Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School What warrants a skip?

Other districts with these types of rules have been mentioned here before and, although it sounds like a high bar at face value, I actually think that this is very reasonable. Generally, I think that kids who are performing a year or even two years ahead of grade level in all or most subjects can get their needs met in grade with accelerated/honors/GT classes. Kids who are performing beyond that level in all or most subjects may not be able to.

My skipped kiddo, for instance, was probably right at about two years ahead in her weakest subject pre-skip and many grades (4-8+) ahead in all others. We had her take an above level test that was +4 grades prior to the skip and she was at or well above the 75th percentile on all parts save for her weakest subject again. Immediately post skipping she was still in the 99th percentile on grade level achievement tests for reading, writing, and science (the non-weakest subjects ) and tested at or above the level of the average high school student in reading and writing on the SAT (at age 10/grade 6).

I still wouldn't have accelerated her more b/c the one year up in math has been the right fit for her and I never think that you should accelerate beyond the area that needs the least acceleration. We wanted to place dd where she would have to work in one subject, not none, and b/c she has speed issues, the quantity would have been too excessive with more acceleration.

Wow. So you're saying they never get promoted to their real level?

Cricket2 I think there is a real personality component involved in how much a child should be accelerated.

A post from here from some time ago really stuck in my mind that was along the lines of there are 3 kinds of gifted kids:

1) the kids that drive themselves and consume input at an incredible rate - parents/school are driven by child to provide more data. The child is pushing the parents.

2) the kids that are happy to cruise along but if parent provides work kid will happilly do it and enjoy it - no-one is really pushing anyone here.

3) the kids (who may or may not be gifted) but are being pushed 12hrs a day by the parents to output beyond their ability. Parent pushing...

And there was a pithy observation about how in the "real world" everyone thinks #1 doesn't exist and #2 is the same as #3, while in the gifted world only #1 counts... My paraphrasing is no doubt atrocious, I apologise to whoever first wrote this.

But I think which of these groups one's child falls into really impacts what kind of intervention they need at school...

I am thinking your approach makes sense for #1s more than #2s - I am guessing your child is both NEEDING more and is also already thus driving themselves at their maximum pace for their lowest subject. That logic might be way off.

My own child is very much a #2, she's already skipped and she'd not be top of her class if we skipped her again, but she's not going to bother outputting more until she's in a scenario where she's got ground to make up, or at least where the instruction she's getting is at her level AND that is just normal for the class (ie she's not going to do the classwork and then ask for more appropriate work, or want to do different work to her classmates). Her first skip placed her into first grade, in a 1/2 composite class. She was far from the top of yr 1 (far from the bottom too) but with a definite weakness in handwriting (she has a handwriting disability). Just over a year later, one term into yr2, now in a straight 2 class, she is not getting any instruction at her level and it's not her peronsality to ask for more or to push herself to squeeze the most out of the instruction she's getting. She's just going to cruise along accepting that nothing will require effort and express her stress in seemingly unrelated ways at home (extreme negative perfectionism is clearly developing). We won't be skipping her again, for various reasons, but I am very confident that if we did skip her again into third, where she'd be top half of the class in most areas, but not top 10%, that she would be top 10% by the end of the year...Given instruction at her actual readiness level she will rise to the challenge. Given instruction below her readiness level she'll just meander along and enjoy life (sort of, not really, with lots of negative long term consequences).

She's 6.5, she's a little kid, I don't want to afterschool her, because she'd rather hunt lizards in the rocks in the backyard with the dog and I value her spending her afternoons doing that. But I do want her to learn at her level, and to learn how to learn, and how to work, how to make mistakes and think that's normal and ok... Her personality is not such that she will drive herself and do that "naturally".

Edited to add: she doesn't have any major splinter skills, she's developing pretty evenly, and in some ways math, her weakest area, is most in need of being forced to put some energy in through a skip. So she's not a kid with a 3yr gap between her weakest and strongest areas.

Cricket2- I thought my ds was type #2. Yet, this year in kindergarten, he has complained since August that he's not learning, when will he learn, etc. I think both #1 and #2 are valid. That is based on self motivation. Yet, as a younger child, I think wanting to catch lizards always seems more (unless you're afraid of lizards- my ds- lol). Yet, I know exactly want you mean. I also think its interesting how things can quickly change.

Melessa - DD asked for the first skip, she was curled up in a fetal position sobbing and begging not to go to school anymore in the mornings... But I don't ever want to wait for things to be that bad again!

I think that my perspective is driven by two or three things: 1) at the point dd skipped (last yr of elementary), we were getting close enough to the point where it "mattered" that we weren't willing to risk having her be placed at a point where she was not going to be a top student, 2) my dd has processing speed issues that make placing her at the level she can work a challenge b/c she probably could not have handled any more quantity and higher level is coupled with quantity at least where I live, and 3) no, I don't think that I'd place a child at the highest level s/he could work in all subjects.

The main reason I say the last piece is that, for us, the point of the skip was not to push her to her fullest extent but rather to have her need to work some so we didn't wind up with a kid who graduated high school thinking that all she needed to do was grace the school system with her presence to get straight As. We wanted her to have to work some in some area and, for her, that area of learning to work was by getting her into one class (her weakest area) where she was accelerated as much as she needed to be and would need to work to get an A some years and b/c the quantity itself developed work ethic.

In re to the types of gifties above, I'm not sure that I agree with the descriptors, but my skipped child would fit more into type one than the others. She is, however, not pushing herself to her maximum and never has. Pre-skip she was fairly okay with coasting as long as the repetition was kept at a minimum. She was amenable to the skip when the school suggested it though and is generally fairly self motivated b/c she knows what she wants in terms of her educational and career trajectory.

I also have another dc who is more a type 2 and we did not skip her.

Part of why we aren't keen to skip into third now (1/4 way through 2nd) is that we think she will need private highschool, ideally from 5th so that she will have the benefit of highschool teachers to provide extension (not possibly at public primary, our schools are k-7 and then 8-12). Given we can't afford to put three kids through $20k p/a schools we hope she'll get a scholarship from fifth. If she skips into third now she will do the national bi-annual testing in a few weeks time (and do quite fine but not perfect scores). If she skips from 2nd to 4th, she'll miss the testing altogether. If she goes for a scholarship for fifth grade they will ask to see that testing... And of course we don't want to skip fourth as she has to apply during fourth for fifth grade! We're feeling fairly pushed towards home-schooling at this point...

3 groups is pretty crude sorting, but the general idea kind of spoke to me. It's a lot more complicated than that obviously but the fact that some kids push their parents, while other kids will meander but willingly do more and some kids truly are pushed to far makes it very hard to talk to teachers (or anyone else relevant) who just don't get that #1 is possible and that #2 is not #3...

For my DD the problem seems to be more to do with being socially out of step and feeling too different than with being desperate for more academic "food" per se... The moments where you go "WOAH" are rarely to do with academics - but the speed at which she learns is definitely a major difference from other children.

Fun anecdote... I took DS7 to a math club yesterday. It was aimed at 4-6 graders, but had a range of ages and he seemed to fit into what they were doing.

The next youngest kid was 8 and his dad mentioned he was in 3rd and had skipped 2nd. Afterwards DS7 said he thinks he should skip 2nd (the skip has been set for about a month, and we were waiting to tell him for end of year to avoid him bragging or such.) Asked if he had any concerns, he said that there would be more writing, but otherwise, no. So with his total buy-in he has agreed to do practice writing throughout the summer and make sure his social studies cover what would be in 2nd "if" -wink- we can arrange a skip for him.

With everyone on the same page it seems pretty easy.