Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Tell me about subject acceleration

I met with the school counsellor this morning and the result of the meeting was that she would try to coordinate my son (who is entering first grade) to be taken to 2nd grade for language arts. Now I'm very new to this - can anyone share information or experiences about this. Is this a good solution when you don't want a grade skip? We want to keep him mainly on his age grade at this point but he is very far advanced

I did this for most of my primary grades, Minichi. I would say that it worked BEST when I wasn't missing another subject in my "home" classroom, and also when I wasn't the ONLY student moving between rooms for a subject.

So my answer is that it depends on how it's implemented.

When DS was in K he went to year 1 for Maths and later in the year for Language Arts. Overall I think it was a much better option than staying in his own class all day. DS then skipped year 1 and went straight to year 2, which has had some challenges, but we are nearly halfway through the year, and overall we are happy with our decision.

I think one thing to look out for with subject acceleration is what do they do when students get to the top years of the school. Just make sure they have a plan to continue the advanced work.

Also, with DS, we found that he was still not challenged with the single subject acceleration, and while it was better, it was not enough. The school thought he was challenged, so he did not receive any differentiation in addition to the subject acceleration. We are at a new school this year, and even with the grade skip, the school is providing extension work to DS and making sure he is challenged.

Good luck, and it sounds like a great step in the right direction to me.

Thank you both so much. As i believe the school is set up whereby the langage arts are run at the same time so he would go and not miss out on anything else in class.

At this point this is our ideal scenario as we dont want him to skip but want him to learn together with peers not on his own.

It seemed a little too easy to negotiate though so lets see if it really happens. Either theyve done this plenty of times before and its not a big deal or she was paying me lip service. I guess we'll see!

Fingers crossed the if it does happen the teachers are open and receptive!

We've had good success with this kind of setup. You will want to make sure your child doesn't miss special events in the home grade-- this requires some parental attention. But it's been worth it for us.

I think we're headed in the same direction - subject acceleration for DD. I'll find out more next week, but I look forward to discussing this more here with all of you, to hear how its worked best for you kids (and how your school plans to set it up Minichi).

DS is in second grade and goes to 5th grade for math and is in a group working on 6th grade math. I was worried that the older kids wouldn't be nice to him, but it hasn't been a problem. Luckily the school coordinates the math schedules so that kids can move between grades when necessary. For lang. arts he is in a "book club" and I believe he is in a group of kids who are in mostly third grade, reading 5th grade books. The school also ability groups for spelling (they find a "developmental spelling level" whatever that is).

The school is non-traditional and none of it is a big deal. They were actually going to place him higher for math but I asked for him to be moved down. It's a public school. The other schools we had tried made a huge stink about subject acceleration and wouldn't even move him up one grade for math. I think the main objection was that it messes up their scheduling and it makes things too complicated for them. If the schedules aren't aligned, then the kid will miss a different subject on a daily basis.

This is working well for DS8. He is currently accelerated two grades in math. The (private) school has actually shifted schedules a bit to also make a language arts/reading skip (taking class two grades up) work as of mid-year. Prior to the language arts skip, he was doing accelerated work in the main classroom. Suffice it to say that wasn't ideal. Too easy to become distracted OR a distraction...

As others have mentioned, the key is to have synchronized schedules across the school. If that's already in place, it really should be easy for them to manage. DS does miss a recess and doesn't approve of that, but so be it (he still has one).

He has friends in both grades but has asked (repeatedly) to remain with his age grade level at least part of the day.

We know he will run out of grades in three years in the accelerated subjects, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it, assuming we are still living here.

Oh -- I just remembered that the school had done this for another student (who is a few years older than DS). I think it really helps if the school knows it can be done! We ran into absolutely no resistance.

Thank you so muchall for your replies. I feel good reading that its worked successfully for others. I havent read anything specific about the pros and cons of different types of gifted acceleration so i was worried that everyone here would say 'no, thats a disaster!'.

I actually really think this will be very good for DS as it may open up more peer options for him. He is a very different type of kid (super creative, not very sportif, swedt natured) and this is amplified by his high level of giftedness but also his Aspergers and ADHD. He makes friends easily when he finds someone he connects with, so I hope that will help.

I agree about making sure he misses nothing special. I am the type of parent who is on top of all these type of things so I think we can manage that well.

Pinecroft - i will be interested to hear how you go aswell. I will let you know as I hear things and hoefully it is organized

We've also had a great experience with subject accelerations. It's been the best option for my kids, and we've had a great way to meet their needs.

BUT. It does require a lot of attention from me. On an annual basis, I now start the conversation of how the schools are going to manage the next year in October. Seriously, 6 weeks into the school year, I mention the need to plan ahead for the following year. I spend time figuring out how each school building organizes its schedule so that I can help identify ways in which schedules can be made to work. It also helps to have a firm understanding of what you're willing to give up. DD has given up the "exploratory arts" program (health, art, home ec) and gym to make her subject accelerations work. DS has been going to music with the grade below him, and it looks like he will do that same for gym next year.

The other thing to be aware of is that you will need to work on executive function and self advocacy skills. He will be effectively switching classes, something that most kids don't encounter until middle school. For younger grades, there needs to be a plan for what he carries to his other class, and how assignments are communicated back home. It's also really useful to have a conversation up front about what happens when his regular classroom is on a field trip. Does he miss his accelerated class? How does he make up the material? How are the assignments communicated back? When the receiving class is on a field trip, where does he go and what does he do?