Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments After grade acceleration...

I'm working on getting my son grade accelerated after your success stories, as well as reading "Genius Denied".

My son is currently loving his "stardom" as a precocious 2nd grader. He is popular, well liked by friends and teachers, and succeeding in everything he undertakes (at school) without much effort.

My question is this: After a grade acceleration, in your experience, did this change? I have also seen him sullen and depressed - I don't want to go there again.

Thank you all!

My DD was miserable as a precocious first grader, and found that a grade acceleration gave her a lot of "stardom."

The first 9-week grading period was tough for her, because the material was mostly new to her and review for the rest of the class. Processing and writing speed were big issues for that entire year, too, but were far less of an issue the following year.

Ed, (that will be easier than mcsquared)

My DD8 (4th grader) skipped K.

During 1st grade, there are many high achieving kids and she is one of many high performers. By 2nd grade, she is clearly top of the class. We moved to a new school this year. They have TAG classes that teaches 5th grade level. (She could do 6th-7th grade level Math and LA but she has some gaps) There are a few kids who were better than her at the start of the school year but it seems like she caught up with them already. It's just a matter of time that she would become the top cat (she likes cat nor dog).

HG and PG usually needs 2 or more grade acceleration (granted with no 2E issue).

Your DS will be fine after grade acceleration. He probably will need more later on.

In out experience, our DS who was able to easily make friends had no problems making friends after his grade skip, and again after transferring to an accelerated program another year ahead.

As for academics, after one grade skip in our local school, DS was still getting the highest test scores in the class. He had probably the worst handwriting in the class, but that wasn't a huge change as it was poor before the skip. We did talk to him about how he would probably be one of the slower kids in gym, but as he wasn't all that coordinated at that age anyway, he said he didn't mind since he was already pretty bad in gym.

We got what we really wanted for our kiddo when we transferred to the accelerated HG program -- he was finally appropriately challenged and not always top of the class in everything. The teacher pointed out that since the program was a big change for most kids since they were finally getting challenged, it was common to go through a phase where there may be tears and complaints of things being too hard, but really the kids were just experiencing how to learn in school for the first time. We did discuss this possibility with our son, to help him know what to expect.

We also told our son that we were doing our best to find him an appropriate school situation. I think it helps kids a lot to know that the parent is on their side, even if things don't work out.

How the transition goes also depends somewhat on your kid's personality. My kiddo is pretty laid back and doesn't like standing out. He's also a chameleon and can fit pretty well in any group. Things went fine for him.

I came back to read this because it scares me. My nearly 6 year old son scores >99.9 percentile. At his current school he is unlikely to get anything in the way of acceleration or extension and all the other schools are much the same. If I want acceleration I will have to fight everyone and may make things unliveable with. If I do every other school in town will know before I approach them.

when he is about 11 and changes schools there is an extension class but it is new and I suspect it won't last. Also it is more achievement based and he is likely to have given up by then. I guess I had better get used to fighting the system.

Popular, well liked by teachers & other students, and academically successful did not change post skip. There was the bit of "celebrity" thing happening in that grade skips aren't common, but there was also the benefit of MG+ kids who were, on avg, 18 months or so older (dd's bd made her very young for grade pre-skip), some of whom were reasonable peers academically so she no longer had the aspect of standing out as the best in virtually everything. There are still areas where dd is still a real standout but in her weakest area, she now looks like a MG typical kid albeit that isn't the case so much as that she's been accelerated as much as she needs to be in that area and doesn't need more acceleration there.

In regard to the note that HG & PG kids need more than 1 yr of acceleration barring a 2e issue, maybe but maybe not and I wouldn't worry about that yet when crossing the first skip bridge. My dd is HG but not PG and we've gotten by with the combo of one grade skip, the bd that put her in as young for grade, subject acceleration post-skip, AP & honors courses, and choicing her to a very large high school (around 2,000 kids) so the odds of there being other gifted kids was better, and selecting a school that is very high performing with significantly higher expectations than our assigned school.

My son was super nervous about his skip when it actually came to the day he was switching. He had friends and all that in his old class. It only took him about 2-3 days and then he loved it. He made lots of new friends and came home happier! Something helpful I read and thought about when making this decision was that we wouldn't know if it was better unless we tried. 12 years is a long time to sit bored all day! =] hope it goes well.

Yes-- same story here. DD13's writing skills place her as a "very competent MG 11th grader," when compared with her typical age (16+17yo) academic peers in that setting.

One caution is that this can lead the child to assume that this is a TRUE 'weakness' or area of struggle, since they don't have an accurate frame of reference.


I think that this is true even at higher LOG-- it just happens with more than a single skip. It's the same strategy that we've gone with. Believe it or not, most of the time, after the FIRST skip goes well, the school becomes more willing to consider doing it again if it seems necessary.

Yes, this has come up with math this year. DS9 is effectively grade-skipped twice (one skip in the regular local school, and then a transfer to a school for HG kids that is accelerated at least a year). He started saying that he's no good at math (mostly because he's not at the top of the class). It helped to show him the the chart depicting where his scores are compared with the rest of the district (not just his class). This helped more than reminding him that he's at a year younger than most his classmates, that he's still in the 99th percentile, that scores go up and down, etc.


The held true for us. When DS skipped 1st grade and was still underchallenged so we were trying to find solutions, I remember the principal commenting more than once that she forgot that he had already skipped a grade. Once the school sees how successful a grade skip has been, things get better. They must see for themselves that their long-held beliefs (skips are not a good idea) are not true for everyone.

I think that this is the hallmark of a successful skip. Dd14's teachers often said the same to me in middle school (she skipped the last year of elementary) and it came up once with a high school teacher who had assumed that she was one of the oldest in grade not younger. We find a lot of educators with the belief that being older is invariably better and who are rather surprised when that doesn't hold true. In fact, I recall when we were ready to register dd14 for kindergarten (her bd had her starting just before her 5th bd), the principal telling me that the "younger kids invariably fail" and that her age would become more and more problematic as she got further into school and she fell further and further behind due to being too young. Redshirting is not uncommon with kids whose bds are in the summer and early fall here.

That attitude tends to lead toward educators making assumptions that kids who are succeeding socially and academically must be older not younger and certainly not grade skipped. It is good, IMHO, for them to realize that their assumptions may not always be true.