This boy at the starting blocks is ready to race. He’s really fast. He is, in fact, the fastest runner on the team. To make sure that no one’s feelings get hurt and that he is able to fit in socially, his coach has him wait every 100 meters for everyone else to catch up, and then he’s allowed to go another 100 meters. Everyone on the team finishes the race together with identical times. The team never wins any races, and no one knows how fast this kid can really go (because they don’t let him run his fastest race), but everyone likes him at the team parties. And that’s the important thing, right?
This scenario may sound ridiculous, but it is far less ridiculous than the entrenched practice of putting students in grade-level bands with no thought to any other criteria than chronological age. The only thing that approaches it in absolute stupidity is the refusal to acknowledge that there is a cheap, easy, and effective solution. Disclaimer: I accelerated all of my children with universally positive results, so I don’t even pretend to be neutral about this.
Very few things in gifted education are a panacea. The closest we get is acceleration. At the same time, few things in gifted education are less well-understood than the idea that students should be allowed to progress at their own pace of learning, rather than by their birthdays.
Reading an post called Against Acceleration (which I hesitate to even link to, actually) has brought this to the surface for me, and I want to discuss the how’s and why’s of doing acceleration right (and why we should). So all of those opposed to acceleration: I’m calling you out.
First, we have to look back at why school is set up the way it is: it is designed to create good employees. To this end, students are compartmentalized by chronological age (down to the day, in most instances). Many schools’ hackles get raised when the suggestion is made that the child may benefit from learning at a level above that of the other kids who were born during the same twelve-month band.
What is truly ridiculous is that the date of school admission varies from state to state, so that a four-year old in California with an October birthday can start Kindergarten, while a child in Texas born the same minute has to languish in preschool. Where is the reason in this?
Until the entire system is fixed, acceleration corrects this error. Your birthday shouldn’t be a limitation. It’s just a starting point.
Next, people who are opposed to acceleration nearly always point out the socialization aspects. They worry that somehow the accelerated child will commit some social faux pas at the third-grade equivalent of a cocktail party. This is the argument that makes the very least sense to me. While acceleration isn’t necessarily going to fix students’ social challenges, it doesn’t make a child fit in any better if they are forced to remain in a classroom in which they are head and shoulders above their age-group peers cognitively. Newsflash: other kids notice. I know: I taught third grade.
If a child is struggling socially, address that. Don’t punish a child academically because of social challenges. We would object strenuously if a teacher attempted to lower a child’s grade because he or she didn’t have friends in the class, yet forcing the child to stay in the “right” grade does just that. Kids can find age-group-peer friends outside of school as well, if that is a concern. Scouting, sports, arts, and other activities all ensure that kids can form friendships.
Oh, and have you ever noticed that almost everyone has social challenges of some kind in school? I enter into evidence: 7th grade. I rest my case. Those girls in the picture don’t like her any better because she stayed in a grade that’s too easy for her.
Keeping a child in an inappropriate academic placement will not necessarily result in friends. Do I really have to say that?
Another issue the keeps people from embracing acceleration is that they have the mistaken notion that it is nothing more than “skipping” a grade. There are multiple forms of acceleration, and they can be used in combination. AP classes are a form of acceleration, but everyone likes those. Why do they not have the same bias against them as other forms? Essentially, the student is “skipping” the high school version of the class and going straight to the college level.
Acceleration can mean going to a different grade for a single class. It can mean doing two years’ worth of subject in a single year (Let a child move at his or her own pace? Blasphemy!). It can mean AP classes. It can mean moving ahead a grade.
One of my sons whole grade accelerated first grade (in full disclosure, he attended first grade for two painful weeks) and then single subject accelerated math and science. He graduated from high school at 17 with 74 hours of AP credit (and a prom date, for those who are worried about his social development). I asked him recently if he wishes he’d stayed at the “right” grade level, he said he couldn’t imagine having to stay in school another minute more than he did. Another son single subject accelerated in math and took loads of AP courses. The other son ate a high school combo meal of AP and dual credit courses. All of this is acceleration.
The boys in this picture were accelerated and lived to tell the tale (and dance the Haka – blame their Aussie dad and too much watching of Aussie Rugby League).
I’m not saying that every child should accelerate. The Iowa Acceleration Scale can help schools and parents evaluate whether acceleration is right for the child.
It is not the duty of gifted children to make people comfortable. It is their job to learn. It is the adults’ job to make sure that they have an appropriate education placement so that can occur. Acceleration can do that cheaply, easily, and with a minimum of stress on everyone when it is done appropriately. But you don’t have to take my word for it.
The Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration invites students to share their own stories about acceleration, and you can read them here.
Thank you for writing this reply to such a one sided article about how cruel we are for allowing our child to grade skip. It is great to see some professionals realizing the social and emotional damage that can affect our children when they are forced to stay in an “age appropriate” class where there are no children who understand or relate to them and they feel different and strange every single day of their lives, and feel frustrated that the teachers “won’t let them learn”. My 5 year old was just 4 when she realized she was “different” and she did everything she could to bring herself down to the level of her peers and it made her miserable. She is now nearly 6 and since being moved from a pre-primary class into a split year1/year2 class she is so happy, she has friends who have play dates with her, she fits in and is so happy to be allowed to learn at her level. She loves school and is back to loving reading, writing and problem solving! I refuse to feel guilty for allowing a grade skip when I see how happy she is and that she finally just fits in!
Tegan,
I’m so happy to hear that your daughter has found a school “home.” I agree with everything you said. I think what is most misunderstood is that placing children appropriately is critical for their social development, and your daughter’s story illustrates this beautifully.
I am not against acceleration, but I noticed that you address the ABILITY to make friends as the social aspect, however you do not address the fact that friends in the childs CURRENT grade have already been made and losing those friends due to an acceleration can cause animosity between a CURRENT friendship . . . or cause the gifted child to feel anxiety because they ‘left their friends behind’.
Of course there are pros and cons in any change. If the adults handle it well, however, the animosity need not occur. Friendships ought not be limited by grades – kids can still be friends with people in other grades. In fact, gifted kids are really good at that. It is our system of forced grade levels that makes this even an issue – one more reason to rethink it.
I like your humorous athletics sports analogy at the beginning of this article, particularly as my son is a keen runner and academically gifted, which is why I’m writing to add my perspective on the different forms of acceleration.
Both my daughters were early starters at school and they have done/are doing very well. My eldest finished school at 16, received an offer from all her first choice med schools in every state (in Australia) and is currently a 4th year Med scholarship student so grade acceleration has been quite successful for her.
However, we’ve serendipitously discovered benefits of in-situ acceleration with our son. Unlike his sisters, he was frankly a bit of a terror as a 3-4 year old and definitely not ready for school, so he started a couple of days after his fifth birthday, which placed him amongst the younger students of his cohort but within the right age range for starting and he thrived. I had deliberately NOT taught him even the basic alphabet so he wouldn’t be bored, yet by the end of his kindergarten year, he was a fluent reader who could read anything on the Internet and he also, almost overnight, mastered his multiplication tables. At that point, his trajectory was so steep, a grade skip or two (if we had even thought to enquire) probably wouldn’t have made much difference, so instead, his teachers allowed him to have access to the classroom computers to do self directed study and he brought this enthusiasm for self directed learning home, where we gave him unlimited WiFi access to the Internet. From this, he devoured information and formulated his own, robust, model of reality upon which he has built an impressive set if skills, for example winning Eistedfodd prizes as a self taught musician, speedcubing under ten secs, splashless swim strokes to minimise energy wastage during competition and different running styles so he can successfully compete in short, middle and long distance races (the lists of competitors indicate he is the only one at state level for all three) & he is also a martial arts black belt who taught himself the proficient use of a bo staff.
At high school, all of his informal skills at geometry, numbers etc were quickly harnessed by his maths teacher (who was Maths HoD), using an online maths program (Maths Pathways) to allow him to complete the Yr 7-10 curriculum in less than a year and the Maths Online program to complete the Yr 11-12 curriculum over the next 18 months. He recently score 98 in the Yr 12 HSC maths exam as a 14 yr old. He was also offered science acceleration after being amongst the top achievers in a statewide science skills assessment test, but he declined as he’s not interested in racing through a fairly narrow prescribed science syllabus.
So my point is, whilst my daughters were grade accelerated and therefore given syllabus work above their grade to keep them engaged, by omitting to formally accelerate our son and allowing him to see himself as an intellectual giant amongst his age peers, he placed himself in the driver’s seat of his own learning and with the fantastic facilitation & support from his high school teachers, has gotten much further academically and in several other arenas.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I started my daughter in kindergarten early (She was 4 1/2, and the youngest child her school system had ever enrolled). There was not a single person who was supportive of our choice. Four years later, she is doing wonderfully! She has friends from ages 5-12. She is in a program that allows her to work at her own pace in many subject areas. This means she does sixth or seventh grade math and her self-selected reading material must be 9th-11th grade reading level. She is in a GT music program. She is thriving! Whenever parents ask about our experience, I always tell them to trust their instincts. You know your child better than anyone else. Do what you think is best. I can’t imagine what our life would be like if we hadn’t been willing to cross the boundaries, if we had listened to everyone who told us it was a bad idea. There will be rough patches, but I know this was the right choice for my child.
Kathy,
This is so well said. I hope you will share it on the Iowa site. This is the kind of story I love to hear because it’s about what works for each child. Congratulations on finding a wonderful placement for your daughter.
Lisa
Wow, you responded to people
Yep.
Hi from Australia! Before I start may I say the Haka is not an Aussie custom at all, it is Maori (New Zealand) and there is no such thing as Aussie Rules Rugby – they are two different sports 🙂 That aside, we accelerated our daughter from a 3 year old program into pre primary. She improved dramatically from her age appropriate class both socially and academically, however, she was still unhappy. She longs to be with kids her own age as she shares the same interests. Funnily enough we found she was still more mature and had better concentration than the students two years older than her. Teachers kept commenting how ‘unusual’ she was – something which contributed to us pulling her out of school to home school for a while. She was in a school with a very high number of gifted students too. So, whilst we believe in acceleration it didn’t work for us. Maybe it was the wrong time, the wrong class/school, who knows. I firmly believe children should not be held back because of age and the fact we have age-based schools is ridiculous. The one thing we didn’t account for is that on a maturity level a 2-year acceleration wasn’t enough. Home schooling is going really well though :-). Our daughter is much less concerned about having friends a lot older than her now that she is out of the school system. Thank you for your article – I loved it.
Okay, so my husband says that it is Australian Rugby League Football technically (I modified the post accordingly – thank you) so I can be forgiven for calling it a form of rugby. I know the Haka is not Australian, but that is where he was exposed to it. I’m glad you had good experiences with self-acceleration, which is really what homeschooling often is for highly gifted kids.
I can’t thank you enough for this article! Our daughter is your ‘average’ gifted kid. The school’s gifted program works well for her, she is currently in 9th grade taking 10th grade honors math, the rest of her classes are all honors with plans for AP classes & she’s doing very well.
Our son on the other hand is ‘highly gifted’, the gifted program was ok for him but not enough. He started taking 2nd grade math in first grade & continues to do so. We tried to accelerate him a whole grade when he was in 2nd grade. Unfortunately he was sabotaged by the 3rd grade teacher. It was a terrible experience that left a bad taste in our mouths and that teachers beliefs that acceleration is never the answer was echoed by several other teachers at my son’s school. Every year was a struggle to get the school district to schedule him properly. I fought & argued every year to make sure they we’re doing their jobs correctly, feeling alone & wondering if I was doing the right thing. If it was worth it. We were repeated asked about whole grade acceleration but refused because of our prior experience-I was not about to put him through that again!-and I wanted him to have a ‘normal childhood’. What I failed to realize was his ‘normal’ is different, it’s his not another child’s.
Enter in to the picture a new school superintendent & a different attitude. Our son is now completing the IOWA & CoGAT testing required for acceleration & they are talking about accelerating him 2 grades. Which he balked at, so we will just accelerate him from 5th to 6th grade. He said to me this past weekend ‘if they are willing to teach me I’m willing to learn & know I can do the work’.
He is well liked & has many friends in 5th & 6th grade (as well as other grades). The school as upset because the way his schedule worked this year he had to eat lunch with 6th grade and they wanted him ‘to eat with his peer group’, I said ‘6th grade is his peer group too! He’s been with them since 1st grade!’. The superintendent put a stop to any further argument by saying ‘if he’s comfortable with it & mom is happy then let him do it’.
My son is nervous about starting 6th grade but also said he knows it’ll be better for him. He ‘coasts’ through school now getting A’s with zero effort on his part. I’m hoping he will have to work a little harder now…maybe 😉
I’m so glad you took the time to write this! These kinds of personal experiences are exactly what other parents and teachers need to hear. I’m so glad your child has such a wonderful advocate in you! Best of luck to your son in 6th grade. Lisa
eep-I should have taken the time to proofread it before I sent it! lol! I have tried to be the best advocate I can, I joke that my constant ‘checking in’ has earned me a spot in a gilded frame on the ‘Parents Wall of Shame’ that I’m sure the district has hidden away somewhere. I am always professional & courteous but I am sure they wish my children were more ‘normal’. Thank you for creating a website that is such a wonderful resource!
Post script.
I have read in your reply to another reader that you are aware the Haka is Maori. So it appears the issue with the ‘misinformation’ in your article is in the writing. As you omit any explanation for the link to Aussie Rules (I assume being that they watch New Zealand play), it continues to leave the reader with the impression the Haka is Australian.
Could you please fix it? It is messing with my OCD.
I re-read it, and I don’t think it’s worth it, really. The reason they’ve seen the Haka is because they’ve watched Rugby League and seen teams do it. That’s the truth. It doesn’t make the point of the article any more clear to go into a lengthy explanation of the difference between Rugby League and Rugby, between Maori and Australian tradition, etc. It’s simply a picture of my kids imitating something they saw because my husband is Australian (we go there frequently) and they were weaned on Rugby League and saw it a lot.
So i understand these views, i myself was accelerated and will be completing school this year, finishing at the age of 16, turn 17 during university next year. I’m doing quite well in year 12 and am quite socially active. From what i can tell, acceleration is helpful only if a child is able to deal with the current work at a high level
Granted this is Australia i’m talking about, i have never found a child accelerated had social issues, i was accelerated by skipping year 9 and only completed partial amount of reception (Above Kindergarten below year 1 for those who don’t know) as i was late into being 3 years old when i started school.
I have however noticed that students that didn’t want to accelerate hate school and are not doing well at all, as well as the parents the child should also whether they want to accelerate. (within reason, not going to let a child who is immature decide) But saying this i found that grades 4-10 were/would of been the best to accelerate in.
Not sure if anyone agrees but this is my point of view
Sorry about my grammatical errors, grammar is not my strongest point!!!
Yes. Now that I am in year 11, things have become harder to bypass.
And I made an error too! 😉
Thank you Lisa for this great article. You make some really excellent points. Our daughter is attending a private school part time as an 11 year old, chronologically 5th grade in MA, and 6th grade in CT as she is a November birth. They allow home school students up to 3 courses per year, and this is year one, our “let’s give this a try” year. She is finishing 7th grade science, 9th grade writing and 10th grade honors algebra 2. It was the perfect fit for us. While socially quite challenging, we have found ways to implement friendships OUTSIDE of school. It works, it really works!!
That sounds awesome! Thanks for sharing this strategy blend!
*I apologize in advane for any errors. I was burnt out by the time I completed my message to you. I hope that it helps.
To all of the parents who are still questioning acceleration, especially in a subject(s) that your child easily comprehends…. DO IT! I spent my primary years in math that I loved, but was too easy. Despite being qualified for acceleration definitively, I was not. Perhaps that was due to my parents not putting me in gifted education the year before… Middle school was the abyss 2.0. Too easy and too destructive to my psyche. In fact, I am still recovering. It was hard trying to understand why people who were much less incapable of advanced work than myself were accelerated. And mind you, this was only for one year. I recall being so excited when I asked my 7th grade teacher to recommend me for Algebra 1. She said that I could not because I did not take Pre-Algebra, which was a waste of time and energy. I was put into the “previously extended kids who did not make it into Algebra 1 class”. Like them, I began to slack off. I still got an A, but it was surely not my usual 95+ A. I took Algebra 1 in 9th grade, and I finished with a 99 average for the year. And guess what, my mom had to pay nearly 500 dollars just to take a summer Geometry course that should have already been taken. I believe that I got a 98. In Algebra 2/Trig, I was not able to adjust to the pretentiousness mindsets of the “advanced” kids. I went back into my morbid shell that arose in middle school, which caused an indifference to math. I only received around a 94. This year, I told my counselor, “Precalculus is too easy for me.” She told me to wait until the end of the year. It will get harder she said. It got easier, and now my yearly grade is a 99. And of course it is not recommended that people skip Precalculus. My Algebra 2/TRIG teacher said that Precalulus would be hard– and Calculus too. I ended up self-studying Calculus BC with online resources such as Khan Academy, Mathisfun, Kuta Software, etc. and a Calculus textbook. I finished in less than two weeks. With the trig that I had from Algebra 2, I had no use for Precalculus. The binomial theorem is great, but I could have learned that on my own if needed! The possible great news for me is that my school may allow me to take it over the summer so that I can get credit for it. Then, I can take MVC, LA, and Diffy Q (That is the life…). 😉
My point is that sometimes a leap of faith should be better met with optimism. To this day, I am a firm believer in my capability to take at least two math courses in advance at a bare minimum, but with my obesity, depression, and anger management– the last two caused by problems in school– as well as no prior contact with the material, that was probably not a concern for my parents, whom I threatened to kill and convince that I would commit suicide. I was in fact suicidal l, but I only share that due to my anonymity. Please just do not take your child(ren) for granted. Despite being in a one or maybe even two track acceleration soon, I just wanted to be at the level that I am capable of handling. As a result of my upbringing, I will never know.
I was really hoping that despite apologizing for the errors, I would not have made any. I did…
I would also love to elaborate on gifted education experience if anyone needs help.
I did not join until this year. I was tested using Nag. Non-verbal and CogAT, which were rwlly easy but I believe that the elementary version would have been too simplistic to use for actual gifted children, especially because they offer prep for it. That alone was fishy to me. When my parents originally informed me of their decision not to put me into GE, I was upset. They claimed that I would miss my friends, which was odd considering that I had friends in GE. Nonetheless, the majority of them do not seem “gifted” at all. They were likely able to do well in grade school and jump into the program. There are a few who have been accelerated in math– the usual– beyond “normal” circumstances, but they seem to be high achieving or merely being proficient at their respective levels, but they care about the grades, not the math. It makes you wonder whether these kids overshadowed actual gifted children yet again… They talk about menial topics that I had already grasped at in my middle years, and I barely add to discussions because I feel like I am speaking to children in junior high. Nothing has been in-depth, and after years of never being heard, I refuse to make my points known. I use the term self-preservation to describe it.
I’m a middle school teacher. Last year, I fought hard to get one of my gifted students moved to the next grade. She was so advanced that even though I tried to differentiate, I really couldn’t keep up with her. I insisted that she be tested on material above her grade level, and talk about the importance of keeping her challenged. Without challenges in school she started getting into trouble, because the only way she could get other students to like her was to act out (yeah, no one ever talks about the negative influences so-called friends can have on gifted children). After a long, drawn out battle to convince other teachers and the administration she moved to the next grade, where she immediately made friends with the smart kids and went on to do fantastic.
The strangest part of this whole ordeal? I still feel like I have to apologize to other teachers every time I mention it, as though I did something wrong by getting a child into classes that were cognitively appropriate for her. And even though things went well, many teachers still tell me how wrong they think acceleration is!
You know, it’s the weirdest thing. Acceleration is the thing that teachers oppose even though ALL of the data supports it. It’s so distressing. Kudos to you!!!!