Parents are the experts and it helps when a school truly listens. Thank you for presenting a balanced perspective on grade acceleration. I think that it can be easy to focus on just the positive or negative aspects rather than painting a clear picture.
Just been reading for a literature review. Its great to read that pros and cons and it is critical that schools listen to the parents. Having been grade skipped, I think it is a horrible idea. I would never do it to a child. My birthday is in late May, and I was skipped from the middle of 2nd grade into the middle of 3rd on the advice of teachers and administrators.
Please for the love of god, let your children be children for a normal length of time. The most important stuff taught at school happens between classes. My son was not allowed to start school in our state because he was not 5 by Sept So, his early October birthday kept him out of school, even though he could read and answer comprehension questions at 2.
Also, he would lose his mind if he missed a question or because he could not write font perfect. Yes at 2! We did Time4Learning. His writing abilities were not keeping up with his mind though. Because we believed that he was autistic more like an aspie , he was in preschool for a couple years. Then, he attended kindergarten and started getting trouble regularly, especially for blurting. I also had to clarify to him that the teachers are also not stupid, when they ask questions of the students.
To challenge him, I started doing book reports with him and sent them to the school but the teachers did not want to read them. They offered to skip him ahead a grade but instead we opted to do two grades in one year. It was a lot of work but we did first and second. It was definitely a good solution for him--although as you say, the new content still moves at too slow a pace, but at least the child can get through it faster.
Also as you mention, they will not suddenly be surrounded by like-minded peers, just older versions of kids who don't quite "get" them. One thing to keep in mind is that the grade-accelerated kid will go off to college early. He or she will take on the independence and responsibility of being in college at an earlier age.
In addition to the college-level classes which will likely be much more satisfying, there will be the issue of how likely they are to advocate for themselves and take advantage of opportunities that require extra effort, such as getting involved with research.
Not to mention being exposed to more mature behavior. Thanks, Christine. For one student, that may mean grade skipping; for another, it may mean acceleration in a single subject, like math; for other students, enrichment-based activities in the classroom are all they need.
But Marron and her colleagues at the Belin-Blank Center say there are far too few acceleration opportunities for children in the U. The fallout? Experts suggest a number of reasons why acceleration programs are not more widely embraced by teachers and school administrators, including concern about the social impacts of moving a child ahead, and a lack of familiarity with acceleration on the part of teachers and administrators. Government education policy may also play a role.
A report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found that, since the introduction of No Child Left Behind, there have been achievement gains for low-performing students, but the performance of high-ability students has stagnated. Teachers reported feeling pressure to focus on their lowest-achieving students: 60 percent said low-achieving students were the top priority at their school; only 23 percent said that high-achieving students were a top priority.
Note: The report does not establish a definitive causal link between No Child Left Behind and the outcomes for low- and high-achieving students, but the timing of these trends implies a connection. Marron and her colleagues at the Belin-Blank Center hope their research will encourage more schools to make acceleration programs available to gifted students.
Along with A Nation Deceived , the Center also published Guidelines for Developing an Academic Acceleration Policy , which documents the effectiveness of acceleration programs and provides practical steps for implementation. If you think your child would benefit from acceleration, these reports are an excellent resource. Unfortunately, many of the gifted programs that do exist at schools around the country are currently under fire: From California to Kentucky , these programs are a popular target when cash-strapped school districts are looking for places to cut.
My school used to have gifted programs. I loved school. We did many interesting things [such] as intriguing science readings on stem cell research and possible cloning. The funding of these classrooms stopped.
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