Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Kindergarten, experiences with skipping?

Not sure if you saw my first post about acrynoms... but for the longest time I was in complete denial about DS5 being gifted. I just thought he was a bright child. Being our first I didn't know that he was so far beyond his agemates until I went to K-school's orientation. That was the big shocker to me when I saw what they'll be teaching. At the end of the orientation I approached one faulty member and sheepishly explained to her that I think our child is seriously gifted and asked her about the gifted programs. As luck would have it, one of her children went through the local G&T program so I picked the right person to talk to. I came home and told DW "DS is gifted. I believe now". She smiled and said "I've been telling you this for a long time."

Yet I still had some lingering doubts. We went to the K pre-screen where he pretty much topped out on the screen. (3 parts to the evaluation. He had average motor skills, one perfect raw score, and a nearly perfect raw score for the other section. I forget what they were labeled but it was essentially math/logic and reading/verbal.) So basically he's hit a ceiling on their prescreen test. As luck would have it, the person that I talked to during orientation was the very same teacher that gave us our pre-screen scores. She said "I thought this might be you and your DS" and remembered our previous conversation. She gave us the name of a specialist to talk to. After we return from our vacation, we're going to see if we can arrange an informal meeting. As you mention Grinity, we're going to approach this very lightly. Our state provides for testing and identification so we should be able to request this in a very non-confrontational manner.

That's a good point too. Our K-school is separate. I'll take a look at elementary school and see what they say about entering early.

Very helpful to hear about other's experiences. Thanks.

JB

We're already getting a sense of #1.

JB

I said some of this in the other thread, but I'll post it here, too. If you find a non-academic half-day K program with an understanding teacher, it can be a very good year for an HG+ child. K was a good year for our DS6 because he had time to do his own stuff at home and he got to be social at school. The teacher's goal was to teach every child, no matter where they were academically. She was a pro at differentiation, and we loved her! Still do!

First grade--full-day highly academic--was abysmal. Just awful. So bad that we pulled him out of school. His 1st grade teacher didn't get him at all. She's a "get them all to read" specialist, and she didn't understand that he was bored silly with "a is for apple" all day, despite the fact that he had been IDd as GT in K, and his achievement test scores were DYS level almost across the board. I suspect several of the kids in the class were at least vanilla GT, because many of the kids we know who had never been discipline problems in K or preschool were acting out. She didn't see that this wasn't necessarily the kids' problem, but HERS!

I observed the class and was shocked by the way she taught. She told them the answers to the assignment literally 7 different ways, spending 15 minutes giving directions for a 3 minute assignment (!!!), and then she didn't understand why DS6 (and others) didn't bother to complete the assignment. Why should he? He already knew the answer! She had started bribing the kids to get them to cooperate (in addition to the taking away of recesses that she'd been doing all along) just before we pulled DS6 out of school. She had no control over that class.

I heard later that one other mom had at least threatened to pull her child out for homeschooling, and a third was advocating hard for her son (whom I know is at least MG) and feeling very disappointed and worried by the class. My own efforts at gentle advocacy were met with defensiveness and no changes. She wouldn't even put a harder book in DS6's backpack, a change that required literally nothing extra from her. With that refusal, I saw no point in trying further. If she wouldn't make that little change, she sure wasn't going to adapt the classroom work to meet his needs!

DS6 likes to play sports, so we weren't sold on a grade skip for him. A mid-year school change seemed risky, since we had done no research and had not budgeted for private school tuition even if we could find one that seemed right immediately. That left emergency homeschooling as our only solid option under the circumstances.

DH and I do thank this 1st grade teacher between ourselves, because I had never bothered to see DS6's test scores before. I was just happy he school had IDd him as GT without my having to advocate. I thought he was MG and that all was well. Then he hit 1st grade...and KA-BOOM! That awful experience is what got me over my GT denial (well, mostly...) and led us to see that DS6 wasn't "just" MG, but HG+, and a DYS candidate. It opened our eyes to what DS6 would have to go through in school--the boredom, the challenge to find true peers, the frustration, the underachievement, etc.--and there's a lot of value to that awareness.

Other than that fortunate awakening, our situation was perhaps the worst-case scenario, because we had the learn to read year with a teacher who was by all accounts defensive and threatened by GTness. A teacher open to GTness and willing to differentiate might have salvaged 1st grade. But it wouldn't have been as good a year as K. Even if we had skipped K and put him in 1st grade early, I think 1st grade would have been hard. Our better solution--though not as good as homeschooling has been for us--would have been to put him in K on time and then skip 1st grade. Second grade is supposed to be better in our area, less "get 'em all up to speed" and more open to differentiation, regardless of teacher.

Homeschooling has been nice because we can go deeper, not just faster. That works for us for now, and it allows us to put DS6 back into school in jr. high or high school at his age level if he wants to play sports. It seems to offer us the most flexibility to meet all of his needs, at least for now. Ask me again next year...

If you're considering grade-skipping, I think it pays to ask parents with kids older than yours about what happens in what year. Skipping the *right* grade(s) can really make a difference to finding a good fit, I think. Not all skips are created equal!

FWIW...

Kindergarten was a hell year for my child. I had read that many gifted kids do fine in K...not mine. It was an all day program so I think half-day likely would have been OK. My poor boy would sob nearly every night how boring his day was, how he didn't learn anything. He was so excited to go to school to learn all these cool things. Honestly, it was my fault. We were doing all this fun chemistry and physics and math and rich literature at home and he thought he'd get more at school. The teacher sent him out for reading group. they found 2 other boys who were near his level but according to DS they were several levels below. So
on he started reading chopping as they were due to choral reading. Man it was a hell year.

The saddest thing ever was after 1st grade orientation, I told him to make sure he continues to tell me how he feels about school. He looked at me and said, "Why? It didn't do any good last year. There was nothing we could do." I felt so helpless.

First was better but second hasn't been so good. Apparently, a lot of time is spent in second reviewing everything he either knew before 1st grade or learned at the first exposure in 1st grade. It's not until now they've hit "new" stuff but DS got it the first day in class but still had to do worksheets every night for 3 more nights incrementally extending the topic each time when he didn't need any of them. He goes get challenge math problems but that's not enough.

Granted, a lot of it is due to my son's personality. he hates repetition of any kind and just always want to be learning something knew.

I've been told 3rd grade gets better but honestly don't hold out much hope.

I think spending half a year in K, moving to 1st for the 2nd half, and then moving on to 2nd would have worked out fine for him.

I have another entering K in the Fall. Different kid for sure but just as advanced as his older brother. sigh....

My first clue should have been when teacher said at the First PT conference in November "Oh your son is doing great. He's ready for 1st grade." BUt our district has a no acceleration policy of any kind.

I know now from the wonderful folks here that those polices can be changed with the right advocating, test scores etc.

I'm reading a book "Re-forming gifted education" which is supposed to help me in writing an education plan for DS and presenting it to the school.

It does pay to check the private school carefully, though. I've heard some horror stories about private schools, too. They can tell you anything to get you in the door, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll deliver on their promises.

In fact, our DYS counselor told us they've had significantly better luck advocating in public schools because the private schools--even GT schools!--treat education solely as a business, and any deviation from the norm costs them money (or at least that's how many private schools seem to view it). I thought that was surprising.

JBDad - you kind of sound like my DH in the GT denial area. He was incredulous when I told him that most kids entering kindergarten do not know how to read at all. Although we have not yet entered the school system, I'll let you know my experiences and plans as someone who has already gone through the assessment process.

We worried about waiting for kindy until our son was 5, a requirement in our state. He was reading at 2nd-grade level (based on book descriptions) when he was 3 1/2. Our state requires IQ of 130 to be early entranced, so we found a gifted specialist to test our son. We expected he would be MG, and were floored to find he had DYS numbers. The assessor told us that in our smallish district, our son would likely not find anyone like himself through high school. She recommended that we don't start K early, but let him have fun for another year learning at home. She made it clear we would have to be flexible in our education, and thought we would probably have to move at some point, and homeschool too. Our son is in a 2-day a week preschool, with a preschool teacher who gets him and provides advanced materials for him. We will keep DS in this preschool next year too (he doesn't turn 5 until next Jan).

DS4 is not one of those kids who will follow rules or sit still "just because." So, we're thinking that another year of maturing would be good, then we'll put him in K. We have good friends with a HG+ child who have been working with the school system for a few years now, and our schools are becoming more GT-friendly. We hope to talk with the school district ahead of time to find options for our son before he goes to K (e.g., reading group with older kids, etc., grade-skipping) We are taking a wait-and-see approach. If the school is willing to work with us, that would be the best. If not, we will ask for partial homeschooling. And if that doesn't work, we'll do full-time homeschooling.

We have found great benefits in our son's assessment. We received advice tailored to our son and our family and our needs. We now know the obstacles we will probably encounter, and we were given many resources to help us on the way. And we found out we were not crazy. It was a huge relief, in many ways.

Sure. I'm glad it's worked for your family.

I'm just saying that I think any private school is a caveat emptor situation, especially since many won't refund tuition if the school doesn't work for your child. If it's a bad fit, it could be an expensive bad fit.

I was really surprised about even private GT schools being trouble for DYS advocacy. That was downright shocking to me! I thought they would be the most flexible and receptive of all, but apparently there's no guarantee even there!

I guess that does make sense. If all the kids at the school are GT, and the school doesn't recognize LOGs, then maybe they'd be the least flexible option...

Anyway, carry on!

Way to go with the quote boxes CFK!

Chiming in about private schools. We live 45 miles from a major metro area, and I do know many of the "fabulous" private schools claim that they don't do GT because their curriculum is challenging enough for all their students. In our small city, where students are harder to get, it seems some of the very small private schools are more willing to work with you in tailoring education. Unfortunately, the one school with the advanced curricula in town (for many subjects...) doesn't happen to believe in dinosaurs, which would be a problem for DS4!

I agree with CFK�s post above regarding the difficulty of dealing with public schools in our area. That said, I think I would be very happy with some of the school districts just over the state lines.

Regarding the original question concerning skipping K, we have the unique perspective of one child who attended K for two years and one who skipped it altogether.

Our daughter was early entranced to K at private pre-K school and made to repeat it when we moved her to the public school because she missed the first grade cut-off by less than six weeks. The standards were lower for her second year of K at the public school. She had mastered every objective for the year (as listed on the report card) by age two. Yada yada yada, she was moved to Catholic school and skipped 2nd grade for an effective reversal of the public school retention and lives happily ever after!

Our son was early entranced to 1st grade at the same Catholic school, skipping K altogether. He had already �checked out� of pre-school two years prior. Luckily, his pre-school was flexible enough that they allowed him to read during nap time and play quietly with building materials instead of participating in circle time. They were also the first to mention the �G� word.

Skipping first hasn�t been enough of an accommodation for him, but I can�t even imagine how miserable he would have been had we kept him with his �legal� grade in our public district!

St. Pauli girl,
We happen to be Catholic, so sending our kids to Catholic school makes sense as we don�t have to worry about weekly religion classes for Communion and Confirmation preparation. That said, we send them to Catholic school for the more advanced education rather than religious training. Luckily, the curriculum is in agreement with mainstream education and science. This year, DS learned in-depth about human evolution in 6th grade and DD had very candid sex ed in 8th grade. Respect for religious diversity is also a prominent theme.

I would also avoid a school which claims dinosaurs never existed!