Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School 7 yr. old in 5th grade?

We're in an almost similar amount of acceleration situation with our oldest dd to what Dottie described. She wasn't an early admit to K b/c she made the cut-off but only barely. She did a combo of various options including subject acceleration and homeschooling before skipping a little later down the road: 4th to 6th. For her, the math in 8th grade accelerated algebra is totally appropriate for her right now. Literacy has been the primary area where I could say the same as what Dottie said about math: she has been capable of much more than she's been doing for pretty much her entire school career, but she's not miserable and it isn't a total waste of time this year. Many of the years have been, though. If I had followed her preschool teacher's recommendation to wait a year to start her in K due to her bd (which is common where I live w/ bds near dd's), I can't even imagine how poor the fit would be, though. Our dd will graduate high school at 16 as well, which is the most we're going for as well.

The amount of acceleration your grandchild is looking at sounds more significant. The only person I know who accelerated that much was my grandmother and that was, obviously, a long time ago. She was born in the early 1920s, started K as 4.5 and skipped both 3rd and 5th grade. She was tiny - 4'10" as an adult. From what I understand, it worked well for her but school settings are so different now a days that I don't know that her experiences would be transferable to modern schools.

Did they come to a decision and how is it going if so?

Perfectly stated; I've had experience with several very young college students (both as students and classmates) and they are really very much like other college students in most ways. Aside from being able to drive, vote, or buy cigars, I suppose.



My DD11 has also been radically accelerated, and likewise, it isn't even about "appropriate" as much as it is about "tolerable." We don't have access to the kinds of gifted magnet programs that exist in other places. Here, we have small private schools, public schools (good quality; 30% of our SD population identifies as gifted, but there's no real program), charter schools, homeschooling and virtual charter schools as our options.

DD was homeschooled for a year, then became a third grader in a virtual charter school (6yo). Placement didn't involve a particularly lengthy discussion, and in the end, it wouldn't have mattered, since the PACE of instruction and the level of that instruction is a fundamental problem no matter how she's placed. She completed 4th+5th grades when she was seven, and we were told to slow her down. They were VERY resistant to the idea of what would have amounted to a fourth full-grade acceleration. (This would have placed her 5 grades above chronological peers.)

The reason given was that she needed to get used to the idea of scheduled synchronous (NOT self-paced) coursework in high school, and that middle school (gr 6-8) was where that needed to start.

We agreed to stay on their schedule, but in hindsight, that may have been a mistake. We were reassured that the jump in level of instruction from middle school to high school would provide DD with additional challenge, and DD was cooperative in light of that. In her mind she was being "promised" more appropriate instruction and more autonomy once whe reached 8th grade (high school) in two years. So we were just playing a waiting game until high school, when we expected greater differentiation, autonomy, and fit. Our target was to get DD to tolerate things for that two years, so we felt that a single grade acceleration was fine.

DD was ELATED last spring to get to select a slew of high school courses that interested her and sounded novel and challenging, but was forbidden from registering for any AP courses her first year. Fine, we thought, since she would have a series of challenging electives (economics, geography, etc) and a set of honors core courses. Reality has been somewhat underwhelming.

"Honors" is meaningless aside from appearing ON PAPER to provide a GT option; the materials are undifferentiated and the additional work is just that-- additional. It isn't any more challenging or richer in terms of analysis, which is what DD needs.

In middle school, GT programming meant math acceleration (still standard curriculum) and a language arts pull-out elective. That course was excellent, but it ironically has CREATED problems this year, since much of the "honors" language arts in high school is actually less rigorous than that elective experience was, and some of it actually re-uses the SAME literature. (augh)

She fits in fine with her classmates (synchronous instruction ~6h weekly), and is well-liked. Her teachers treat her no differently from any other student; some like her and 'get' her quirky, snarky sense of humor, and some don't appreciate her at all. That's all as it should be.


The good news is that this is "real school" (important to DD), she has transcripts from an accredited institution (which refutes any notion of subjectivity related to homeschool accomplishments), DD learns that sometimes 'just doing it anyway' is the smarter/more expedient thing (which we feel is a critical life-skill for someone like her) and that we don't have to bear the expenses associated with basic education. Like homeschooling, however, she has a lot of time to pursue her interests, which are many and varied. She also has the freedom to still be an eleven year old, albeit one who enjoys the challenge of learning about Shakespeare, optics or game theory when she isn't drawing with sidewalk chalk or playing pretend something-or-other. In other words, she has been given the gift of authenticity; she does not need to pretend to be anything she is not. That makes most of the many problems WELL worth it.

The problems that we have had:

• inflexible assignments and low-level multiple-choice/cloze assessment from a cognitive standpoint are maddening for DD at any instructional level, but particularly so when the material is lower level than she's ready for, since those questions are subject to a lot of OVER-interpretation from her-- she finds a LOT of errors in curriculum,
• she rapidly adjusted, so the fit is ultimately not as ideal as anyone would have liked,
• higher grade placement just = MORE work-- not more meaningful work-- and forcing her to do that pointless work is sometimes nightmarish,
• GRADE-based extracurricular activities place her in the company of children 3-5 her senior in age, which is okay for something like chess, but not-so-great for tennis or 4H,
• she's repeatedly been placed at the level of her WEAKNESSES academically-- for her, this is her written communication. They have really not handled asynchronous development well at all. She writes like a moderately gifted 8th grader, which sometimes leads her to underestimate her proficiency there, and it certainly leads to boredom in her strengths.

In other words, rather than finding a truly good educational fit, instead we've devolved to a system which doesn't quite fit in any dimension. This is the school's notion of "compromise." <SIGH>

It's also true that the school eventually seems to get exasperated because "we've done X, Y, and Z for you-- what do you MEAN, you're having problems??"

At least we have a good working relationship with the school.
They reveal information to me in bits and peices, (usually inadvertently), I put it together and realize its significance, then I send out tersely worded e-mails, and they just do what I ask rather than investing the energy in arguing the point.
(I never said that it wasn't a dysfunctional working relationship... LOL)


Bottom line is that acceleration is not a substitution for true differentiation/enrichment, and unfortunately many administrators and teachers seem to think that it can be.

At best, it is often only a temporary fix if the curriculum itself is aimed at average/below average learners. That isn't to say that it isn't a useful tool. It is. But it can't be the only one, or it won't be very successful. IMO.

After reading JB and Dottie, DS 8 is similer in some respects. He is 8.5 and in 4th grade (Skipped 2nd) and goes to 6th grade for math at the MS. The grade skip is going so well, you would never know he is younger then everyone. (A little imature at times, and his writting skills are not in the top of the class) He is a little tall so he does not stand out, and we have hadno bully problems todate. From what I see every child is differnet. DS8 could benifit academiv=cly by another skip, but for know he is happy and things are working out. I believe the no bully issue is from a few things, we have worked with him to limit how often he raises his hand, he cannot help others unless aksed, he is supportive of others without trying to look better, I run a math club at school. In the MS I know a number of the MS boys from scouting and they know DS from some camp outs. Also some MS studenst attended math club with DS last year. Each part helps him in someway. Next year we are looking at an additional Math skip to Algabra (Mayabe). I am also considering running a math counts group at the MS next year. They have nothing in a school of over 1,700, the entire district with 4 middle schools has nothing. I digress.

One interesting point, if we had not grade skipped him and only subject accelerated, he would do much better in any math or science competitions by grade, ratehr then age. Also sports in our area is by grade and he has to play basketball with boys 1 to 2 years older.

I'm enjoying reading about how everyone has made the whole grade/subject skips/nonskips work in their families, with their kiddos. There are definitely many factors to consider.

I just wanted to throw out my personal experience re: going to college early or graduating high school early (although technically I didn't graduate early). I was the youngest in my class with an end of August birthday, but not grade-skipped. I do not claim to know what flavor of gifted I am, but I was globally gifted in school. If I had heard of grade skipping, I would have begged for it. When the post-secondary enrollment program began (i.e., go to college while still in high school), I jumped at the opportunity and went full-time to the local university instead of my senior year of high school, getting credit for both. So, I started college at just-turned 17 (just like kids who graduated high school at 16), and I would have started the year before if that had been an option. I loved it. Although of course we worry as parents about sending our young kids to college (and of course younger ages are being discussed here), at a point it just is a natural progression to the kid. At least it was in my experience.