Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Grade skip 1st or 2nd better?

It does sound like the same story, George! Have you already gotten the ok to grade skip? Nevermind, just saw a post of yours that says you are heading to a gifted school that accelerates as needed.

Our district has both a 1 day/week gifted program and a full 5 day/week program for those above 140 IQ. So, I would assume they would be proactive with it all, but maybe not at the individual school level. Definitely going to ask about the IAS.

Yeah, I've learned that they're quite confident that their differentiation process will be adaptive and work for everyone, that they can meet the needs, if you just hang in there a little longer (and longer, and longer...). If you believe in a grade skip, and they are resistant, you'll need to be assertive. I'm gearing up for that, contingent on testing results.

Yeah, we unfortunately didn't really get the opportunity to have the "big meeting" in time with school admins, teachers, psychologists before having to make the decision about the gifted school. That kind of sucks, as I would have liked to have given the public school a more thorough chance. I think we made the right decision, though.

The gifted school essentially starts a year ahead as a baseline (i.e., their first grade starts out at a "typical" second grade level), and then will further accelerate as needed. We'll see how it goes, but I'm optimistic.

That said, a full 5-day program for the highly gifted sounds pretty awesome (and rather rare). We had no such option. Does that start at any particular grade, or would your son be immediately eligible for that kind of program?

Yup. They said that a lot to us, and it never made enough of a difference. I think it was wishful thinking on their part, because there isn't a whole lot more you can do in a fully mixed classroom.

His score wasn't high enough for the 5 day/wk pull out, and I didn't expect it to be. It didn't surprise me that his Fluid Reasoning was the highest, and I do think his overall score would go up if he had more exposure to math, but not to an overall of 140 on the SB-V.

There is some thought that the Knowledge and Quantitative Scores would be higher if he had been in 1st grade this past year instead of Kindergarten. It could be thought that the test would expect a 6 year 10 month old kid to have already finished 1st grade and thus would score it as such, but I don't know.

For fun, here's how his scores came out:

FSIQ - 129
NVIQ - 127
VIQ - 129

Factor Index Scores
Fluid Reasoning - 138
Knowledge - 126
Quantitative Reasoning - 116
Visual Spatial - 120
Working Memory - 126

These were the general observations made about him:

He seemed comfortable and relaxed during the testing process as he was friendly, sociable and exhibited a good sense of humor. His vocabulary, expressions and style of interaction appeared advanced for his age. It was apparent that he was quick to develop strategies to facilitate his cognitive processes. His level of motor activity fell within the normal limits for his age and no signs of impulsive behavior or inattention were noted. He showed exceptional verbal reasoning skills, as his choice and use of words was highly developed. Instructions never had to be repeated and he was totally focused at all times. Reasoning skills were advanced as evidence by his effective use of inductive and deductive thinking.

Now. Unless you intend to after school he will make less than a year's progress this year and they will say he no longer needs to skip.

In general, I would say it is much better to skip 2nd grade than to skip 1st grade and to not skip the entry point to a GT program. It is less stressful on the kid and it makes sure that he doesn't miss crucial transitions at optimum times. Having said all that, I think it makes sense to skip 1st grade in your DS' case for a host of reasons, including he is old for grade and average-to-above in size and he appears to be academically oriented.

You might want to remove his name.

My personal opinion, based on the information in this thread, would be to advocate for a whole-grade acceleration now (skip 1st).

There are many resources available to help him "catch up" in a fun way, at his own pace, over the summer before school starts in the fall.

The research George mentioned may be found at the website of the Acceleration Institute, including
- A Nation Deceived
- A Nation Empowered
- Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS)

Thanks, indigo! Amazingly enough, I hadn't found that website yet. Great stuff!