stay with her peer in the same age. Will definately get "IOWA acceleration scale", recommended by another parent too. Thank you.

Dude, Nation Deceived is such a great book. I am reading it...finished vol 1 already. Thank you. Will keep you posted.

Knute794, I will keep your words and work on it. I proposed to the principal that let my dd go to 1st Grade class, like a class visitor, for a couple weeks. No need to mention acceleration to her, and I am pretty sure she will be good there as she made a couple friends there already. But the principal said it would be too hard to monitor and evaluate her performance.

A couple days ago, dd suddenly said to me "mommy, I should behave like a 1st grade student...". We tried not to disclose what we are doing, but she feels it as she is the one in the tests.

Let me gather yours and others' ideas and make another proposal. Thank you.

Is it really necessary that move at the beginning of the school year? Any kids accelerate in the mid of the term? Thanks

Hi,

It sounds as though your daughter has a great attitude towards school and is doing well. Since your daughter is almost 6, she would not be that much younger so it seems an easy answer to skip to first. It will be interesting to see what the Iowa Acceleration Scale says. I've never used it.

My daughter was just five years three months when school started so they considered her too young to move to first even though she was tested to be approaching fourth grade in reading at the end of 4year old pre-k and with math concepts in third grade. The teacher readily admits that she had mastered work well beyond end of K expectations the first week of school, but the school is not willing to move her or any other student and I haven't pushed it too much because I like that she is in a short day program (2 and a half hours) and think she needs time to work on following directions and checking her work. My daughter even behaves well in school and helps other children, but can make careless mistakes on simple work and sometimes, horror of horror, she does not color neatly although she did at 3 (not that compelling any more?) and I think they use those things as an excuse to keep her in K.

Your daughter is older, has been in a school-like setting for years, and has good work habits so may be a better candidate for a grade skip than my daughter, esp if she is emotionally mature.


If you haven't had an IQ test, I wonder if that might help.