Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Timeline of subject acceleration?

A common theme on the forum is the extent of acceleration that our children require. Last week, on a lark, I looked up my province's curriculum standards for elementary school and was surprised to see that DS2.8 has met most of the grade 1 targets across the board without any direct instruction. DS won't begin school until he is 4 or 5, possibly as a homeschooler, but I'd like to develop a sense of what road I'm in for.

I'm interested to understand what acceleration has looked like for your children across a variety of subjects and ages to gauge the pace of learning I might expect from DS. (I'm asking this with the obvious caveat that abilities and interests are probably quite idiosyncratic to the individual.) Do they accelerate more quickly through early grades? Which subjects tend to require the most subject acceleration, to what extent, and when?

If your children weren't able to accelerate at a pace commensurate with their abilities, I'd also be interested to hear what you think an appropriate pace would have been.

I've made a hypothetical sample of the information I'm looking for, with an 8 year old child as an exemplar:

Age 4-- Math grade 1, English grade 2, science grade 2, etc.
Age 5--Math grade 3, English grade 4, science grade 4, etc.
...
Age 8--Math grade 6, English grade 7, science grade 7, etc.

Many thanks!

Interesting question.


Actual:

Age 3, 4 + 5-- preK (Montessori), grade 1-ish(?)-- unschoooling, eclectic homeschooling Understand that this is the period in which my daughter learned to read-- quite late by this community's standards-- at almost five years old.
Age 6-- grade 3 (uniform placement)
Age 7-- grade 4-5 (acceleration via pacing of two grades into one year)
Age 8-- grade 6 (GT)
Age 9-- grade 7 (GT), math grade 9 (algebra I)
Age 10-- grade 8 (GT), math grade 10 (geometry)
Age 11-- grade 9 (honors/AP track), math algebra II
Age 12-- grade 10
Age 13-- grade 11, beginning dual enrollment and college coursework
Age 14-- grade 12, mostly dual enrollment coursework.

Now, what I think would have been MORE suitable, in terms of what she seems to have needed in her own developmental terms:

Age 5-- reading gr2, math gr2, science gr4, social studies gr4, writing-- on level.
Age 6-- reading gr 8, math gr4, science gr7, social studies gr7, writing gr 1.
Age 7-- reading gr 9 or 10, math gr 5, science gr9, social studies gr9, writing gr 4 or 5.
Age 8-- reading gr 11 or 12, math gr 8, science gr10, social studies gr10, writing gr6 or 7.

Age 9-- reading post-secondary, math gr9, science gr10, social studies gr10, writing gr8

Age 10-- math gr10, science gr11, social studies gr12, writing gr10

Age 11-- math gr11, science post-secondary, social studies post-secondary, writing gr12

Age 12-- fully post-secondary.

Understand that the latter represents an idea of where a snapshot of her ability would have placed her, but if you look at the difference in trajectory from ages 5 to 7, you can see what we opted for in enrolling her in a school rather than homeschooling.

Here is what I think WOULD have happened had we not done that:

age 6-- reading gr12, math gr7, social studies gr10, science gr8, writing K

age 7-- reading post-secondary, math gr9, social studies post-secondary, science gr 11, writing gr1

age 8-- reading post-secondary, math gr11-12, social studies post-secondary, science post-secondary, writing gr2

Do you see the problem?

In reality most kids get no acceleration. Some schools will allow a years acceleration but most don't. Differentiation is what is usually offered but the teacher may or may not get around to it and it may just mean doing twice as much of the same stuff.

These are great replies! Thanks especially squishys and Howler for your detailed responses.

I have a few comments to make on your posts, but I'm going to wait until more people reply first, as I don't want to unduly bias the discussion.

Much, much appreciated!

One remark I have is that my experience with DS is consistent with Howler and squishys' observations that their children advanced quickly in the early years in science. It seems like children who grasp the scientific method and abstract concepts intuitively can accelerate quite quickly to middle school(and above) material in early elementary. I borrow books on science topics in the 9-12 range from the library often and scaffold DS on the language side. He needs more richness than that provided by material targeted at the K/early elementary set.

For DD we did a whole grade acceleration (she skipped most of K and part of first grade)...math and reading were still a bit easy for her but there were many advanced kids in her particular class. Now she just finished third grade and I can see her skipping to 6th grade math but ONLY because I have been working with her a bit at home. She got almost no differentiation in school. For reading the same thing. She could probably skip 4th and 5th grade reading. Writing is a different story and she really struggles for whatever reason (Part of the reason why is that g/t kids do not necessarily have advanced fine motor ability).


DS just finished first grade and the first half of the year he got no differentiation (other than the little I did at home), and the second half of the year we switched schools and his teacher had him doing mainly 4th-5th grade math, but it was not a real "curriculum" and there was a lot of skipping around from grade to grade depending on the topic. Not sure what's going to happen next year. He's at about a 4th grade level for reading, although tests like an average 5th grader. Unfortunately the teachers don't really have appropriate level books in the classrooms and they hesitate a lot giving kids material that they consider too advanced. But it's easier to ability group and/or differentiate for reading than math. Each kid is given a "just right" level based on testing that is probably not accurate.

In terms of appropriate pace, I think they could have moved twice as fast and skipped kindergarten altogether. So they could have done 1st-2nd grade in one year, 3rd-4th in one year, etc. Unfortunately in real life it doesn't work that way although DD is headed to a g/t magnet for 4th grade that apparently does compacting/accelerating of material.


I have no idea what is going on with science. I just let the kids read what they are interested in at home.

A few thoughts on pace of acceleration and it's interaction with age:

In the early years, almost all of reading and mathematics consist of basic skills, with minimal abstract thinking. A child with exceptional memory can acquire these skills very quickly. A child who has exceptional abstract thinking, but -not- exceptional memory might be a little slower to pick these up, but as soon as s/he reaches mastery of the basic skills, s/he will surge forward.

For writing, there are additional factors having to do with fine motor skills.

In what primary/elementary teachers call the content areas (science and social studies), basic skills are minimally relevant, except insofar as they restrict access to written sources of information. Language comprehension, social comprehension, and conceptual grasp of the scientific method are more important.

Oh, and I think we all realize that there is no new math throughout elementary school, beyond the four basic operations (two of which are derived from the others). So once you've mastered those, it is quite easy to blaze through several years of math in a year.

I think that part of the spurts of growth that one sees in gifted children is a function of the switch from basic skills to higher-level reasoning, problem-solving, comprehension, and expression in middle/late-elementary level curricula. There are multiple paths to basic calculation and decoding skills (especially reading), but once you pass that hump, abstract reasoning takes over.

And, BTW, HK, I have a sibling whose actual acceleration profile was very similar to your DD's idealized profile. My mother was concerned about the huge gap in writing skills (translation: zero note-taking in college), but found that my sib's memory and comprehension were such that notes were unnecessary. The other adjustment was that the required English composition class, history/geography, etc. waited until the last term before graduation. Of course, this required a fair amount of flexibility on the part of the university, which happened mainly because there was faculty support.

Hard to pin down the variations between knowledge, gaps, direct teaching, and personal learning for any particular period. So for DS8.5:

math
pre 5 - ->G2
Age 5 - G1-3
Age 6 - G4&5
Age 7 - G6&7
Age 8 - algebra+?

That's functionally self-directed learning with some minor gap fills in school this past year. It is hard to ponder what it would look like with direct at challenge level instruction rather than time split at school between with I-dotting and T-crossing and doing his own thing.

Reading
pre-5 -> G2
5 -> G3
6 -> G4
7 -> G5-6
8 -> G7

Here the instruction is more tight but his placement is advanced but not accelerated as math is.

Science is such an unknown (heh.) Breadth and depth and variety are so many factors, I don't know that you can equate say having a two month astronomy segment in third grade to any particular curriculum or pace. Personal opinion is this would look best with wide sweeps of a variety of topics and deep-diving on demand until topic exhaustion. One day DS is watching random mainstream science videos and the next he spends three hours watching open courseware college biology 101 videos on cells.

A question for all of you with experience in skipping/acceleration - to the extent it has been up to you, how do you find the "correct" challenge level for each subject? Do you look for your DC to be say, at a comfortable "95th percentile" in a grade (or higher, or lower - just throwing out a number)? Also, if the school or curriculum offers a "challenging" version of a course (honors/gifted/advanced), do you consider a "lower" level than you otherwise might?

We may be facing discussions with the school in the near future about such matters and I am truthfully a bit lost. This has been a very interesting thread! Great questions, OP!

My 12 year old was homeschooled for five years and then attended school for two years. We will be homeschooling again next year.

Age 5: Reading grade 2-3, math grade 1, history grade K, science grade 1

Age 6: Reading grade 2-5, math grade 2, history grade 1, science grade 2-3.

Age 7: Reading grade 3-6 (4th grade literature program), math grade 3-4, history grade 2, science grade 4-5.

Age 8: Reading grade 4-7 (6th grade literature program), math grade 5-6, history grade 3-4, middle school science.

Age 9: Reading grade 5-8 (7th grade literature program), prealgebra, history grade 5-6, middle school science.

Age 10: 6th in school, math was Algebra I. Needed grade 8 across the board.

Age 11: 8th in school, math was geometry. Needed grade 9 across the board.

Age 12 (next year's homeschooling plans): English grade 9-10, Math Algebra II, history grade 9-10 output expectations with college level materials, science grade 9-10 output expectations with college level materials for non-majors, foreign language grade 9 (year 1).