Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Whole Grade Acceleration in Kindergarten

Hi there! I am new here.... found the forum while searching for info online about this topic, and it seems like there are a ton of people here who can relate. I think that's what I need right now!

My daughter just turned 5 in September. She started K at the end of August. Before school started, I had mentioned to the teacher that my dd can read, so they started some testing once school began.

I had a meeting with the teacher, literacy specialist, principal, counselor and another literacy teacher on Wednesday. They are recommending skipping dd into first grade. According to her scores, she is reading on a 5th grade level. She is also ahead in math, but they are not sure to what extent. Apparently, they are still working on that. The path that we are taking is to have dd go to 1st grade for literacy groups, language arts and math and to re-evaluate in a month. They are leaning heavily towards acceleration, while I am not so sure.

Since Wednesday, I have been doing research pretty much non-stop. Everywhere I turn, there are differing opinions and people with different experiences. This decision will affect my daughter for the rest of her life and I feel shouldn't be taken lightly.

One thing that I have decided is that I want her tested further. I have asked them to do ability testing, rather than just achievement testing. We know she is extremely bright.... but is she actually gifted?

A lot of the articles I have seen are pro-acceleration, but I haven't found much that indicates it is a good idea at such a young age. I was wondering if anyone here could share their experiences with me. She would be a full two years younger than some of her classmates if she advanced, since she is already such a young 5.

Thanks in advance! Also, what does the acronym DYS stand for?

Jamie

Hi Jamie - Welcome! First, here's a link to information on the Iowa Acceleration Scale, which is a great tool for determining whether whole-grade acceleration is appropriate for a particular child. http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/iowa_accel_scale.htm

Second, if you DD5 (darling daughter, age 5) is reading at a 5th grade level, I'm willing to bet that she's gifted, if not highly gifted. Schools in general do not offer whole grade accelerations to children who are not quite gifted. That said, if the school is willing to do ability testing as well, go for it. Most gifted kids think the tests are fun. And it's great if your school will do it.

I personally would be thrilled if my DS5's school would offer to accelerate, but they have chosen to try to differentiate. You can look at the kindergarten 2009 thread and find stories about kids in K this year and also kids who have skipped K and are starting in 1st.

DYS is the Davidson Young Scholar program, and it provides assistance to profoundly gifted children and their families.

Hi Ivysmomma, For us kindergarten was fine because our K had a lot of free play time. Our DS7 (dear son age 7) is also a summer bday so young for the class. He did okay in K. It was first grade when he started to get really really bored. They repeat a lot in 1st grade. We ended up skipping 1/2 of first and going into 3rd in the following fall. If your DD is doing okay in K and they have a lot of play, I might suggest just asking for in class differentiation and skipping 1st. HOWEVER, it really depends on your DD and how well she is doing. I should also mention that DS7 was not wanting to write and his K teacher was really good with him. That also was part of the decision to leave him put for K.

HTH. Glad you found the forum.

Hi and welcome. I'm another Jamie

My DS turned 5 this week and also started K in August and if his school offered acceleration I'd jump at the chance. My son was in Pre-K last year and our school year was so bad. This year is getting better but started out the same. He's bored so he fidgets and jumps around and sings and gets into all kinds of trouble. Just this week they started letting him do one or two 1st grade worksheets in class and his days (for the most part) have gotten so much better.

Why would you and why would you not want to move her up?

Great timing. Tamara Fisher's latest post is on subject acceleration: Unwrapping the Gifted: Subject Acceleration

Thanks for all the responses!


The reason I would is her obvious brightness. I'm not sure what the name of the system they use for reading is, but she can read a level 50... the literacy specialist said she scored a 99% on a level 40 and could decode the level 50, but her comprehension was lower. There is not one other student in her class who can read. Not even a level one. I think she would enjoy actually LEARNING something, rather than just being there, you know?

As far as not doing it.... it's all the social and emotional aspects. She's very easily frustrated. For example, the 1st grade teacher sent home a packet of things the students have been doing, to give me an idea of what is going on. DD could spell every word on every spelling list they've had... but when we tried a worksheet that involved putting the spelling words into the correctly shaped boxes she started crying because she doesn't know how to make a lower case "u" yet (the school uses D'Neilian, I've taught her the stick and ball way. whoops) Do I want to put her in a situation that would frustrate her THAT much? She really seems to enjoy K and has made friends... do I want to take her away from that? I realize she would make new friends, but the way the school is set up, she wouldn't see her K friends. Also, I KNOW this is not a decision making factor, but she would be two years younger than a lot of her friends... two years makes a big difference at this age.

How have you all gone about getting your kids tested? Have your schools done it or have you had to do it privately? Does insurance cover that? Our school counselor has a call into the county, who does the testing, but she hasn't heard back. I recently found out our school is one of the lower income schools in the district, which I didn't know, but we also test the highest in the district, so I guess they are doing something right.

Oh, and there is a little boy in the other K class that they are also trying to accelerate. Apparently he is reading on a 1st grade level and slightly above the Kindergarteners in math. In other words, he is much lower than DD in reading, and math as well. I don't understand why they are pushing him, too. I am in no way saying that he isn't eligible... I really have no clue. I just find it weird that they haven't accelerated a K student in at least 8 years, so they don't have a lot of experience with it, and are pushing for it with two completely different students this year.

Wow... I obviously need to talk this out! This ended up a lot longer than I thought it would!

That's kind of what I am leaning towards.... keeping the enrichment up and going from there. Maybe skipping 1st, maybe enriching again next year. It seems like our district's enrichment program isn't fantastic, BUT the school itself seems to be really working with me. I think seeing how she does when she starts in 1st grade reading and math next week will help in the decision making, too.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Jamie

Very interesting article! Thanks for sharing!

About your other post -- I have suggested the Iowa Acceleration Scale to the counselor and she is looking into it. The school is so not prepared for this. The K teacher has been there for 8 years and has never dealt with acceleration.

Hi, ivysmomma!

We were in a similar situation 2 years ago. My DS has a November birthday and was the youngest student in his K class. After his reading was assessed as being above 2nd grade (they didn't test him further than that) he was offered a trial of first grade in the Spring. He would go to K in the morning (it was a half-day K) and then join the 1st grade class in the afternoons. Everything went smoothly, and we decided to move him fully into the 1st grade after 3 weeks.

He did well in 1st grade for the remainder of the year. The following year he started 2nd grade and stuggled a bit with writing and timed math fact tests, but he scored at Advanced on the state testing at the end of 2nd grade.

He is now in third grade, and doing even better than last year. He is making friends and writing is no longer such a struggle. There are still challenges, but challenges are part of the reason we decided to accelerate him... we want him to have the opportunity to learn to deal with challenges while he is young.

Our school has no gifted services for primary students, so in our case the choice was acceleration or nothing. I didn't want to burden him with afterschooling since he needs free time to play, and there is already so much homework (even in Kindergarten they had several pages a day!) The Kindergarten here is highly academic and he was not at all engaged with the curriculum or socially with the other students his age. Kids 1-2 two years older seem to be a better social fit.

Oh, I forgot to address your questions about testing. We had DS privately tested to help us in our decision. The psychologist was very supportive of accelerating him.