It is inevitable that as soon as I write about something here, things will change. Not that long ago, I wrote about M’s parent-teacher conference and my relief that she was doing ok. Don’t get me wrong, she is still doing just fine, but right after that post, M’s permanant teacher came back from maternity leave.
On the morning of the teacher’s second day, she pulled Mr. A aside and asked him if we would be ok with sending M to a 1st grade class for reading. We talked about it on the phone and that afternoon I told her we thought it would be ok. It seemed like it was no big deal, that they were just going to send her down the hall for reading group.
Then I started researching it. In our district and state, sending M to a first grade classroom is not exactly a casual thing, it is a formal subject acceleration. To do subject acceleration, M had to be tested in the subject (Language Arts) as well as have an IQ test by the school psychologist. I emailed the principal and it was confirmed that yes, there is a very involved process that M would have to go through.
So we got M tested and I did more research. The more I read, the more conflicted I became. I started reading some research on grade acceleration and it’s benefits, but it didn’t do anything to alleviate my concerns about a young 17 year old going off to college unsupervised. (Or Mr. A’s concerns about a girl who should be in 8th grade dating high school boys!) When we got M’s results back, they confirmed what we had suspected. M qualifies as “highly gifted” (whatever that means) and she tested above the 99th percentile for reading at a 1st grade level.
This morning, Mr. A and I had a meeting with the school’s gifted coordinator to figure out exactly what will be happening. M will be doing language arts in a 1st grade classroom starting tomorrow. The teacher will work with her to make sure she hasn’t missed any critical skills, because it is likely that her reading ability is a bit ahead of her writing skills. The 1st grade teacher and principal decided to start M in a reading group where she will be successful (i.e. one that is lower than her reading level) so she can be confident in the transition to the new class.
After a transition period, M’s language arts classes will permanently be a grade above the rest of her classes. Right now, our district doesn’t do any gifted enrichment until 2nd grade, but if we choose, M can begin gifted/enriched 2nd grade language arts next year when she is in 1st grade. When she gets older and ages out of the available accelerated classes at her school (e.g. 6th grader needing 7th grade language class), the school will coordinate her schedule and bus her to another school for that class. Basically, after the transition period, M will have the equivalent of an IEP and the school will be obligated to continue to meet her academic needs the same as if she had a learning disability.
We also have the option to reject any service/accommodation we don’t think is in M’s best interest. We already took advantage of this by turning down testing in other subjects. If M was accelerated in Math AND language arts it would make the most sense to skip her entirely to the next grade. Since we don’t really want that, no reason to test now.
Throughout this process, Mr. A and I kept stressing that we want to create a balance for M. We absolutely want her to be challenged at school. We want her to learn to work hard and even to learn what it is like to fail sometimes. On the other hand, we want her to be able to fit in socially. So far, M isn’t remotely socially awkward, she has great social skills, relates well to her classmates and makes friends easily. We don’t want her to lose that.
When we mentioned these concerns to the principal, she said all the right things. She clearly heard our concerns and was taking M’s social development into consideration as well as her academic issues. For now, I am pretty confident that we are making a good choice for M. I am really happy with the team approach the school is using (principal, 1st grade teacher, kindergarten teacher, gifted program person and parents). We feel really good about the school because they are making all this effort for M and we didn’t initiate any of it.
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(I am just going to throw in here that as a former “gifted” kid, this whole process is bringing up a lot of my own personal baggage. I will try to come back to that later, but I have been finding it very difficult to separate my own experiences from the decisions I am making about M’s education. This whole thing actually reminded me a lot of a post Dawn made about the educational choices she has made for her kids and how she obviously references her own school experiences.) But more on that later. We have to get to school to pick up Miss Smartypants.
YOU know I know a school here in Holland where the enrichmentzlass consists of chinese lessons
I went through Catholic schools where I was allowed to work at my own pace and/or join other classes rather than have to go through anything formal and eventually skipped fifth grade. I could have skipped two more, which would have been socially insane but probably would have left me more academically successful than I ended up.
My totally biased assvice is that if you’re going to skip her, earlier is better. I begged to be accelerated in the early years and my parents weren’t interested even when the school was (among other things, my mother thought it was a good kind of suffering for me that would benefit souls in purgatory) and it was absolute hell to start middle school at 10 with a group of catty students who hated and resented me. I think I could have slipped in fine in second or third grade (though I’d still have been joining the same notoriously jerky class) and know others who did fine in that situation.
Again, not that you asked, but obviously I can’t separate anyone else’s issues from my own. Good luck to you in making these kinds of scary decisions.
Well, I know you don’t want to hear about the homeschooling thing…so I’m not talking about that, exactly. But I do know of a lot of high school aged homeschool students who are involved in high-school to college community college programs. Basically, since nearly all homeschoolers are 1-4 grade levels above the norm, by high school they are able to do college work. But their parents have the same concerns as you do about putting them in college underaged. So, community colleges are allowing high school aged students to come in and get both high school and college credit for community colleges. They are with other high school aged students, students gleaned from throughout the community, they are local, and when they go to “real” college at 18, they usually hit as sophomores or juniors. Which means they save a lot of money.
Just a thought down the road.
I got an email from M’s Kindergarten teacher. When she told M what was going on and took her to meet the 1st grade teacher, M cried
Lexie, our state as a program in which high school students can take college classes for free (or at the state’s expense.) According to the Gifted lady, M will be able to take classes full time or part-time at our local Big Research University (where both Mr. A and I did our undergrad) by her sophmore year. My high school boyfriend took college classes full-time his senior year, so I was already kind of familiar with the program.
Oh, and also Mr. A and I have discussed forcing M to be an exchange student for a year post graduation if she ends up skipping a full grade.
I had this exact setup in math as a child, the busing and all. I enjoyed being able to work at a challenging level, but it definitely isolated me from my peers at times, especially in the years when I was sent to a different school for class. (Not at all saying this will be M’s experience.)
It sounds like you have a lot of control in the situation and that the school is being a good partner. I’m really glad you’re feeling confident about it and that she’s getting this opportunity.
I haven’t weighed in on the accelerating issue, but I can say that I “skipped” a year at the very beginning, and I was *still* bored by school. For what it’s worth. In addition, I *was* socially behind, especially in high school. So my advice is…? I dunno. Do you have any Magnet schools in your area, like there are in Chicago? It might be better to be in an entire enrichment environment, rather than accelerated…? (Pretty useless assvice, just musing here.)
Subject acceleration worked really well for me. I did that until we got to the point where gifted/AP/whatever classes were offered for a subject.
I was in the G & T program in elem. school (in Oregon), and went to another grade for classes sometimes (can’t remember how often). I remember feeling that going to the higher grade was in itself mildly interesting, but the work itself was nothing special. In 6th grade I was not bused anywhere, so don’t know what happened there. I am glad I was not skipped ahead totally, as socially it would have been inappropriate for me, and the work would have been only slightly more challenging.
The things I do remember VERY positively are:
- a pull-out class every Thurs. for G & T kids. We studied fascinating subjects like Egyptian games and geometrical string art – fun!!!
- a G & T art class downtown, that I attended for a year or so in Jr. High. Two friends and I rode the city bus to the art museum downtown, every Fri. after school, and joined a group from all over the city for special art classes – cool!
- a G & T camp at a state Univ., for 2 weeks during the summer before entering high school. We were allowed to choose 5 classes and I chose subjects like ESP and astronomy. We lived in the dorms and ate in a cafeteria. There were a lot of geeks, and I was very popular with the boys, for the one and only time in my entire life!! Wonderful!
In summary, it was not the run-of-the-mill things like going up to the next grade (of the regular class) that I remember positively, but rather the special all-G&T programs that were really great. Even if school is a bit easy, these keep the love of learning alive, etc… Once you hit high school there should be dynamic teachers and honors/AP classes.
In my college dorm (which was a special “academic” dorm, also fun) there were several kids who were age 16. Several of them were clearly having problems of one kind or another (it was quite noticeable), and even the ones without “problems” were doing various college-age activities right along with the 18-year-olds. Based on seeing their experience, I would steer clear of sending a 16-year-old to live away at college!
hmmm, it seems like a hard choice….I hate hard choices! Because in the back of your head you are always thinking that you may somehow “mess up the rest of your childs life”.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear – I think going to another grade for certain subjects is nice, too, and could be helpful, but it is probably not enough (as M is probably reading well above 1st grade level anyway, and she will still be with a class of regular kids, albeit slightly older ones). That’s why I really recommend keeping an eye out for any all-G&T activities that your district or region offer, over the years until high school.
I was bused to the junior high for math in sixth grade and then did math at the high school when I was in eighth grade. There were six of us in the district who did this, three girls and three boys, and one of the girls became my best friend and one of the boys gave one of the two graduation speeches with me (our school didn’t do valedictories, they had the kids with the top 10 GPAs audition for the speeches, and we decided to do one together). So that was a really positive experience for me, and that’s not even counting the fact that I loved the coursework, too. (Plus, because of bus schedules, we had to stay at the jr high for more than one class, so we all got to start Spanish early.)
We’re lucky in that our district includes a lot of kids performing at least one grade level above the norm, so that there was already a kindergarten class of advanced readers being pulled out of their individual classes to have group instruction from one of the school’s two literacy specialists, in cooperation with one of the two G&T resource people. The district doesn’t do formal G&T identification until 3d grade here, either, but they have a “nurturing” identification that teachers can recommend in K-2, and an action plan for those kids who qualify. The district also tests all the second graders in January using some rubric that is supposed to do a better job of identifying kids whose potential/abilities have been masked by second-language issues or resource-challenged family systems.
[This is the place where I get to brag that Wilder was formally nominated last year, and both of the girls' teachers talked about doing it but were first-year teachers in our district, had no administrative support for their regular duties, and never got around to it. Given the district's commitment to small-group instruction in K-2, and the fact that all three kids seemed happy and were being challenged appropriately, we decided not to worry about whether the girls had that piece of paper in their files or not.]
Nice! your district is so together when it comes to gifted kids. Our district is struggling with so many special needs students (which my kid is part of as well as gifted) that not much thought is given to gifted kids. M is in K and way ahead in reading.. the only tweaks they have made are:
-he writes out the announcements for the class every day and then reads them to the other kids
-at story time he is the one reading a book to the other kids
-the other kids are learning letters and M works on spelling and journaling
-the teacher spends some 1-1 time with him working on more advanced reading while the other kids learn to write.
very fortunate!
Honestly I don’t get what the big deal is around a 17 year old going to college. (Maybe it’s because I went to college at 17- it was a sort of two year “last year of high school / first year university” type of hybrid called the International Baccalaureate, and the school was on the other side of the country. But I would have been just as comfortable attending regular university classes in my hometown (though it wouldn’t have been as fun).
It sounds like M is quite mature for her age and you can expect that to continue. Personally I was bored for quite a bit of school (despite being in French Immersion); I was gifted in language arts and humanities but not so in math / science- I wish that we had had the opportunity to do a partial acceleration as you describe.
No more handwringing! Do it and don’t look back!
The partial-subject acceleration sounds great: I BEGGED my parents to let me skip 2nd grade but they said my subtraction wasn’t good enough. I was definitely weaker in math but really I think it was the fact that I was small for my age and didn’t have great social skills.
Honestly, staying with kids my own age didn’t make it easier for me to make friends–I was just isolated and bored instead of potentially isolated but challenged. Even in college and now in grad school, most of my friends are older than me, and I’ve generally dated slightly older folks, too (maybe it’s a nice change from being the oldest kid in a big family!).
I think if M is doing well socially with her grade then she’ll be all right no matter what you choose. I teach a girl at religious school who skipped 1st grade and she’s so happy in her new class (she stayed in her regular grade for religious school, since it’s less about academics there and she liked the kids). Maybe it could be presented to M, who seems to have no trouble making friends, as a chance to have even MORE kids to hang out with?
Here’s my 2 cents (not sure you were asking for assvice)… I have been an elementary teacher for 17 years. Unless your daughter is showing signs of boredom she may be finding ways to enrich her learning herself. I often find that GT kids expand and challenge themselves in a linear sense rather than taking things to the next level. Does that make sense? They add a something extra to a project, make an inference about something they’ve learned. At this point although her abilities and intellect may far outweigh that of her peers she is probably enjoying relationship building with them and for the short and long term it is very important to know how to relate well to others. I personally do not see much value in moving her to the next grade, which is still probably much below her ability level and may make her uncomfortable without really challenging her much. Her regular teacher along with the GT coordinator can find projects she can do while the other kids do something she doesn’t need (let’s just say phonics or penmanship. She could be writing her own stories for example. She can read books to the kids who aren’t readers yet helping them.
If this was math we were talking about I would have a different opinion because the instruction would actually be challenging because she would be learning new operations. Again, unless they are willing to move her up say 3 grade levels (which we have did do successfully for math with a mature 2nd grader one year)it will not be that challenging.
Like some of your other commenters pointed out, there are a lot of fun enriching projects the GT person can coordinate that relate to the curriculum without sending her to another classroom.
Think about your objective in sending her on. Will she become a better reader? No, she already reads way above first grade or they wouldn’t suggest this.
Although I sound a bit anti-GT instruction I am not and it sounds like your district is on top of things. I just don’t think going to first grade for reading is going to stimulate much growth.
I am sorry this is so long.
If she graduates a year early, she could do City Year, or be a Vista volunteer, and be a productive contributing member of society safely within parental supervision!
Also remember that even if she as an eighth grader *wants* to date high school boys, you don’t have to let her!
Like Laurie, I too am a teacher, and agree with everything she said…I’m at the other end of the spectrum and work in special ed.. kids are bussed to our school to receive services from their Catholic school. No matter what is promised, they end up missing things at their home school and feel out of place in our school. She won’t be getting much more out of 1st grade reading if she already has a large vocab. and can decode words. She’d be better off in a reading group of her own and remain with her class. She can read a book at her level and do higher level thinking skills as an assessment. That’s all reading instruction is
— building vocab, strategies to decode unknown words and understanding what you have read.
AmFam. I’m sure it will work out well. I am having a hard time not referencing (so I’ll just come right out with it) MY experiences as a highly (;-) gifted, accelerated third grader in a class full of fourth graders, let alone the year as an exchange student for the same reasons you are considering the option for M.
I wish there were easy answers. I was put into school a year early, was still bored, and had a dreadful experience overall. I watch Jamie get hamstrung by the desire for perfection at freaking four years old and it boggles my mind. I am half glad he has a late birthday because in some ways he’s immature but I know he’s going to be bored academically at some point b/c he’s pretty smart.
It sounds like this could be a good fit for M. It’s hard to separate your own baggage from what is right for your kids, but the bonus is she’ll benefit from your experiences as well.
Oh dear… I didn’t even want to finish reading the post because I get anxious that my son can’t have any of that. *I’m* his teacher, but I don’t get to decide anything and the school “principal” (the other senior teacher) is against him finishing the 1st grade Math book and going into the 2nd grade one. His reading is OK because I have already placed him in a reading book with the 2nd grade girl… but math… I actually slowed him down (even stopped the 1st grade book for several weeks altogether) when she told me he shouldn’t/wouldn’t start the other book. I was assuming he would.
The thing is… to make a long story short, she wasn’t in charge when his older teacher sped him up through the Kindergarten Math book last year (he finished it in December, I think) and got him into the 1st grade book. I suspect she wouldn’t have done it — talk about under stimulation.
The other bad thing is that I have a BRIGHT Asian boy who has, poor thing, been made do to ALL of Kindergarten’s work TWICE (phonics and Math) because he was allowed to come to school a few days a week since he was 4.5. He’s turning 6 on Thursday, he can read well and he just finished most of Kindergarten’s books. BUT, he’ll have to be doing whatever other silly books the other teacher has for him so he won’t skip a grade.
I was pissed for about a month, but now I’m just sad for Kelvin and the other bright little boy… I feel powerless. I don’t know if there are any laws about not skipping grades here in PA. I have a friend whose children (who are in t he public system) are in advanced classes for math and reading, but won’t ever skip a grade — that seems to be a rule here, I don’t know.
Anyway… sorry about the long comment.
I grew up in Brazil, here in the U.S> I would have been “gifted” too… there I was just out of place, the singled out kid who did extremely well in a sea of mediocrity. Right up until 7th grade when we moved to Sao Paulo and then I was just one of the group of 6 or 7 REALLY bright kids (including my dearest and favoritest boy cousin who was in my class from 7th grade to t he end of high school) — THAT was heaven for me.
OK, that’s it for now
Jumping on the assvice bandwagon.
I was 17 when I went to college, and 16 when I was an exchange student, and IMHO I’d have been better off being a 16yo college student. I fell in with a good crowd in college (their drinking games always had a bunch of non-alcoholic options, and the rule was “we don’t care what you drink, as long as you act lightheartedly silly”), whereas the highlight of my exchange year was my host father getting arrested for fencing stolen goods, some of which he’d tried to sell to me.
I strongly agree with the “accelerating to first grade for reading isn’t going to improve her reading skills” opinions. Not only that, but getting put up a grade, but in the “slow” reading group is about the worst of all worlds. I’m really leaning against accelerating Alex next year (our district doesn’t accelerate kindergartners), even though I’m pretty sure she’d qualify for reading.
In elementary school, the school wanted to skip me two years and my parents said no because they were concerned about me having social issues. I ended up finishing all the classes in the high school by 10th grade and left high school and went to college after 10th grade. I went to a sleep away school as we didn’t have a local university within an hour and a half and it was fine. I actually enjoyed being the youngest in school. Of course, I also missed graduation and prom and all that stuff, but am still friends with alot of the people I went to high school with. It didn’t really affect my relationship with them. In fact, one of my best friends is my best friend from high school.
I have a daughter who is in K herself and we are having some of the same issues except they are less willing to do anything about it. They basically contacted me to tell me that they ran out of things for her to read to even test her with. The principal does not like pull outs at all, so she is basically working with the teacher one on one every week and has no peers in her reading group at all. My husband and I have determined to not pursue too much this year with her as we want her to get adjusted well to school before we rock the boat. There is nothing they could do that will really truly challenge her now. She is reading at about a middle school level, literacy wise, but her comprehension is probably about 4th grade.
I went to college at 17, my husband at 16, and we were both got into a lot less trouble (“unsupervised”) than you did, supervised
[no, I don't know you except from the blog, and I'm joking, 'cause i think we all turned out OK].
Of course my college was the epitome of geekhood, but I think what you’re not taking into account is how much really loving the academics and being intense about learning can keep you out of trouble.
This is an interesting post. It sounds like your daughter’s school is doing a lot to try to meet her needs.
My 12 year old is two years fully accelerated and 4 years focus accelerated in math in your neighboring district. We wrote the book on acceleration for our state. If you want to “talk” send me an email and I will send you my phone number – or ask some familiar faces at Chinese school for it!!
FYI – the district you are in will have a hard time getting PSEO now that it is an IB district. Just a heads up that things are always changing…….
Wow. Reading your post and the comments brings back a lot of memories of my own. I went to college and lived on campus at 16, graduated at 19, and I think I’m a bit older than you and the commenters… my elementary school didn’t have a G&T program or anything – in some ways it was good because everything they did was tailored especially to my situation, but it was also “bad” because if my parents or teachers didn’t advocate or push for something, it wasn’t likely to happen. I was lucky enough to have some good teachers early on who spent extra time with me and let me do things at my own pace.
As for the social side of things, I’ve experienced being both the awkward nerd and being moderately popular, and I was the same person in both situations. It’s just that in 1 school the popular kids also happened to be the kids in all the AP classes, while at the other school we were not.
My parents were pretty strict with me at home, so I went a little wild when I first went to college, but eventually I got my act together and figured it out.
[...] M mentioned in passing that she didn’t have reading. (She goes to another classroom for language arts.) This happens pretty frequently, whenever the other class has standardized [...]