Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Considering having son repeat 5th grade

Hi. We are having a delimma with my 10 year old son. He was moved up in Kindergarten to first mid-year b/c we were told he was so bored he was causing problems in class. We knew he was very intelligent, but never thought this. We felt we had no choice. Since then, every grade he has been in he has not been put in GT, but has better test scores than the kids in GT he knows, which is a blow to him. He loves sports, but is extremely challenged - many kids in his current grade are 1 and 2 years older than him, making it that much more harder for him later in life. Socially he's ok, but not where he should be. Academically, he struggles a bit with advanced classes, and we have noticed lower grades. We are simply considering putting him back to the grade he belongs in...to help him academically, socially and physically. Yes, we feel sports and academics are important to have a well-rounded child. As of now, he will be starting middle school this fall (10 years old until October in the 6th grade)...13 when he starts high school as a freshman and 16 as a senior! Any suggestions? Thanks!

I guess if I were you I would get some thorough iq and achievement testing by an outside party (outside the school).
I would find someone who understands *and* has experience working with gifted kids.
Whether or not you think he's definitely gifted, this would give you the best shot of an accurate picture of what he needs.

Kids can underachieve if they are badly placed, too far up or down. You are right to start looking around, but don't make a hasty move without finding out as near as you can what he really needs. Even with more testing you might be left making a 'best guess'.

You might get better info/advice from this board if you have specific tests he might have recently taken, through school or otherwise, and how he did (percentiles or other info)
Very best of luck!

I'm confused as to his age. He is 10 right now and will turn 11 in October and will be starting 6th grade in the fall or he is 9 right now and will turn 10 in October of 6th grade?

What does he think about repeating? Also, why hasn't he been placed in the GT classes if his scores are higher than the kids who are in the classes? How do you think that he'd do in those classes?

Like the pp, I'd suggest that you get IQ testing, etc. done to help you make this decision if you haven't already done such testing. Our local district skips kids without IQ scores based on achievement and social considerations and one of dd's friends had a similar experience of skipping in another state w/out IQ testing. I really wish that districts would not do that. IQ certainly isn't the only consideration as to whether a skip is a good idea, but it is a necessary piece of the equation. Like you are noticing, social and size issues come into play especially for boys who want to play sports.

It seems odd for him to skip a grade and not be in GT classes. If I had the choice between a grade acceleration without GT classes or no acceleration with GT classes, I'd choose the latter. It seems a GT child would be better served by the depth/complexity and "mental mates" of GT classes.

If you decide to have him repeat 5th, how will you make sure he faces some challenges? Will the GT classes take care of this or will he need some enrichment outside of school?

I'm also curious about how he would feel about repeating 5th. I skipped and think I would have been horrified at the thought of repeating a grade.

I agree with the above posts regarding testing to see where he really is academically. However, I don't think I would consider holding him back a grade unless you could change schools completely to give him a fresh start. If he's already having social troubles, being held back would only add to his troubles with the other kids and make him feel worse. If he could start the same grade over in a new school where nobody would know he'd already been in 5th grade before, especially given that he would be the correct age for it this time around, I think it would be a lot better for him.

My son had someone in his class who had already done 5th grade at his home school, having been skipped, but when a 5th grade slot opened up at the GT school he took it and "repeated" 5th grade. It was great for him and if only . . .

I also wonder why they haven't put your son in the GT program if they thought he needed to be skipped early on. Their decisions seem very inconsistent here. Many teachers confuse "gifted" and "high achieving" as well as "gifted" and "accelerated."

The greatest advantage my kids have had being in a GT program is the social part of it, being around kids like them and being appreciated for their "weirdness," having kids who are good at sports and kids who stink, but that not being the way they measure each other. The academics are nice too, but mostly because they don't do worksheets, they don't teach "3 times, 3 ways" (a great teaching strategy for most kids) etc.

I think you're asking the right questions right now. This seems like a good age to get some testing done and decisions made and hold the school accountable for correct placement.

Good luck,
benny

Thank you to everyone who posted with great questions and suggestions! To clarify, my son is currently 10 and will turn 11 in October 2009. He will be entering the 6th grade this fall, which is at the middle school for our district. My husband and I agree with several people's statements...why the heck is our son moved up yet not placed in GT? We also agree with the post on choosing between being moved up and no GT or staying where he should be w/same-aged peers and being in GT - choosing the latter, most definitely. I do know this year, after I threw yet another fit, my son was tested via some IQ tests at school for their GT program...I was told he fell short of passing the IQ test in order to place him in GT. I was also told he was the first to have to test in order to get into GT! This explains to me why he has higher scores on ISATS (of course, I cannot locate his scores but he believes they are as follows: Language - 239 (advanced and at 9th grade level), Reading - 230, and Math - 235) and benchmarks than classmates currently in GT. Previous scores on ISATS for the 4th grade were all Advanced for Reading, Math and Language.

Regarding repeating the 5th grade, he would be able to be in advanced math and reading classes as he was this past year (6th grade math and reading), which he struggled a bit with on the math, so should challenge him a bit still. He is actually kind of excited to be with same-aged peers in class as well as sports, which he absolutely loves to do!

Does anyone have any suggestions on alternative testing areas? I'm not sure where to even begin. Thanks again so much for your comments.

OK...after doing some searching on previous emails, thankfully I found the response from his school this past fall after not being allowed to GT (I believe the response is from the GT teacher). Here is her response...(KL is my son; Mr. D is his 4th grade teacher who highly recommended GT and also said no to our idea of possibly having him return to the grade he should be in)...

First of all he did receive a very high recommendation from Mr. D (his previous, 4th grade teacher) which started the process. We then took into account all of his academic scores which were very strong. The screener that we administered to KL also had high scores. These were just our basis for deciding that an IQ test would be administered. This is the first year our district has required a specific level score on the IQ test in order to be served by the GT program. This was primarily because of the number of students who have been scoring high on all other academic areas. This separates what we refer to as �high achieving� students from those who have the intellectually abilities recognized by the IQ test. Generally many of our successful students are those who have the �high achieving� academic abilities. That is one reason that our district has now provided the accelerated math and reading classes at the 4th and 5th grade level.

KL�s IQ composite scores was 111 � our district requires a minimum score of 125. It is broken down into two sub tests including verbal and non verbal. KL was very consistent in both areas. Verbal � 111 Non-verbal � 110. These put him in the 77% and 75% rank respectively. It is done according to age not grade in school.

If I could just decide on who makes it in based on a student�s motivation to work and personality, I would certainly have chosen KL�.he is a wonderful student and we thoroughly enjoyed the amount of time we were able to work with him last year in enrichment. As you probably can understand, I don�t have that option and we must have some concrete basis for our decisions.

Thanks again!

Txiki1 - did you find out the name of that test?
Also, you should ask about the experience level of the tester in general and with that particular test. Sounds like it was done by the school, which can be ok, but a tester with little experience testing gifted or very gifted kids can misinterpret things like taking extra time to come to an answer as not knowing rather than knowing a lot and having to make some subtle choices (which takes longer). Also, if he was the first kid ever to take this test (?) from your school or district that might indicate a lack experience on the test administrator's side.

You might ask if he finished the test(s) - number of questions/# answered. How long was given? How long does it usually take? These and other questions can give you a picture of how your ds felt during the test (did he blow it off? Did he not have enough time because he either has a lot going on in his head or has low processing speed but good conceptual skills or really didn't know some of the answers...?)
What exactly makes his 4th grade teacher highly recommend him?

If your school would accept an appeal to the decision, and look at outside testing, you might consider this. You need to find out from them exactly which tests, if any, they would accept because you don't want to go get test xyz and find out they won't even look at it.
It does seem unfortunate that both anecdotal evidence and grades wise he would qualify, but in the end the decision was based nearly solely on the results from one test on one day. That usually doesn't really work to the advantage of the child. Further, there are usually assessments given at the beginning of each year and at the end to place kids in reading and math groups which should certainly be used to paint the fullest picture of ability - Probably some of the testing you refer to. These should likely be considered as 'concrete' too. It seems very very strange to gather all this information and then disregard most of it.

My last question - if I am reading this right...Did this one single teacher decide all by herself on this? That certainly doesn't seem correct.
"If I could just decide..."

Two thoughts:

Was he given an individual IQ test or a group ability test? My younger dd scored in the upper 140s on an individual IQ test and the mid 1teens (around 115) on the CogAT (group ability test).

Turning 11 in 6th grade doesn't sound unusually young to me. My oldest, who skipped one grade, turned 10 in the fall of 6th grade this past year. It sounds like she is about the same age as your ds. Most of the 6th graders here are btwn young 11 to young 12 y/os at the start of the year. When is the cut-off for school admission in your area and how old are most of the 6th graders? Would he be an older 5th grader if he repeated that grade?