My child, then in 2 nd grade, had tested at the 8 th grade level on the math subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson achievement test. I tried advocating for him with the math teacher, who considered this for a moment and. Was this article helpful to you? Subscribe to Practical Homeschooling today, and you'll get this quality of information and encouragement five times per year, delivered to your door. To start, click on the link below that. Http:// The website for NAGC, the major U.S. Anyone interested in the gifted is encouraged. Columbia Education Center Mathematics Lesson Plans. Computers & Maths Teaching Peter Hobson, a teacher in Canberra, Australia, created these pages containing 'Low cost. Resources for years 11 & 12'. Wow, am I glad to have found this blog entry. It’s almost like I just did some kind of futuristic cerebral Google search using all the things on my mind at this very moment. In fact, I just hung up with a psychologist at the.To Skip or Not to Skip.. Maybe you can identify with some of these scenarios. Your child looks up at you with a confused look, bewildered at this common question. Turns out your family is one of many that just doesn't really think about grade levels, and your child never knows what to say in this situation. Something must be wrong with your child, or with this homeschooling idea, if your child doesn't even know this. So you decide to call him a first- grader (or perhaps . Now he begins to complain about the lower grade placement - he wants to be up with his age- mates, and you begin to realize just how old he will be when he graduates from high school at home. Vendor Vendors Contact Information Description; 100% Educational Videos : Product : 800-483-3383 http:// : Exclusive collection of educational videos (teacher guides & standards correlations. MIAMI, FL -- Endeavor Schools has partnered with Launch Math & Science Centers to offer a program of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) camps at their Montessori schools this summer. Letters not edited for spelling. As soon as we finish a section, I have to slam the book fast to prevent my son from reading ahead! We switched to Fred for her second year of Algebra 2, and then. 2010 Scholarships For High School Students Robert Said:Will a 1990 on the SAT qualify me for any scholarships for international students in the US?We Answered:The max score here is actually a 2400. Can you now boost him ahead and skip a grade or two? Did you make a big mistake to hold him back? The younger one takes part easily in all studies, and seems to be doing fine. Shouldn't you call him a fifth- grader also? Maybe his test scores as a fifth- grader aren't so hot, and his handwriting is pretty atrocious, but, gee, he is doing that fifth- grade level work. Learned to read early and effortlessly, catches on to new ideas readily and quickly, is an eager learner in many fields. But you don't want to appear to be saying that your kid is better than anyone else, so you have always just kept your child at her age level grade- wise. On top of that, your child's birthday is in early November, which means that she is actually one of the very oldest at her grade level. She has always aced achievement tests, and has always been above grade level in the actual work being accomplished. Now that she's hit junior high you are wondering about skipping a grade. What about socialization questions, what about future chances of scholarships, what about other possibilities? These kids accelerated their schooling by several years, completing high school typically by age 1. You start doing one and a half years in one year, then skip a grade, then jump ahead another year, until you now have a 1. Then perhaps doubts start arising. Your daughter isn't so eager for this after all. She may not want to be faced at the young age of fourteen with the types of decisions kids need to make after graduation. She certainly doesn't want to leave home for college that early, and might not really be ready even for college- level correspondence work. She took the PSAT and earned only mediocre scores - are scholarships lost? Maybe this plan just won't work for you. You and your daughter realize there is still lots more to learn about, and after all she never was that hot in mathematics even though she'd always been a super reader. Can you slow down at this point without making your child feel she has been ? This is a tough area for homeschoolers to make decisions, and hearing a variety of points of view will help all of us see what's right for our own families. Maybe I should start here, to give you all some perspective on where I'm coming from. He got off to a relaxed start in some areas back when we started homeschooling, while being way ahead in other areas. As a 6- year- old first grader (my kids all have summer birthdays, so they are all among the youngest students in their grade), he scored in the lowest 2 percent on a standardized test of reading ability. I actually thought to myself that if I were putting him in a regular school, I might have held him back a year, in part because he had a late birthday . However, I realized that at home grade level distinctions didn't really make much difference, and I strongly felt he'd do fine as he went along. He did do fine, and I was very glad that I hadn't kept him back. But strong a student as he was all through his homeschooling (once he got the hang of how to read!), I was never tempted to skip a grade with him. By the end of high school he was clearly ready for college level work, but instead of early admission we did a college correspondence course through Penn State University and also helped him prepare for taking four different Advanced Placement exams. He went into the University of Pittsburgh Honors College with 1. This cushion of extra credits enabled him to really broaden his studies in college - he was not eager to finish college early, just eager to try out as many fields as possible while he was there for four years. He ended up with a double major in history and political science, along with an honors degree for completing a major senior research project, and had time to travel around the world on the Semester at Sea program also. Again, I decided against holding him back, and again that panned out as a good decision. Jacob early on showed a marked ability in mathematics and computer programming, and by mid- fourth grade was working with his older brother Jesse on high school algebra. He completed high- school- level geometry in 7th grade, then went right on to calculus in 8th and 9th grade. He was a very bright kid, but not necessarily in all areas. Again, I was never tempted to skip grades with Jacob, and again I'm pleased with this decision. Jacob had the time to really develop his strong interests, take part in many special accelerated academic programs in the summer and throughout the year, and build up his somewhat weaker areas. He could finally spell a bit better, his French was even coming along OK, and he'd listened to some Jane Austen novels read aloud even if he refused to read them independently. He was also more mature (read this to mean that he was a better sport when he lost a chess game . There really is a lot to be said for just plain growing a bit older. I felt he was ready to go on to college when he turned 1. He also used the AP program to validate the college- level work he did in high school, and ended up taking a college- credit distance learning course in multi- variate calculus (don't ask me exactly what that is . And he also got to be my tech man in my online AP US History course, as well as a course participant - in short, there was plenty for him to do at home those last couple of years. I'm glad he had that time. While riding in our car right before her fifth birthday (and she has an early August birthday, making her very young even for her proper grade level) she began reading aloud fluently from the loved book Charlotte's Web. She had started beginning reading very early, and caught on very quickly. She also seemed socially very mature and competent. She also did reasonably well in math understandings. It just didn't seem quite correct to call her a kindergartner at that point. Early on we let our local school district know that because she was advanced overall, she was boosted ahead a grade. She did third grade testing (required in PA) as a very young 7- year- old, and did very well (math computation was average, but concepts were at the top of the chart, and she had a perfect score in reading). I've never regretted my decision of skipping a grade with her. This is a kid who read Jane Eyre for the first time when in sixth grade (and remember, that meant young fifth- grade age for her), who picked up Shakespeare plays to read independently for fun, and who took on major challenges like entering the . She's also a pretty good pianist, is an incredible artist, has now taken eight AP exams, is a National Merit Finalist, went to France twice during her high school years, and more and more. She's heading off to the University of Pittsburgh Honors College this fall, with a full- ride academic scholarship - tuition plus room and board all paid for four years. Seems like the right decision for her to have skipped a grade - it's all worked out even better than we might have hoped. Being a grade ahead meant she lost out on being in Math Olympiad for one more year, or the Geography Bee for one more year, or Math. Counts for one more year, and more, as most of these competitions have grade level guidelines. I firmly believe that homeschoolers can't play it both ways - that is, can't be one grade for some purposes, but another grade for other purposes, especially when it comes to academic competitions. If there is a grade level designation, you need to be consistent with what you've decided your child is - you can't waffle around and try to have your proverbial cake while eating it too. Molly and I actually discussed this whole issue together quite a few times, and realized that because she's been a grade level ahead, that's how we've viewed her - our expectations were raised because of it. If she'd been at the lower grade level most likely we would never have encouraged work at the level she was actually very able to meet. It's hard to even explain why I feel so comfortable with skipping Molly ahead a year, when I never considered it with either of the boys, or with Hannah, our youngest. But I've also never considered skipping any more grades with Molly - she was after all just barely a teenager when officially entering high school at home, and she had plenty of growing up to do before being thrown in with much older students at college. One year of skipping was plenty. It seems perfect for her - she's excelling at this level, has plenty of fun challenges through her work with Mathcounts and the National French Exam and the Mythology Exam, but is not thrown in over her head. She's able to be a really nice bright 7th- grader. Skipping grades never entered my head with her. What questions do you need to ask yourself? What factors should be considered? I think families need to look at this issue very carefully. In many ways skipping a grade means very little in homeschooling, as we can always do whatever level of work we feel is appropriate for a given child, no matter what the grade level. A fourth- grader does not have to be stuck plodding through a fourth- grade reader when he's ready for meatier stuff. At the far end of the scale, if a student does feel very ready for going on with college attendance early, but didn't skip a grade earlier on, he can still go to college ahead of time. He just goes right after 1.
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