My daughter is a smart cookie. She can play with the world around her and twist and turn the shapes that she sees in different patterns from different angles until it makes a lot of sense to her. I have a lot of fun watching her explore the world and I have to sit back as I see her drink in information like a dehydrated desert trekker coming to an oasis.
She is in first grade by age right now. For the past quarter she has been spending a morning in first grade and then going to second grade for the post-lunch periods. Even in the second grade class, she is still an excellent student as she is a sponge and more importantly a synthesizer of information with a ridiculous ability to find links and hooks.
My wife, myself, and her teachers decided that she has nothing left to do in first grade. We fear that my daughter will be like me, if she is bored she’ll first never learn to work hard when it is easy to learn how to actually work hard and accept a challenge, and secondly, when bored, I disrupted classes as I made sure my teacher knew I as bored. The solution is to push her forward to second grade for the rest of the year and then she’ll join the third grade cohort in the fall.
My bleg is are there any books where the storyline is making skipping a grade less scary? I know there are bunch of books for potty training, for the first day of kindergarten, for moving, for bullying, for parental and familial reorganizations and splits. Are there are books like this for skipping a grade?
redshirt
A fairly rare problem for most families.
NotMax
Nothing inherently wrong with skipping a grade, so long as the parents are cognizant that it can carry a downside when the student is a year (or maybe more) younger than her grade peers in junior high and high school.
psycholinguist
Any shot at sending her to a less structured school? Montessori is the most well known, but the more integrated, cross-grade forms of curriculum are becoming more common, even in some public systems. There’s often scholarships available, as the privates are making more attempts to diversify the student body. 1st graders are a lot of fun to watch, mine cracks me up all the time.
Linda Featheringill
I’ve known a few people who were skipped ahead. The only real problems they had in school is that emotionally they were the age that they were. This first emerged in middle school.
Some buzzed through high school and entered college right away, going all the way to graduation. Then they just drifted for a couple of years before they chose a direction in their lives. Maybe there is a time for that to happen.
An exception to that would be kiddos who were really into science, math, etc. Sometimes those folks just keep on going at top speed. NASA is full of those type of people.
Linkmeister
I tried searching “grade skipping fiction” and got lots of academic studies, no fiction. I tried “grade skipping children’s books” and got zip.
There doesn’t appear to be a shelf-full of books for the kids themselves. Lots for the parents.
I skipped the last 1/2 of fourth grade in LA public schools, but then got moved back to fourth grade when we moved across town and I entered a Catholic school. Just as well. My understanding of sentence structure was poor (verb? What’s a verb?).
patrick II
I don’t know whether I am being helpful or not, but my son was very gifted so we started him early in school and he had problems socializing. To state the obvious, the in the difference in scholastic ability and social abilities — and not just the child’s social skills, but the willingness older children to put up with a younger child in the class — can be a problem. My son was often bullied by his classmates on the playground. That may be worse for boys. Anyhow, after a few years he had some depression problems and we were advised to put into a private school with small classes. He hated it at first, but eventually thrived and ended up doing very well.
I had a friend who also had a very bright son, but he was of a different personality type, and did very well in public school. So, I guess what I am saying that more than most children a very bright child may call for very different answers for what is best for them — aside from the normal love them like crazy and appreciate the time you have with them.
It went by so fast.
redshirt
For real kid geniuses why not tutors? 1 on 1 education is bound to be far better. Keep them in the same grade though, for socialization reasons. You need to raise both a person and your child.
hamletta
I dunno about that, but you might keep her informed. I got skipped a grade, and nobody told me anything except I’d have to go to school longer. They didn’t even tell me I had to take a different bus!
Luckily, there was a nice boy who saw me crying and helped me find the right bus.
opiejeanne
When I was in 3rd grade my teachers wanted me to skip 3rd grade and had the district psychologist interview me and do some tests; they were all very impressed but ultimately the school decided against it because I was very small. (They didn’t mention to my parents how immature I was, but my 3rd grade teacher eventually did.) My best friend was tested at the same time and scored high on the same tests, and because she was much taller than the other kids her age she moved up a grade. I’m sure she was much better behaved in class than I was even though she was just as bored. My 3rd grade teacher finally coped with me by giving me math assignments from a more advanced book and having me sit outside the classroom to work them for an hour, and finding a handful of kids from the two 3rd grade classes who were reading above our grade level, forming a special reading group, and palming me off on another teacher for an hour a day. .
That was 1958.
karen marie
I guess I am puzzled why you need a book. I would just talk to her, perhaps after talking yourself first perhaps to a child psychologist (you could possibly frighten her by suggesting that skipping ahead might be difficult). She’s already in second grade, at least half days, with kids who presumably would be in her third grade cohort. If they accept her now, and she them, I don’t see how there would be a problem of her being seen as an interloper. As long as she knows she has support any time a problem comes up, she will be fine. As you, I am sure, are aware, life is often painful growing up, even under the best of circumstances. You cannot protect her from experiencing all the hurts any more than you can provide her every possible joy.
Congratulations on having brought her this far. You are rightfully proud of her and, I hope, of yourself and mom and the other significant people in her life. I am always glad to hear/see people who value their children and understand a parent’s duty to help their children become fully functioning individuals.
As far as laziness developing – my advice is putting a kibosh on too much talk about how smart and instead focus on praising hard work. Positive reinforcement of desired behavior, like challenging herself, will encourage that behavior, where hearing too much “you’re so smart” sends a message of “you don’t need to work hard.” My nephew was derailed by hearing only “you’re so smart” and having parents who used it as an excuse to not make an effort to help him develop good life habits like setting goals and critical thinking about what he was doing.
Kropadope
Not a book, but Doogie Howser, MD?
Richard Mayhew
@karen marie: she processes everything better when she has an example and a story as an anchor. We have been talking to her about this too
bin Lurkin'
I skipped first and fourth grades, all it really did for me was leave me (even more) socially isolated, I was still bored out of my mind. The experience eventually lead me to loathe school and my “peers” so much I never wanted to set foot in another one once I was no longer legally obligated to attend. Another side effect was a lifelong hatred of team sports in general and jocks in particular, I got picked last every single time for anything, two years is a huge gap physically all the way up through high school.
It didn’t help that my parents were immigrants and had for their own reasons settled in the most socially conservative part of the country, a place where immigrants were basically unknown in 1956. I’m reminded of the Japanese aphorism about the nail that stands up will be hammered down. Also unhelpful was the fact that no one had ever heard of ADD at that time either. ADD for me at least didn’t mean I couldn’t focus, I can focus so hard the world mostly goes away but I don’t really have much conscious control over the focus, it has a mind of its own so to speak and focuses on what it wants to focus on and when it wants to focus.
rikyrah
I have no books, but a Congratulations. The hard part will be socialization. Since you seem to be aware, you will help her through the transition.
NotMax
@bin Lurkin’
Back when was helping run a summer camp, instituted a firm policy that whenever there was an activity involving choosing teams. note be taken of who was picked last. That person got to do the picking the next time.
hamletta
Being the last girl to get her period is…awkward.
ETA: But somebody has to do it! And I did, and I survived.
TheMightyTrowel
My teachers wanted to skip me ahead – i know it came up in 1st grade and again in 3rd – but my dad put the kibosh on it. He’s a child psychologist and I’m shy already and he worried I’d be set up to fail socially if i were put in with the older students. He also made a point of telling teachers that if they couldn’t handle teaching intelligent children maybe they were in the wrong field. He was on the school board for all my schools. My teachers either loved or hated him but the principles and admin people were always thrilled when i (and my dad) left their school for another. My dad’s a big fan of getting people to do their jobs properly and respectfully. School principles are by and large rather lazy and deeply in love with their own authority and every one who has ever met my dad has regretted it.
Central Planning
@psycholinguist:
All of my kids went through (or are in) a Montessori school through the 9-12 (year old) program. I advocate Montessori to anyone I talk to. Montessori programs generally start with a class of 3-6 year olds, so you would need to find a school that will let her join in to a “lower elementary” class. I would certainly try to get her in one though. There are schools that will work with you to make the transition easy.
One of my kids skipped 7th grade after coming out of Montessori. He had a September birthday and was old for his grade. He took their tests and did fine. We left the decision up to him. He said “I really feel like I should be in 8th grade”. He did fine, got into the university he wanted to in the program he wanted. I have a niece that skipped a grade (might have been 2nd or 3rd) and she is thriving as well.
I think boredom is like the kiss of death for school kids. As long as she is encouraged to discover and learn, she will be fine (regardless of what grade she is in).
Basically, it depends on the kid. Sounds like your daughter will do fine.
geg6
Does the school have a GATE program? My niece was placed in GATE in second grade and took classes in specific subjects with older students at the same academic level, but stayed in her own grade for others. She was in higher level maths and English/reading but for PE and social studies with her original cohort. That way, the social issues weren’t quite as bad. The only time it was stressful for her was before she got to high school and had to be bussed to the high school for certain classes midday and then back to her own school after a few hours of classes. She’s in high school now, so it’s not a problem anymore.
low-tech cyclist
Richard, I understand your fears. Having school be too easy, and having nothing to do as a result, isn’t good.
Three weeks into first grade, my parents and teacher realized that’s where I was. So I was promoted into second grade.
By third grade, I was once again the genius kid who found everything easy. And I never did develop good study habits – something that still affects me now, in my early 60s. So her skipping a grade isn’t necessarily going to solve the problem you’re concerned about.
And on the flip side, the next ten years were awful from a social standpoint. I missed out on the basics of social development and ability to relate to other people. So the unintended consequences were enormous.
I probably never would have recovered, but for an absolutely kick-ass religious conversion at the age of 16 that – I can only say miraculously – undid all that damage almost overnight.
But that’s not the sort of thing one can plan on.
I can’t tell you what’s right or wrong in your situation, Richard. But just take into account that being advanced a year can present varying degrees of social difficulty for different people. So if your daughter advances a grade, this is something you’re going to have to keep a close eye on.
Keith P.
There’s always reruns of Doogie Howser, MD.
DanF
Not really what you want to hear, but I’d check to see if there is a Montessori school you can get her into. There are no grade levels, only age ranges, and students are able to work to whatever level they are capable of. Downside, once they leave Montessori and head into public school for Jr. High or High School, they can really see how sub-optimal our educational system is, and may resent testing.
Randy P
@low-tech cyclist:
That’s probably the hardest lesson to teach, and I don’t know how to teach it. My experience was similar. I coasted all the way through high school, skipping a couple grades, doing well in those subjects where I could absorb the material in class (math, science, foreign language to a certain extent). Did badly in history, and my Mom kind of pushed me there to get me through, but I never caught on that “study” was a general concept.
I wish especially I’d spent more time on foreign language. For instance in Latin class, I just faked my way through the assignment by sight-translating in class the stuff we’d been supposed to read overnight. As a result, I remember no Latin, and every time I stare at an old Latin manuscript in a museum I curse that lazy kid.
Anyway, I got partially cured toward the end of a not-great freshman year in college, where study actually was required and my first
semester grades were REALLY terrible. I ran into another young kid who I had a nodding acquaintance with, and he parted the conversation saying, “well, I have to go study now”. My jaw dropped and I said something like “you… STUDY?” Seriously, I thought I was supposed to go through life without it.
I did better after that, pretty much 4.0 for the rest of my undergrad and grad career. Not enough to make up for the freshman year grades and earn any honors, but at least I developed some sort of habits.
Richard, the hard lesson you will have to teach is: do the work expected of you, even if it’s boring. Then you can do the fun hard stuff.
Geoduck
My sister started school a year early, because she was so bored at home. The biggest problem she had was in high school when all of her classmates were getting their driver’s licenses and she had to wait a year.
OzarkHillbilly
Boredom was the death of my schooling. I graduated High School with just enuf credits. My last 2 years I only went to class for tests (with the exception of one class and an excellent teacher who challenged me) College was even worse.
dr. bloor
Make sure she’s ready for the social-emotional demands of skipping a grade. A chronological year is a big deal at her level, although it sounds like she’s already been mixing with her older peers some.
The other thing to watch out for down the road is that moving into the middle school level a year younger can be kind of a big deal in terms of managing more complex academic tasks and executive functions. A lot of schools arguably ask too much of twelve year old prefrontal cortices, and being a year short conceivably could be an issue.
Punchy
I’d think getting her a book written by Ted Cruz would cure of her insatiable thirst for 2nd grade and make her want to continue to act like the 1st grader that she is. Just copy Ted’s behavior!
debbie
No one’s suggested asking the local librarians?
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Oh c’mon, get real will you? That actually makes sense.
PurpleGirl
The year I began school (kindergarten in 1954) the cut off for registration was the end of October or maybe one week into November. I was born at the end of November. As there was room in the school, the Principal and other administrators decided not to make me wait a whole school year to start. The timing of my birth was such that I was younger at that time but if I waited I’d be a year older than my classmates. So I started at the earlier age. I remember being the youngest in all my classes (even college) but I was tallish kid so I fit in in Elementary and Junior/Senior High. Any academic/social problems really traced back to my stutter. I was sort of bored in school but made up for it by reading every minute I could at home.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
I don’t know of any books either. I was a voracious reader but never skipped a grade.
J and her twin sister skipped 2nd grade and did Ok (one was HS valedictorian, the other was close behind (got 1 B)). The skipping took place shortly after they moved from a private school in NoVA to a public school in the Boston suburbs.
I’ve got an on-line friend who went the home-schooling route. His kid was doing calculus and physics at middle-school age, plays piano, etc.
I agree that the emotional aspects are very important, but I wouldn’t let it scare you. Smart kids get picked on in school, short kids get picked on in school, slow kids get picked on in school, girls get picked on in school. It’s horrible, but I don’t think it can be completely avoided under the system we have. Skipping a grade might not make much difference there.
Classwork is only part of the education. I agree that having a heart-to-heart talk with your youngster at various stages over the years is important if/when she starts feeling board or starts hating her classes. An immersive hobby can be a great counter-balance to issues at school.
I would let her lead the way on this. Even if she can do the work at 1-2 grade levels higher, she may feel more comfortable staying back with her age group. You don’t want her to be under some sort of external expectations that she has to do better than everyone else if she doesn’t have the personality for it at this age. Some people always thrive under pressure like that. Some people aren’t ready to be 2nd or 3rd best at a young age and are crushed by it. If she has friends 1-2 grades older and gets along with them, etc., then it would be a pretty easy choice.
Everyone needs to fail, to learn how to handle it, because it will happen to all of us eventually. But it should be done in the right environment…
My $0.02.
ETA – I mis-remembered. I started first-grade a little early because I already knew my numbers and my ABCs. I graduated HS at 17 and was usually the youngest in my class by a few months.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lee
I have not read the other comments so someone else might have touched on this.
I was the youngest in my class by quite a bit and it sucked. It makes the teenage years just a bit more frustrating as you are behind everyone else.
My wife & I planned our kids to have early in the school year to avoid them being the youngest.
Malraux
A couple of quick points: First, the socialization issue. There’s no evidence that whole grade accelerated children are socially/emotionally harmed by grade skipping. Yeah, there’s a few horror stories, but in general survey’s of adults who skipped a grade when children ~70% feel it was the right choice, of the remaining 30% ~20-25% feel that grade skipping was unsuccessful because it did not allow them to skip forward enough. Additionally, there’s studies looking at actual harm find basically zilch; i.e., there can be a effect wherein the internal self esteem gets knocked down, but its getting knocked down from “I’m super smart and can do anything easily cuz I’m so smart” to “I can work at things to succeed”. THat’s a lowering in self image, but it’s hard to call it a bad one.
Second, it’s really hard to understate just how large the effect of a grade skip is academically. It has one of the largest effects in education overall, not just gifted ed, but education overall.
For mr mayhew and anyone else who is potentially interested in the current state of the research, I’d recommend reading the “Nation Empowered” report from the Belin-Blank center from the University of Iowa. http://www.accelerationinstitute.org/nation_empowered/ The part 1 does have anecdotes from accelerated kids, though that’s not a story as such.
I don’t know of a story that directly address this sort of thing in fiction. Obviously you can find biographies of lots of famous people who have grade skipped (Nixon, reagan, Chelsea Clinton, Michelle Obama in politics, tons of science people, a surprising number of civil rights leaders including MLK) The other place to ask this question would be to the Hoagies Facebook group.
Malraux
@Lee: http://newyorker.com/tech/elements/youngest-kid-smartest-kid For a different view. Also, you know what sucks, being the oldest in middle school and high school. Also being right in the middle. Likely because middle school-high school and puberty just kinda suck.
narya
my younger nephew is quite bright–but born just after the cutoff. They tested him and didn’t let him in (don’t remember why not). He has gone through school with his grade, but was tagged for gifted classes all through (he’s now in high school, and I think taking a college class or two) so got lots of extra stuff to keep him entertained. They also had him helping classmates for awhile, which I think was also good for him. But I–who had access to no gifted classes and who was already one of the youngest in the class–was boooooorrrrrred all through school. I did eventually learn to study, but would have liked to have had more actual education in grade school and high school. So, in short, enhancement of where she is, or Montessori, could also help.
Jim197
We faced a similar problem with our daughter. She was capable of much more, but physically and emotionally she could not leave her grade level. We provided her with all of the enrichment programs we could find and kept her with her peers until 9th grade, at which point she could no longer tolerate school. So we pulled her out and started home schooling. We joined a secular home schooling co-op (The Learning Community) and enrolled her part-time in the local community college. When her peers graduated from high school, our daughter had effectively finished her freshmen year of college with a 3.9 GPA and was being actively recruited by several brand name colleges.
Ohio Mom
Check the Wrights Law site, it’s mostly special ed law but some states have laws requiring schools to provide extra services to gifted kids, and you will find that info there.
Even the best school systems sometimes somehow forget to mention all they are required to do under law. Until parents remind them.
Also, you might want to talk to higer-level administrators in your district. They often have a broader perspective than the in-the-trenches teachers. You pay their salaries with your taxes, they work for you.
Jager
It’s an on-going problem. My grandson is in the 7th grade, he’s in middle school He’s taken every advanced math class offered by his school. He started getting C’s in math last fall, the reason, he refuses to do his homework assignments. He told his mother, “I know how to do these problems and there is no point in doing 10 pages of problems I already know how to solve.” He’d skip the homework and Ace the tests and get a C. My kid called me the other day and said, “Guess what your grandson is doing?” I told her I had no idea. “He downloaded the California Education Code and is combing through it looking for a loophole to get out of his homework assignments.”
When his older sister finished middle school she announced that she wasn’t going to go to high school, My daughter (runs a Charter School) and is cool with her own kids asked her what she planned to do. Ms S told her Mom, “I’m going study, take the GED test and go to community college.” She got her AA at 16. Took a year off and worked in an Italian restaurant. Ms. S started UCLA in the summer, went to the University of Copenhagen for a year that fall. When school was out S and a friend rode their bikes from Berlin to Istanbul. She came back, finished UCLA and graduated at 20. She applied for a job along with 300 other kids, got it because her new boss told her she had incredible initiative. Relax, Richard she’ll find her way.
Manyakitty
How about Cheaper by the Dozen? It’s nonfiction, and set in the early half of the 20th century, but there’s a chapter called “Skipping Through School” that might make her feel better. Plus, it’s a darned entertaining book!
I tried to include a link to it, but am a failure. It’s by Frank Gilbreth.
Manyakitty
Also, fwiw, my parents considered skipping me out of third grade, but didn’t because of the immaturity factor. In hindsight, they probably should have, because like you, I still expect to learn things by osmosis, and my lack of study habits continues to haunt me.
FarmerG
Just do it! That’s the story of my life. Smart enough to go through elementary school in 4 years but it still took 8. Turned into the class clown and have spent my whole life working at half speed and still doing better than most.
Keep her challenged as I wish I would have been.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Manyakitty: I guess we should all start a club – I was in the same “didn’t learn how to study / it was too easy to get by” group, too.
It would have been nice if we were taught “you don’t really know this stuff until you can tell someone else how to do it” – maybe that would have helped.
Later, after it didn’t matter as much, I found that while I can absorb enough of a subject via a quick skim of the material to get by, to really know it I need to read it carefully 3 times. Repetition is necessary (for me anyway). J has always read slowly and carefully, and stuff really sticks in her head – she’s amazing…
I also didn’t learn until too late that one shouldn’t take exam questions at face value. “What do you mean that ‘binary stars are rotating about each other’??” (It means they’re rotating about a common center of orbit.) The exam question is asking about what was taught in class – don’t take things so literally!! How does the question relate to what was taught in the class? Don’t take the exam question in isolation from what was taught…
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
StellaB
I moved from first to second grade mid-year too and then got sent to higher grade classes for various subjects off and on. It was hard being younger in high school. After a prolonged battle with my parents, I graduated from that miserable experience just before turning sixteen and then the age difference faded in college. I was shy from the beginning though. I suspect that it would have been easier for a more outgoing child.
WereBear
@Richard Mayhew: In that case, there’s a lot of YA fantasy fiction coming along with a heroine who is a bit different from everyone around her, but she has a special purpose and can do great good for her people.
A fine message to give a child.
I was gifted in the 1960’s, moved through a patchwork of school ranging from very good to very bad, with some bullying depending on infrastructure. In a larger metro area I might have done just fine socially, but in the rural areas where there was few of me per square mile, that was less so.
My family gave me similarly patchy support; my dad was thrilled with my academic prowess and tried to get the schools on board, while it frightened my mother. I was never going to be that girly-girl she wanted, and indeed, I never have been.
So if she needs a story, ask a librarian if there is something age & gender appropriate for her to get started on. With me, and the usual kid choices being not anything I could identify with, and my precocious reading ability, it was science fiction.
But if she needs a story, I can’t think of a better one. Funny thing, just this morning I was thinking how I had to craft my own narrative early on, and while the kids in SF at the time were inevitably boys, I certainly identified with the feeling of not fitting in, and how utterly reassuring it was to understand that it was a good thing, not a bad thing.
It remains a source of comfort :)
Original Lee
Johns Hopkins has supplemental programs for children like your daughter. I think there are similar programs all over the country, and I would be shocked if MIT didn’t have one. The best part is, they also have resources for parents – not just other parents to talk to, or education professionals, but reading lists and TED talks and things. Expensive but worth it. She might do well even if bored in school if she has an out-of-school learning experience she knows will stretch her waiting for her when she gets home, or (best of all) if she’s given time in school to work on the special program.
One thing that worked very well for me was a program my elementary school tried when I was in fourth and fifth grades (part of the principal’s PhD research). At the beginning of the school year, each child got a YUUUUGE binder with all of the planned homework for the year, with tabs for each subject. Each divider had the due dates for assignments and tests. And they just … let us do it. If you wanted to, you could finish the entire year’s homework in spelling in a week and take spelling tests every day for a month, and be done! (Which is what I did, for pretty much every subject.) They didn’t let us take more than one test in a subject per day, though, I assume so that if you didn’t understand a concept, you didn’t crash and burn on the next three tests or something. They also paired us up into each-one-teach-one sets for different subjects, so if you breezed through your math, you would get paired up with someone who was struggling. It was wonderful. Two of my friends and I were essentially done except for some tests by Thanksgiving, and we got to spend every afternoon writing and rehearsing puppet plays, or doing science projects, or reading for fun.
Being bored in school is awful. Original Daughter basically doesn’t remember very much of 3rd-8th grades because she was so bored and socially isolated. I remember being bored and spending such a huge amount of time reading (except for 4th and 5th grades) that I got into trouble for not paying attention in class. Best of luck to finding a solution that works for your kid!
satby
I never skipped a grade, though I remember vaguely that it was suggested once. I knew how to read before first grade, and got into trouble for reading my own books hidden in the Dick and Jane books the rest of the class was struggling through. I was so bored I daydreamed all the way through school, though I aced every test except math. I think the worst thing was that I also never learned the self discipline to study and put effort into what I wanted to achieve until I was an adult. So I agree with the comments that say be sure to work on rewarding her work ethic rather than her innate gifts. Whether she skips or they continue to just have her do some accelerated classes, or you look for a Montessori school, or whatever; the key to any real success is usually perseverance. There are millions of smart unhappy, underemployed, unfulfilled people.
drdavechemist
If Richard is still reading, you see that there are a lot of us who have skipped a grade (a mid year move from K to 1st for me in the mid 1960s) and not just survived but thrived. In the private school where I work and read admissions applications, the admissions officer and his predecessor always say “It’s never an advantage (to be a year younger than your classmates),” but of the five people who were in the room this year, I have a Ph.D. in a physical science from a Big Ten university and my new boss also skipped ahead a grade, so it clearly doesn’t have to be a disadvantage.
I agree with lots of the other commenters on two things: social support is key, and learning how to work hard still has to happen. I think I was lucky that I was pushed forward into a particularly strong cohort in my moderately large suburban/rural school system, so we challenged each other to be the strongest students we could be, and that included learning the discipline of completing all the homework that our teachers assigned. I’ve read some recent research on the “growth mindset” which emphasizes that praise should focus on the process rather than on the outcome, so that students internalize the attitude that continual improvement is the most important goal.
Good luck to you and your talented daughter.
amygdala
Does your school district have a gifted program? My Dad resisted efforts to have me skip a grade, because my birthday is late in the year, which made me young relative to my fellow students. So I was put in the gifted program, which I really enjoyed. We got to pick topics within broad categories on which to write reports or make presentations to the class.
I probably would have done the background research on my own, since my library card was one of my prized possessions as a kid. But the structure of the program, guidance (loose, but guidance nonetheless) of the teacher, and working on teams with classmates were useful. Somehow they managed to avoid conveying the idea that we were better than kids who weren’t in the class. Not sure how, but I’m grateful for that.
Fermion T. Clown
Not an answer to your question: a caution.
Back when she was a little older than your kid, the parents of an ex-colleague jumped her a grade in school twice. I don’t remember the details, but I think once early in grade school, then either late in grade school or in junior high.
She’s a really bright cookie, a Fellow in her professional society, went to the Nationals in her college sport and finished 2nd or 3rd, “best paper” awards, blah blah blah. (Back many years ago as colleagues we co-authored a couple of conference papers.)
Sounds good, eh? Well, not so much…
I’m not a psychologist and much of what I’m about to say is inference, so salt shakers and all that, but …
… IMO there’s compelling evidence that she’s an “aggressive” / “extreme” narcissist (ie afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder or some other PD.) Under any sort of stress she acts like a 6yo.
Guessing partly because cold / unempathetic parents (her description), but in view of all the comments about “socialization” up-thread, I’ll say that long ago circumstantial evidence persuaded me that she never recovered from being the youngest / smallest / brightest kid in class.
If you jump your kid a grade, or especially two, you might want to consult a child psychologist to be sure that the difference in emotional maturity between your kid and her classmates doesn’t result in emotional problems later in life.
Might not be necessary for yours, but hoo boy, I sure feel sorry for my ex-colleague, so think “insurance”. She’s wallowed in self-pity for as long as I’ve known her… at the same time she is one of the most self-absorbed and insecure individuals I’ve ever known. Blames everyone but herself when things go wrong, as they frequently do (for all of us, because that’s life.)
My two pesos.
acallidryas
I don’t have a book, but I will give you words of support. I skipped a grade (was skipped ahead part way through 1st grade, although earlier in the year than this) and it was one of the best things that happened to me. I was so miserable and bored in my class. And as far as the social concerns, many of my friends were older than me anyway.
You know how she’s feeling about all of this more than random internet commenters, but after talking to my parents years afterwards I found out how nervous they’d been about skipping me a grade, but I was nothing but excited and happy when I found out and after it happened.
Malraux
@drdavechemist: The data on grade skipped children over similarly high ability students who do not end up skipping a grade on the difference in higher education and career achievement is actually pretty stark. From the nation empowered report i linked up thread:
In large part, it’s likely the effect is because of the harder work the accelerated student must go through.
@Fermion T. Clown: Had she not skipped grades, she still would have been the brightest kid in the class with cold parents. Anecdotes aren’t exactly data.
YoursInTheSnow
My daughter skipped 4th grade at the suggestion of her 3rd grade teacher. She did all her class work and started socializing a little too much. She was also tall. I knew we would move several times and considered if this didn’t work out she could repeat a grade. She has proven not to be the super genius that her 3rd grade teacher thought – but she is smart and is her class president in high school. I think changing schools and communities we lived in assured her a chance to “fit in” despite being a year younger.
WereBear
I vividly remember showing up for first grade and opening my first official school book, a Dick & Jane reader, and being flat out stunned because it had no words.
Six years old and in my own Twilight Zone episode…
jake the antisoshul soshulist
The key would be socialization and emotional maturity.
If your daughter is as bright as you say, at some point
she will run into the boredom issue. I don’t have any
advice for dealing with it, but I think you try to be
proactive about dealing with it,
I have a different personal experience.
First of all, there was no public Kindergarten in Kentucky
in 1957. So, went from a fairly isolated rural environment
directly into first grade. Of course, what we did in 1st grade
would be covered in Kindergarten today. However, I had not
yet turned 6, and was socially and emotionally immature,
even for a not quite 6 year old boy. It probably should have been
done sooner, but I was held back in third grade (I probably
should have been held back in 1st grade, even though I would
have been bored a lot of the time. Which I often was, anyway).
Miss Bianca
She’s a little young to read it herself, but if she’s at all geeky you could read-aloud the “Mad Scientists Club” stories with her. Yeah, all the Mad Scientists are boys, but it *was* written in the 60s…about a group of nerdy kids who get into and out of all kinds of scrapes by being just.so.freaking.smart. No actually grade-skipping mentioned, but these are the kinds of kids who would have.
Ruckus
Maybe she could write a book about how bored she wasn’t when she doesn’t spend countless hours wasting energy sitting, bored because she’s was born a certain time ago. And how there are countless people on the other side of the same concept, people who can’t go quite as fast as she can and become lost rather than bored. This is a great failing of our school system, that age is the great indicator of what we are. That everyone fits into a predetermined slot in school based upon their age and nothing else.
Starfish
Girls are less disruptive than boys even when bored, and the time when skipping becomes hard on them is probably dating age when they are dating someone older and more experienced than they are. Second grade is usually when they are tested and put in the gifted programs, and that can help with some of the boredom depending on how it is designed.
DCrefugee
I skipped second grade, also. I think I did second-grade summer school and went straight to third grade. Some thoughts:
— I was always the youngest in subsequent classes (among the smartest, too, but that’s another story).
— Given the notoriety of having skipped a grade, I was often labeled as the teacher’s pet. Even then (this was the ’60s), ignorance was celebrated by my peers. Bullying ensued and I got into a couple of fights, but held my own.
— As years passed, the distinction waned and was forgotten.
— Yet, later social interactions always were affected by my relative youth. I was the last among my peers to get a driver’s license; I had just turned 17 upon high school graduation, still too young to buy a beer. I was one of the youngest in my college classes, earning a Bachelor’s degree shortly after turning 21.
That’s a bit of a challenge for anyone in a youth culture where seniority and presumed experience are valued.
I have two kids, and when the eldest was in elementary school, the subject of skipping a grade came up. His mother (whom I seem to recall also skipped a grade…) and I decided against it, mainly for reasons of his social interaction. That may have been a mistake since, as his education progressed, he became a classic underachiever, and still is. I generally blame that on his not being intellectually challenged as he progressed through the school system.
From this sampling of two, my conclusion is you have to balance out the social awkwardness she’ll face against the need, perceived or otherwise, to challenge her curiosity and willingness to learn new things. Ultimately, it can depend on whether the person in question has the emotional resilience to handle it all.
From here, I can’t begin to tell you which option to pursue. I can tell you it will be okay in the long run, regardless.
HTH…
Fermion T. Clown
@Malraux: sure, the thought occurred to me as I typed, but my post was long enough already.
Given how many posters up-thread anecdote-ized about their sociability problems after jumping grades, perhaps data might be synthesized from noisy anecdotes.
I repeat: it’s worth being aware of the possibility that things could go very wrong, and taking out appropriate insurance.
Exurban Mom
My kiddo was identified as gifted at 3rd grade, skipped 3rd grade math and was doing math a grade ahead from then on. Block scheduling made it easy to accommodate her. As she aged through school, she was advanced in other subjects too. I have found our local public schools do a fine job of accommodating her without skipping a grade. This became easier at middle school, when there was a larger group of kids in her situation, and they could be grouped together. Now, she’s technically a freshman in high school, but doing math at junior level, science at sophomore level, and honors classes in her other subjects. Tl;dr: The school might have other ways to advance her academically without skipping a grade.
Malraux
@Fermion T. Clown: Its silly to analyze a bunch of anecdotes if there’s real data to be found easily elsewhere.
My experience with acceleration (single subject and then a state STEM school) is that it was the only thing that made school even remotely bearable. It should have happened earlier because I had internalize so many bad study skills by the time I actually needed them I didn’t have the time to actually do it. Additionally, once I did finally accelerate, it improved my social/emotional health by putting me in a situation where I actually had stuff to learn with other students.
If we are including anecdotes, http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/grade_skipped.htm for a list of lots of people who are relatively well adjusted and well known as successful. Or read up on actual studies of accelerated groups. And always remember that not accelerating is also an intervention, the effects of which are also well understood and generally very negative. Poor study skills, underachievement, perfectionism. etc. Those are also likely possibilities of things that could go wrong.
chopper
don’t know of any. I’m sure there are some kiddo books about the other side of the coin aka redshirting.
is there a gifted program around? it’s really great when your kid is two grades ahead but can be with a cohort his or her own age.
Culture of Truth
This isn’t about young kids skipping grades per se, but it is an interesting book about raising gifted kids and education in general.
“The Boy Who Played with Fusion: Extreme Science, Extreme Parenting, and How to Make a Star.”
Donna Washington
The biggest problem you are going to face moving your daughter into third grade are third grade girls. Emotionally, this is the first year the ‘mean girl’ thing starts happening. Up until third grade, girls are pretty cool with each other. Third grade starts some girls on the road to those extremely annoying cliques that dominate middle school, but get pretty codified in fifth grade.
Don’t know how ‘mature’ for her age your daughter is, but this is the thing you will have most to deal with in the coming year.
As for books, I don’t know of any. I have a kid like yours. First and second grade were such a waste of her time that we skipped her over third. After that, every single year the school asked her to consider skipping up, but she wouldn’t do it.
She collected high school credit online and did lots of outside activities, but refused to skip ahead of her peer group.
She would have graduated this year at 16 if she hadn’t gotten into an amazing boarding school for juniors and seniors who are gifted in math and science.
Kids like this never get less scary…their needs just get bigger and more complicated. Listen to your daughter. That is the best chance she has of coming out of this educationally sound and emotionally complete.
Lee
@Malraux:
That is interesting data about the youngest eventually scoring higher (which turned out true for me). I was really talking about the socialization aspect. Yeah being a teen sucks no matter what.
The Golux
I was already able to read when I started kindergarten, so in first grade they sent me to a second-grade class for reading. There were a few times when the second-grade class was behind schedule, so to keep me busy until the reading session started, the teacher had me work on the arithmetic problems that were written on the blackboard. That’s when I discovered that math was my thing.
I probably could have been put in second grade right from the start, but as it turned out, I liked my classmates better in high school than those in the class ahead of me.
Jude
My twins have a similar issue, but being boys they are even more extremely in need of staying in their own age group to learn social skilz. For some perspective, they were reading 2rd grade material when they started school in 4k. Now they are in 3rd grade and get pulled out 3x a week for private lessons. Two of the days are math, where the guidance counselor/gifted+talented teacher teaches them through Khan Academy along with a 5th grader. They are 1/2 way through 7th grade math. The other day they are taught a psychology course through my own advocating parenting pressure. This is because a) the world doesn’t only consist of math, and b) understanding social cues and how people think is their weakness, so why not help them along?
We supplement their science and computer coding interests at home. Brain Games is a killer series on Netflix, and smart kids love TED talks. We also had the school psychologist give them IQ tests so we could get them formally put into Mensa. I have no idea if that will help us in the future, but it does cut the crap with the teachers that roll their eyes at yet another parent who thinks their kid’s a precious snowflake, by giving us a shorthand why to ‘prove’ they are a little out of the norm. HTH. Feel free to email me if you’d ever like more tips.
Chupa Mi Verga
I will go to my grave 100% KNOWING you posted this just to brag. You were fully capable of using google and reading the reviews. Instead, you felt the need to put everyone through look how great my kid is. You’re an absolute tool.
Greg
I ended up skipping 3 years and going to college at 15 years old. (After being put in higher level classes for parts of days from 2nd grade onward.) Definitely had the learning study skills problem that many others are mentioning because I was coasting so much before that. But the reason why I’m posting is that I wanted to tell you that socially and maturity-wise I was just fine all the way along.
You seem to be getting a lot of comments here worrying about social skills and maturity — who knows what will happen with your daughter in the future. But it certainly doesn’t _have_ to end up being a problem.
Fermion T. Clown
@Malraux: “My experience with acceleration…” would seem to be your anecdote. That’s what most of us are posting here: personal experience aka anecdotes.
I’m not sure the quote is relevant, but any excuse for quoting Hunter S. Thompson is better than none:
More seriously: sure, I’m willing to believe that acceleration helps some kids (depending on how one defines “help”, of course). Perhaps even most kids.
But acceleration caused me a few problems. That personal experience is why I dare claim some insight into my ex-colleague’s experience (which is far worse than mine ever was.)
I am not grokking why you object to my recommendation that one should consult a roadmap before taking a shortcut. It seems to me to be common sense.
Shana
I never skipped a grade but remember being pretty bored all through school until college. My husband skipped kindergarten and then graduated after his junior year of high school and went to college at 16. I know he felt out of his depth his first year, not academically just chronologically. We both graduated high school in 1975-77.
Our daughters were both put into the GT program in Fairfax County VA public schools. Our schools do an assessment during 1st and 2nd grades and they had the option of pull out classwork in their neighborhood schools or going to a special GT school where all the kids in their classes were the same age. They both opted for the GT schools. It worked very well for both of them. Their classmates all had their own areas of intense interest, which is a common thing among GT kids. Their competitions were mostly academic. The curriculum was the same in the GT schools but the teachers and the kids went deeper into whatever the topic was, which satisfied their curiosity and kept boredom at bay. Both girls did this program through middle school and then in high school did Honors classes where available or AP classes if Honors wasn’t an option. They both went on to very good colleges – the same one actually – and are finishing or starting very good post-BA programs.
I think that listening to what is best for your kid(s) is the right answer. Although figuring out exactly what that means can be tough. Parenthood is all on the job training but very little of it can’t be fixed if you find you’ve made a mistake. Can you talk to other people who’ve had kids who skipped a grade in your school system? The administrators should be able to put you in contact with them.
eclare
Only issue I had was that all of my friends got driver’s licenses at least a year before I did.
Older
I, and several of my children, skipped one or more years in school. At one point, I just gave up on the public schools and skipped them all right into community college.
One of my sons went to CC after a thoroughly miserable year (or was it a semester?) in high school where he had been skipped from 5th grade. It seemed that most of his teachers resented his being able to handle HS classes at his young age, and it was they who made him miserable. In CC, he fit right in intellectually, and was completely accepted socially. He rode his bike nearly ten miles to attend study session with classmates, and he was on the darts team. He loved it, and later said that he liked CC better than HS or college because people go to those schools because their parents make them go, but the students at CC are there because they want to learn.
As for my own experience, I found that “my” social group was people who knew the kinds of things I knew, and were interested in the kind of things I was interested in, and those people were not my age-mates.
So if your kid is unhappy when skipped ahead, it may be that the schools itself does not welcome such students. Find a different school!
Stan
@psycholinguist: I had the same “problem” with two of my children. Being in a montessori school helped a LOT because it allowed them to progress at their own pace.
I sent one of my kids ahead a grade and it did not work out; he ended up going back to his ‘normal’ pace and then did very well in elementary school, HS, college and life. For him, the acceleration was the wrong choice and I am glad we were able to make the course correction very early on.
My other did NOT skip a grade but I found many other ways to challenge her academically. Same story, went on to great success.
My other three kids never encountered this issue so my N=5 here.
I firmly believe the social challenges of skipping grades aren’t worth it. School has many functions; academics is only one.
Tehanu
I was moved up to 2nd grade after 6 weeks in 1st. The work wasn’t a problem, but I was totally unprepared emotionally (by my parents & teachers, I mean) for losing all my kindergarten-and-1st-grade friends — not least because they were on a different recess schedule so I never saw them — and not being accepted by the 2nd graders. However, your daughter is already acquainted with the older kids and if you provide the kind of emotional support your child needs, skipping is great.. I was lucky in a way that we moved after I finished 2nd grade, so at my new school, being a new kid was the problem, not being too young. I was still bored a lot of the time because intellectually, I could probably have handled 4th or 5th, but I made up for the boredom by reading everything I could get my hands on, including the encyclopedia from A to Z, and 12 books a week from the library.
I also got skipped ahead a half grade in 5th because we were living in a city where they had that setup. Then moved again, and repeated the first half of 6th rather than going on to 7th, which was the right decision. I was still the youngest, but I wasn’t that much younger than my classmates.
Aunt Kathy
Former bookseller here, can’t think right off the bat, but have put out feelers to the old book peeps, will check in if I get anything….
JaneE
I don’t know of any books, but if she already has friends in her second grade class that is a plus. I skipped second, but all of my friends were a grade ahead of me till then, so I pretty much moved to where I should have been. The biggest problem was the timing of puberty. If you are younger than your classmates, you aren’t really a late bloomer, and as long as she knows that and doesn’t let the other kids get under her skin she will be fine. It may make a difference if she is almost two years younger than most of her class or just one. Then again, that old no dating till you are sixteen won’t work if she is already in college by then.
Fermion T. Clown
@Shana (69):
This is a really good point.
Turning it around, be sure you’re doing it for your kid, not for your own reasons.
I was “accelerated” by my father, who was something of a narcissist. It didn’t work out as well as he wished / expected. That was my fault, needless to say. That experience and my ex-colleague’s experience have left me perhaps a bit jaded when I read how wonderful “acceleration” is for the child. Invariably, you might say.
It wasn’t so wonderful for me. I wonder whether respondents are self-selecting / selected on the basis of generally positive experiences.
I have two other data points that are tangentially relevant.
“We” (aka the Spousal Unit) home-schooled our two daughters through most of grade school, on the grounds that “we” could provide a much richer edicational experience than the local public schools. The Spousal Unit went to no little trouble to ensure that our kids were adequately socialized. The kids went to a local parochial high school.
Daughter #1 was president of her senior class; Daughter #2 was valedictorian. Daughter #1 graduated with honors from a small Quaker college outside Philly. Daugther #2 graduated magna cum laude from a small women’s college in a small town of the same name outside Boston.
Both have masters degrees and will likely go back for further graduate study in the fullness of time. Both are in responsible contributing field positions at NGOs.
Both are independent, creative, responsible, and caring individuals. Both are good people.
So it worked out well, eh?
But socially? Not mine to say, but both have been seriously unhappy for non-trivial intervals in their social lives as high schoolers and college-ers and afterwards.
OTOH, there’s incidence of depression in my family tree, so who knows? Perhaps they’d have been equally unhappy (in whatever average sense you like) had we sent them to public schools.
There’s no way to know.
We sometimes ask ourselves, would we do this again? … we don’t know. The Spousal Unit was out of the workplace for nearly ten years and never got back in. Our Youth aren’t as happy as we’d hoped they’d be … is that on us, or is that them?
We should ask them what they think about the experience, but of course it’s all they know, so they can give only one side of the question.
There’s a pony tucked away in my bloviation: you will look back in the years to come and ask yourself, “Did I do the right thing?”
And there’s a good chance that you won’t be able to answer the question.
Jes’ sayin’.
Mum
My son entered kindergarten early, and was moved from first to second grade at mid-year. The potential for extreme boredom and failure were something that his first grade teacher saw as his future if he stayed in the first grade. There were a few socialization issues at first (mostly because being really smart is considered by some to be a negative quality), but he also excelled at sports which any have helped in that area. In addition, he studied ballet for several years, actually considering a career as a ballet dancer for a while. He’s a remarkably balanced and healthy young adult, with a wife and children, and I don’t think we have ever regretted the decisions we made when he was younger.
Aunt Kathy
So far the booksellin’ peeps are a bust, and I can’t find anything specifically related to grade-skipping. That means that
1 – There are authors here, somebody get started writing one because it’s obviously an untapped topic.
2 – Try this, Almighty Girl, for all things girl-empowerment, and a humongous booklist for whatever issue you may have. Except, of course, skipping grades. http://www.amightygirl.com/books
mmeep
Richard, you have many examples of good advice in the comments. My sister skipped first, they wanted her to move to third grade but I was already there and my parents thought that was not a good idea (for me? I guess so) but the bottom line is… let her find her level intellectually. Seems moving her up is fine, with the caveats included: socialization and puberty.
Two grades? Better think of an alternative until she’s older. Percentage-wise, first-to-third is a huge leap for development. Brains, fine. Maturity, not so much.
Good luck.
stinger
Don’t know of any books, but I skipped kindergarten after the first couple of months. Social adjustment was a challenge for this shy kid, but academically I spent the rest of my education years at the top of my class. If your daughter has already been joining the second grade for part of the day, she probably already has friends there, and should adjust quickly.
My two sisters also skipped a grade in their younger years–I don’t recall which grade(s)–so there’s a family’s worth of testimony to the idea that it can be a success!
ORiver
All anecdata – but the common thread is that “it depends on your kid”. My DW was a late November birthday, so while she never skipped a grade she was always youngest in her class. She felt the social stuff a little bit – last to drive, entered college at 17 – but did very well academically in part because she was a diligent student vs. a brilliant one (her own description). Her younger sister was the super smart/quick one, but was more insecure. She skipped 3rd grade and was always painfully aware of being the youngest in her class. She tried very hard to “fit in” with the cool kids by downplaying her smarts. She got only mediocre grades until it really mattered (i.e. choice between live-at-home-and-go-to-community-college vs. going away to school). She’s had her ups and downs in college and professionally, though is now quite successful in her field. But her struggles all have been related to her low self-esteem and trying to “fit in”, which has had repercussions in her social relationships. How much of that was caused by skipping ahead? Hard to say, but her parents and sister both think it was a bad idea in hindsight.
The other corollary seems to be “depends on the schools”. My district is openly hostile to GT, and is focused on closing the achievement gap through inclusion and “differentiated learning” classrooms. All the research indicates this helps those students that struggle, but at the cost of gifted kids. If I were in your position, I’d skip ahead or look elsewhere. If your district is committed to helping GT kids, then take advantage of that .
Capri
Having gone through a somewhat similar situation with my daughter, I can warn you that skipping a grade will generate A LOT of judging, so get used to it. Anything your daughter does from now on – from joining the Brownies to not getting a prom date, will be blamed on the grade skip. More than that, it will be blamed on you; the over-achieving, yuppie, helicopter parents who are so so sure your precious is gifted.
When I was trying to get my kid in the appropriate class when she entered public school, I heard that “Montessori parents had a bit of a reputation” and basically told flat out that I was so blinded by my need for my kid to be the best-est most special child that I was going to damage her with by overbearing emphasis on achievement. When I responded that I knew my kid and I knew what would be right for her, I got eye rolls.
duhkaman
I had the same experience as your daughter but from a rather oblique angle. My first grade teacher burned about half of my elementary school down (by accident it seems) causing the first and second grades to be combined in the middle of the year. My second grade teacher was teaching a new pedagogy based on something called “phonetics”. I was a pretty good reader already, but this was like the Rosetta Stone for me. I learned to read at a sixth grade level by the end of the year. She got her MA in education by writing her thesis as a case study of little me and I entered the third grad the next year. I was a skinny, asthmatic odd ball by the second grade so it really didn’t change my social status in the coal camp. I suspect that if she is bright and you are as competent as being a parent as you are at blogging and explaining the ACA’s permutations and combinations, she will do fine. In Cambridge, getting your license a year late is no big whoop. There are no fiction books to prepare your child for this–have her Les Miserables instead.
Much better mental preparation for the arbitrary and autocratic world.
Raven Onthill
The system of organizing education by age cohorts, and tracking all students through identical materials at the same pace is wrong-headed beyond words.
If you can afford decent private education that allows your daughter more space to learn at her own pace and in her own way, I suggest you consider it.
Lyrebird
Not directly about grade skipping but always worth a read:
The View from Saturday,
EL Konigsburg
It’s about bright kids banding together across various differences, and yes it’s the Basil E Fr. EL Konigsburg, so the characters are engaging.
My anecdote – one of the best experiences I had in grad school was talking to a gal who had not been skipped ahead, and she was not only equivalently messed up, we were messed up in many of the same ways. Generally, I am grateful my parents agreed to let me skip Kindergarten. The teacher insulted me on my pre-enrollment visit, and I doubt my social situation would have been any better without accelerating — possibly worse. Then again, I did practice lies of omission by learning to never mention my birthday beyond my inner circle of good friends.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
The book Alpha Girls offered some thoughtful insights on raising high-achieving daughters. It was not fiction, but was interesting. Best wishes!
Draco7
@Richard Mayhew: After lurking for years, this post finally pushed me over the edge. I highly recommend not “skipping” a grade – this from an object of that very experiment. The social and physical disparity created by that choice is huge, and yes, just one year difference will do it. The domino effect of such a decision never, ever stops. In the end, social adjustment is far more important than intellectual accommodation; the latter can satisfied in myriad ways, but the former is always a challenge for every young person – and this choice is not easily recoverable.
If you have already determined that your daughter is fine with being “different” and the wierdo of choice in her classes, then plow right ahead. This decision on the part of my parents is one that I deeply regret, and I am very confident that it was a vicarious move on their part. Of course, it may very well be different per gender, but being a boy I was bullied and beat up virtually every day at school – these are the growing years, and I was always the smallest kid and a natural target. I sense a vicarious intoxication at your daughter’s precocity, but I encourage a holistic approach. Intellectual development is an older person’s vice.
marc
Agree with Draco7.
As a child who was already small for my age, being one school year ahead of my age as well lead to a problem probably not foreseen by most of those involved in the decision-making. I was naive and easily taken advantage of by me grade peers. I graduated college BEHIND my age peers. Grade school teachers recommended and my wife all but insisted on putting my son ahead and I steadfastly refused. Approaching high school, I think that was the right decision.
It may positively influence her future academic achievements. But before you make that decision, ensure that the potential harm due to social naivete is over matched.
marc
@marc: *led
redshirt
@Chupa Mi Verga:
Probably. But I’ve also never seen so many new names in a thread on BJ.
carla
My twin brother and I, in second grade, were moved into 3rd grade classrooms. We were born in February. When my son’s 5th grade teacher wanted to skip him a grade ahead I asked my brother, “If you had a son (he has 4 girls), and they wanted to move him up a grade, would you do it?” He said, “No.” And I didn’t. And it was a good call. Kids a year younger than their peers are not allowed to be leaders, but in their own age group they would have been. Also, in MN, juniors and seniors in H.S. can attend College. If they are a year behind in age that is another barrier. There is a sense of pride hearing that your child is so far ahead of their age group. Please consider that child’s adolescent, biological future. Also, as a girl moved up a grade, I went from being a confident leader to a silent observer. Cheers. You have a good problem.
carla
Also, if she’s a year ahead now she will easily outpace the next academic hurdles. Schools will never be able to lead her. Give her other learning opportunities. i.e. building, mechanics, computers, cooking, weaving, gardening, languages. But keep her with her own age. She will forge better friendships. You will stay engaged.
Drew
Richard, from my own personal experience I would strongly recommend not doing this.
With a few months left of 1st grade I was moved to 2nd. The experience was traumatic initially, due in no small part to that fact that I was moved with no warning whatsoever. An administrator just came and got me, took me to the new classroom, and said ‘this will be your classroom now.’ Not a good way to do it, and it’s clear from your post that you’re not planning on doing it that way.
I had good friends all the way through high school, but the fact that I was always the youngest — often by a fairly wide measure — was always THE distinguishing thing about me. I always trailed my peer group socially. I’d say that did not change until I was done with college and graduate/professional school. Even so, I was the second youngest person in my professional school class.
In first grade I was academically like your daughter. The school felt it couldn’t challenge me if they kept me on grade level, and so they insisted on moving me. And while today I can look back and see that keeping me in 1st grade would have changed the entire trajectory of my life (had I not been in professional school at the time and place that I was I wouldn’t have moved to the city at the time I did and met my wife when I did and later had the children that we did), I can also look back and see all the negative effects it had. Middle school, high school, college, and professional school would all have been dramatically different had I not always lagged behind my peers socially.
I can’t say I’d trade my life and family today for what I feel I missed growing up. But I remain acutely aware of what I missed growing up, and would not wish it on anyone, regardless of how smart.