Skipping a Grade
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Repate 6th grade now and skip 9th grade later?
Dec 2013We may be relocating to St. Louis for about 3 years for my husband's job, and plan to return to Berkeley after. There is a charter school in STL we would like our oldest to attend to continue her education in Spanish immersion, but they are just opening the middle school next year and she would have to repeat 6th grade since they will not offer 7th grade yet. We are fine with this since the age cut-off for starting K is much earlier there, and she would be over a full year younger than everyone in her grade if entering 7th in STL next fall. My question is what happens when we return to BHS? Is there any way for her to enter her old grade-level at BHS (ie, ''skip'' freshman year), or would she have to stay a year behind them? I realize it may take some extra work to get her ready to return into 10th grade, which we would be willing to do, but the transition back may be easier if she could re-enter her grade with her old peer group from elementary and middle school. Thanks for any advice! Moving Midwest
Have you thought through that by repeating 6th grade in St Louis she would be repeating course material she has already had rather than learning new material? This could be boring for her and make it a wasted year educationally. Her age is not the issue (there are always younger kids in a classroom), but rather what she has already learned.
Also, you are de-emphasizing the importance of the 9th grade curriculum by thinking she could skip it. It doesn't seem to make sense for her to study all the 9th grade coursework on her own while being bored in a classroom with a repeat of material she's already learned. Also, the UC and CSU systems have ''a-g'' requirements that include 9th grade classes. You would have to check to see whether by not taking these classes she would be losing her eligibility for UC and CSU schools. Anonymous
Experience with grade skipping in BUSD?
Sept 2012I'm interested in whether any of you have had first-hand experience at the elementary level in BUSD, ideally in the Central Zone schools, around the topic of acceleration/grade skipping. We're looking to move into BUSD and would love to hear about whether a specific principal has been particularly amenable or resistant to the idea, what your experience with the process was like, etc. Please note: I do not come to this question lightly and politely request that you not offer general advice or opinions about the relative merits of skipping a grade if you do not have first-hand experience. Thank you! Gathering Info
My older daughter, now in 7th grade, skipped kindergarten at Berkeley Arts Magnet (BAM).
She has a fall birthday, and (for social/emotional reasons) we waited until she was almost 6 to start her in kindergarten. After a week or so of school, her teacher called to suggest that we consider moving her into first grade because she was very advanced academically. The teacher had had other teachers/staff (including the current-but-then-new principal) look at my daughter's work. When we agreed to try it out, my daughter went for a few hours a day for a few days to a first-grade classroom. After a week or so we all agreed that the move to first grade would be a good thing. The whole process felt thoughtful, well-done and (mostly) well-managed.
Our efforts since then to get her ''accelerated,'' at both BAM and now at King middle school, have not been successful. She's done very well, however, and overall we've been very happy with the BUSD schools. Feel free to email. Robin
Skipping first Grade and going on to Second
May 2008We are thinking of skipping our Kindergarten son past first grade and into the second grade this Fall. He is not only bright but physically and socially mature. This move was suggested by his current K teacher, though we had long considered it. I am just curious if any one has had any recent experience advancing or not advancing their children and how this has worked out for them. We are in the Berkeley Unified School district. Thanks...
Your son should do fine in second grade.
One thing to consider are the consequences LONG down the road. For example, many younger boys have trouble in high school, when they are required to do higher level math thinking, for example, and that part of their brain simply has not developed yet. It is not a case of immaturity or smarts, but rather, of biological brain development.
The other thing to consider is if you want your son graduating high school at 16 or 17. For many kids--boys especially--college at that age is very difficult.
Our son skipped a grade, and was fine through school, but I wish someone had warned us about high school, and what it is like for a very young boy, especially these days, when parents start their kids in kindergarten sometimes a year late! How will your son do, being peers with boys in his class who might be three years older? Lots to consider besides brains
My advice -- don't skip a grade. If you are concerned that your child is losing interest in academics because it's too easy, then send him to a Montessori or some other school where he can work at his own rate. Or put him somewhere like the Academy or Bentley where all the kids are meant to work at an accelerated rate.
It's too easy for a child to think later on that he or she is just not talented at certain things (sports, math, physics) simply because s/he is physiologically less mature than their peers, and then you lose out on a whole world of possibility. Socially, if you skip your son it's less likely that he'll be able to experience being a leader and more likely that he'll end up a sidekick or on the periphery.
The other thing is that a lot of the other kids will start catching up to your son academically by second or third grade. My son did not read at the beginning of first grade, for example, but could read at a third grade level by the end of the year. So for now your son can have the gift of total self- confidence and by second or third grade there will be many more kids at his level to challenge him.
Back when I was in elementary school, kids were skipped a lot. There were four kids in my family. I skipped, my sister skipped, my brother skipped, and when it came time for the fourth to skip we all said to my parents, please don't do it. So the youngest did not. Everyone succeeded academically. We all went to Harvard or Princeton. But my youngest sister was the one who had the deepest self-confidence for the longest time. From the outside, I think that it always looked like skipping had been a good idea for the rest of us -- we always had friends, and we were still always among the best students in the class. BUT I had such unbelievable self confidence before I skipped, and after I skipped I always felt as though I were playing catch up. I was very flexible and adaptable and I really valued that, but for years I wanted to rejoin my original class. I'm sure I would have lost that total self confidence later on, but I wish it could have been preserved a few years more. Life is not a controlled experiment, but to be honest, if it were, I would love to know how the me who did not skip a grade turned out. When I meet other people who skipped I find it is always a bond because they had similar experiences. It was the first time that they questioned their natural place in the order of things. concerned mom
Sounds like your son would be better off skipping a grade and going into second. Studies have shown that smart kids who are underchallenged in school are as likely to drop out as the ''at-risk'' kids.
Remember, you can always have him take a year off later. It's really easy to go back a year... but almost impossible to skip ahead. If the teacher says it's a good idea, I'd go for it.
A friend of ours had a son who was really headed down the wrong path in first grade... getting into trouble, vandalizing the school, etc. When they finally realized the problem was that he was bored for seven straight hours in school, they skipped him up a grade. The new teacher said that the boy became an ''ideal student, a role model'' for the other boys in third grade. All it took to improve his behavior was to make sure he was challenged academically.
This is not an isolated case. Often ''immature'' behavior is caused by kids being bored out of their minds in an inappropriate academic setting, and studies have shown that social development is often improved by placing kids appropriately. All children develop at different rates; grouping them by chronological age is not necessarily the best way for them to develop emotionally or academically.
Grade skipping is not for everybody, and teachers rarely recommend it around here. But remember, it's always reversible if it doesn't work out.
You can also check out the Iowa Acceleration Manual if you want to be sure it's a good idea for your son. Here's a good web site describing it: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/iowa_accel_scale.htm Good luck!
Let me tell you about a girl in my son's kindergarten. She was an amazing reader when she entered kindergarten (already reading chapter books). I swear her vocabulary was at about a sixth grade level. Her parents were so proud! She really impressed adults, and enjoyed this.
Jump ahead to fourth grade. Guess what? Every other kid caught up to her, and everything has pretty much evened out. The downside for this girl is she is no longer the brilliant one in the class; she no longer feels academically superior to the other kids, and because her parents never fostered her social skills, the other kids find her socially awkward and a bit weird.
Imagine if her parents had skipped her! She would be in even worse shape. And to the parent who said you can always hold your child back later, that is out of the question. How humiliating would that be, to move ahead, fail, and then be moved back? Kids are extremely aware of where they belong, and to be held back is the most painful thing in the later grades.
Good luck. It is not an easy decision to make. A lifetime to learn--why rush it?
Your daughter may be indeed happier a grade up. Thanks Also, I’d talk to her pediatrician about the possibility of putting her on puberty blockers for a couple of years. Sometimes, very early puberty can be confusing and even a little traumatic for kids. It can bring a lot of unwelcome attention. Blockers might not be the right choice in her case—it’s a very individual decision— but it wouldn’t hurt to have the conversation with the doctor.
Have you tested her IQ with a professional? If she's gifted, you can seek out one of the private schools that only accept gifted students. For instance, I know that The Nueva School in South Bay only accepts students with an IQ of 130(?).
Oh wow, that was me as a kid. My mom tells me that I scared her when I was tested at a 9th grade reading level in Kindergarten (and now that I'm a mom, I can see why.) I'm happy to chat with you offline but here's my first thought: does she have friends in her current grade? How is she with making friends? Given that she's that advanced, skipping a grade isn't going to make that much of a difference - if she's reading at an 8th grade level (or beyond) then being in third grade vs. second grade doesn't matter really. But as you already know, it's the social-emotional part that's important here. In my case (back in the 1970s), my parents didn't have me skip a grade, BUT the school didn't know what to do with me, so I was on my own for most of the day and didn't really have friends or learn how to make friends until 7th grade or so (when I finally went to a different, much smaller school.) The silver lining, though, was that my education was completely self-directed - I got to explore whatever I was curious about, and with the help of great librarians, developed many different interests. I would say that if she has friends in her current grade, and the school is good at academic differentiation as well as social emotional education, then her current grade is probably just fine. Give her lots of opportunities to explore independent interests, and reinforce that we all have strengths and challenges. Finally, ask her what she thinks! It doesn't mean she gets to make the decision, but it will let her know that you considered the decision carefully, including her feelings about it. All the best to you!
I think if you’re going to move up a grade ( which makes a lot of sense from your description) this is a great time to do it.
my daughter is the oldest in her grade by a whole year( long story having to do with Waldorf :)) and she’s now ready to be out in the world but has a year of high school to go. In the spring of 4th grade, there was talk of moving her up but that was a terrible time to try to figure it out as she would have had to find a middle school to go to immediately and make an even bigger adjustment to being with much older kids. Just my 2 cents!
From what I read in your post, it might be best for you to get her evaluated and recommended for acceleration, although it also has to be what she would want for herself. My son is similar and currently 8 going on 9 years old this September and we've been on acceleration path for a few years now. He skipped a few times and is currently about to complete 6th grade course work since online learning has excelled him so much last year with the pandemic. Are you in a school district where they would allowed for individualize learning plan? From personal experience though, with the way you described your daughter, she may benefit from consulting with the Davidson Institute for the gifted, https://www.davidsongifted.org/. If you apply her to their young scholar program, there are a lot of supports that they can provide free of charge! Let me know if you want to connect for any other questions.
What do you think about including her in the conversation? She might enjoy having the chance to think about if she’d like to stay with her class or move on to material that may challenge her more- where she will no longer be the oldest/tallest.
I know about 6-7 kids who skipped 1 (and 2) grades due to parents prioritizing academic ability, and ALL have had numerous problems starting at about 7th grade. ALL. Developing breasts does not equal maturity! I know, because I had that exact situation. Do you really want boys and kids a year older than her to be targeting her next year, vs the younger kids in her own class? Because that’s what’s going to happen.
By MS the age differences catch up. I can tell you really want to do this, but I advise you to think long and hard and consider long term scenarios. For example, you understand that if she skips a grade she will graduate a year earlier and leave for college a year sooner, taking away a year of your time with her - right? A year of time with your child. Think on it - and overhaul your diet, reduce meat consumption, discuss her development with her pediatrician.
Your daughter sounds a lot like mine except my daughter is probably not as gifted as yours and quite a bit needier. How amazing that your child required zero support from you during the pandemic schooling! I'm so envious. My daughter is very bright and advanced (about 2 grade levels above) but isn't as self directed as yours. She also finished reading Harry Potter books, loves math games -- she does math for fun and loves to make up her own math problems and solve them. Anyways, my daughter has a Sept. birthday and we did TK at OUSD. She began developing breast buds at age 7.5. She's also the tallest kid. She's 8 years old but wears size 12. Her pediatrician doesn't seem concerned at all and says she's within a normal range. *sigh* Too early! Because she is academically advanced and her best friends are all a grade above, we often ask this question ourselves. Should she skip a grade? We are deciding not to skip a grade for the following reasons:
- We asked her a few times. She prefers to stay in the same grade. She says she likes being the tallest kid.
- While her reading and math are advanced, her writing and spelling are not at the level we want to see. She meets the grade level competency for writing, but we'd want her to be more fluent and advanced in writing and this is an area we hope she'll work on when school starts in the fall. She won't write on her own and we don't have the bandwidth to drill her down and get ther to write more while we work full time. This doesn't seem to be an issue for your child.
- By high school, 1 - 2 year age difference really doesn't matter. Most kids, especially girls, all even out in terms of physical and emotional development.
What school does your child go to? We decided to switch her to a private school after spending over a year at home with zoom school which was extremely challenging, and it's clear that OUSD will be dealing with a lot of learning loss and catching kids up. Even pre-pandemic, it was always a struggle to get differentiated instruction at OUSD and my kid was often bored, but it's nearly impossible now. We're hopeful that the private school will be able to provide a more differentiated instruction and we've been told that the way they teach math at this private school allows them to provide advanced instruction.
There is no “right” answer to your “problem” here. Considering the array of problems that one could have with their child, this is a good one to have.
Our family was in a similar situation with our now 16-year-old “Jane.” Jane was and is super gifted academically. In her early years we tried to broaden her field of experiences by signing her up for many different kinds of classes: cooking, music, art, gymnastics, martial arts, to name a few. From age 3 to 13, my husband’s work took us out of state at first and then abroad. With limited resources at int’l schools in “2nd tier” cities, we made the difficult decision to have Jane skip 1st grade. While the principal warned us that skipping grades was not beneficial to students mentally and emotionally (problems surfacing mostly often in the teenage years), the school’s evaluation of Jane supported the grade skip. Academically, emotionally, and mentally she fit right in with the 2nd graders.
We returned to the US when Jane was in 4th grade and had her reevaluated. We were actually ready to have her repeat 3rd grade. But instead, she was placed into the gifted program for 4th grade. Then she tested into a middle school that taught an accelerated curriculum.
We ended up going back to the “2nd tier city” when Jane was 11 where the int’l school found that she had already covered the 7th grade curriculum at the accelerated MS. Thus, she advanced yet another grade.
By the time we returned to the Bay Area 3 years ago, Jane was 13, had already completed her HS freshman year, and had completed an AP class successfully with a high “4” score. She was ready for 10th grade. But we made her repeat her freshman year so that she would be more closer in age with her grade peers. Jane was not happy with this decision for at least a year.
However, now that Jane’s younger brother just completed 6th grade, she started to understand how awkward it would be to have a 12-year-old in HS. Jane is also a singer and has come to understand that her younger body is somewhat of a disadvantage because her voice lacks the maturity of other HS juniors. If she were at her age-level grade, she could have had another year for her voice to mature and to qualify for other highly competitive art programs.
For Jane, the one year grade skip worked and she fits right in emotionally and mentally with kids who are at least one year older than her. Academically, as her first principal pointed out, Jane could have skipped 3 grades and she would have been successful. People hardly notice that she is a year younger than her grade peers (it comes up when talking about things like driver’s license). Socially, she does better with older kids than younger kids but has not had any problems even with our relocation every 2-3 years. Physically, Jane is a little slower in development and so she has always been the “petite and cute” one of the group. Thankfully, this label worked in her favor, although it certainly doesn’t help with her current posture.
As I stated earlier, there is no right answer to this problem. But here is one academic journey about 10 years out from where you are with your daughter. Good luck.
We used to say our middle son was 30 when he was 3 because he was much as you describe your daughter. He has a summer birthday though and started just after he turned 5 and he still got "top marks" in Kindergarten for both academics and soft skills. He was also the tallest by several inches even though probably a quarter of his classmates were more than a year older than he. We thought about skipping him then (at the urging of the teacher) but didn't because we didn't want to push him. This continued all through elementary school and the teacher he had in 4th grade again suggested we skip him (so skip the last year of elementary and put him straight into middle school). Again we didn't, this time because he had a nice group of friends he wanted to stay with. His friend group wound up falling apart in middle school anyway.
Our son is now in high school. He is involved in every activity under the sun -- sports, scouting, music, robotics, speech & debate, takes extra academic classes,.... -- maybe because school is so easy for him and he wants to fill his time. He has friends but does gravitate to kids who are older. I'm still not sure if we made the right decision not skipping him -- and he's nearly a year younger than your daughter (compared to classmates)! There are some kids who just get it, both academically and socially. I think if I were in your shoes, I would probably skip your daughter.
One more thing -- our youngest is very very smart academically. He also started school on time but it was just too easy for him. He didn't have the soft skills though so we didn't think seriously about skipping him. He started hating school because everything was so boring he just checked out. We found some academic classes online and sent him to some academic camps (mostly in math because that's what he loves), and being challenged in something outside of school made a huge difference for him in school as well. So if you decide not to skip your daughter and she starts getting bored, that could be a route to take.
My advice is do not have your daughter skip a grade but instead look into private school and/or something else creative that will keep her interested. My daughter was talking in complete sentences at age 1, reading chapter books at age 3 and had read all of the Harry Potter books by the end of first grade. Her first grade public school teacher told us that private school or un-schooling might be a better approach for her. She ended up doing public school until middle school and then homeschooling/alternative school for high school. Kept herself busy with art. More academics is not what these kids need. They need more creative outlets, and the academics will take care of itself. It would have been a disaster if she skipped grades because she needed to still hang out with kids her own age for social reasons...and also who wants a 13 year old in the same grade as 16 year olds. She is headed off to college in a few weeks, along with kids her own age.
I know that many are uncomfortable with the "g" word (gifted), but whether or not you choose to use that word, that is the world you are now in. There are so many ways to approach this. As those of us know who've been immersed in this world, "when you've seen one gifted kid, you've seen one gifted kid." The solutions depend so much on how the particular school responds to an advanced learner, and the particular needs of your child. You will do your child a huge favor by doing a little bit of reading. With my kid (now a sophomore in college), we ended up with many approaches (public school, then private school, and then with my great reluctance, homeschooling -- through high school). I was also very resistant to getting tests done, but in the end, it is what gave me the permission to make our own course for him, since that was really what was needed. It was clear he needed something different, and this helped me to let go of anybody else's (uneducated) opinion. And that is what has helped him flourish. A creative, quirky, fast learner, he was able to keep going at his own pace, and that is where his joy was. Many who criticize parents who accommodate their gifted kids think we're pushing them; in reality, we're running to catch up, and to feed them what they want at their natural pace. I highly recommend reading "Is it a Cheetah?" on hoagiesgifted.org, and the Gifted 101 page (and poking around that site). I'd also look into the Summit Center in Walnut Creek, or even the Gifted Development Center in CO. The truth is, even private schools often don't know how to approach gifted kids, especially if they're in the extremely or profoundly gifted range. That is why it can be so very helpful to have assessments; then you know what you're trying to accommodate. The numbers are certainly not the whole story, but, they can help you wrap your head around the alternate paths it sounds like your daughter needs. Feel free to reach out if you want to follow up!