Afterschooling leading to accelerated placement?

[SKL]

Hello, I posted on the accelerated sub-forum and a member suggested I post my question here.

 

My daughter is very advanced but misses the extended KG entry deadline by 6 days. I am looking for ways to get her on track to be accelerated down the line, since it seems early KG isn't possible. Yet, she needs to attend daycare/school during the day, as I work full-time.

 

So I am checking the feasibility of homeschooling her at the 1st grade level next year, while she will simultaneously attend KG at her daycare center. The next year, I hope she can enter a regular school at the 2nd grade level. Has anyone ever been successful with a plan such as this? If you have tried this, would you mind telling me what state you are in, and any issues you had to surmount?

 

Thanks!

[Bang!Zoom!]

I haven't personally tried this but wanted to ask two things.

 

Are you pretty confident which school she would be attending for the hypothetical acceleration point? Do you have access for school of choice? Charters? Magnets?

 

Is private placement totally out?

 

The other item I wondered about was the literal physical development between now and a hypothetical placement of 2nd grade.

 

Have you talked this idea over with her pediatric doctor with her track of development so far? Small muscle group building, things like this is what I wondered about. Might be worth a look into.

 

Have you already made a plan or theory you'd like to follow in the area of home education and resources, the style you'd like to take on?

 

I'd check around also at the district level where you are now and collect any information on why you are getting a firm NO on her entering this year.

 

Take names, records and escalate that issue is another path as well. Might be possible you still can get her in this year if you want if you make enough noise.

[Roadrunner]

Hello, I posted on the accelerated sub-forum and a member suggested I post my question here.

 

My daughter is very advanced but misses the extended KG entry deadline by 6 days. I am looking for ways to get her on track to be accelerated down the line, since it seems early KG isn't possible. Yet, she needs to attend daycare/school during the day, as I work full-time.

 

So I am checking the feasibility of homeschooling her at the 1st grade level next year, while she will simultaneously attend KG at her daycare center. The next year, I hope she can enter a regular school at the 2nd grade level. Has anyone ever been successful with a plan such as this? If you have tried this, would you mind telling me what state you are in, and any issues you had to surmount?

 

Thanks!

 

We afterschool our kids a year ahead and my youngest entering K isn't even 5 yet. However, we won't be accelerating them grade-wise later. I think in terms of maturity there are exactly where they should be. They like feeling "smart" at school and my 1st grader is helping out all the kids sitting at his desk. So, what I am trying to say is that there is a benefit being a bit ahead yet staying with your own age group. They love going to school and don't seem to be bored at all. So, I would just see how it goes and if you don't find any problems, let her be with her age peers.

[LolaT]

I'm actually trying to implement the scenario you described. My DD is not really accelerated or advanced. But having gotten an early start in a private preschool, I HS'd her K through the summer and fall. Then HS'd 1st grade starting Jan '11 through now. She's 6 now and turns 7 in Oct so missed the deadline for 2nd grade.

 

I'm trying to place her in a charter school (UT) who said they were very open to advanced placements after testing and and evalutation through the school psychologist. They also mentioned they would start her in 1st grade and it would take 2-3 weeks to evaluate, send a letter to the state and have aproval for adavanced placement. Having said that, when I registered her, along with her exact date of birth, I specified I was registering her for 2nd grade. They placed her in 2nd grade without even realizing her DOB. Of course that only speaks to their negligance and incompetence, which may in fact mean we won't be going to that school in the long run but we are giving it a test drive.

 

Don't know if any of that info helps. But it would seem to me that if a school, such as a charter school, is open to advanced placement, it is easier to accomplish this AFTER Kindergarten when DOB is not as closely scrutinized and heavily relied upon for registration.

[SKL]

One*mom: Actually, I'm not really sure which school she will attend in the future, as it depends on several factors - one of them being whether they will respect her homeschooling. It could be the local public school, or a parochial school, or the private school associated with their daycare (but much farther away). I would be open to other ideas as they come up.

 

Private KG for this year appears to be totally out. I have a couple of phone calls in to test some possibilities, but I'm not very hopeful. Private 1st grade for next year may be a possibility at one school that is kind of far away.

 

The physical development isn't a big concern, as she can already write legibly and all that. She has been attending an all-day preschool for 2 years and has no issues with stamina, sitting quietly, etc. She'll only be a few months younger than her classmates.

 

I'm still in the initial research stage as far as how I'd homeschool. Since she's a good reader, I could see using a literature-based approach along with hands-on real-life activities for math and science. But I'm a novice on these matters.

[Bang!Zoom!]

I guess I'd also take a look around at the ps system in your area and see what is available *besides* the class skip situation.

 

My own experience is that acceleration into gt programs usually occur during 2nd grade, and that testing usually occurs in Feb/May.

 

A grade skip is one thing. Entry into a gate or gt program is another. Two totally different worlds.

 

If she were accelerated in traditional ps in a conventional school, the benefit of the testing into gate might slip away. This is to say that if she were skipped into 2nd grade but didn't have some of the concepts down when it came time to test for gt, she may not be able to enter.

 

If she stays traditionally time-tracked, when it comes time to test for gt programs in 2nd grade, her skill base will be deeper just due to the time factor and she could most likely enter gt programs.

 

Take a look around and study the gt programs in your area and see what's required.

 

There really are two pathways here, and each of them will lead to completely different experiences long term.

 

Just something to think about.

 

edit:

 

We cross-posted it looks like.

 

I've personally done a hybrid of home education stuff. My oldest daughter is a story unto herself, and I didn't have any opportunity to do a formal, pre-planned curriculum at all. She was a wild one, she steered the ship, I was always two steps behind and relied completely on outside resources for help and guidance.

 

With my youngest one here, I think I've been highly informal on teaching her at home; no game plan laid out, just go with the flow and interests. We are now at a point with this one where something more formal is probably the best. Some sort of plan and method. I'm mostly worried about continuity in math (the actual scaffolding of skill reinforcement) - we tend to move a lot and I worry about gaps.

 

I took a good look around at several approaches combined with my past experiences, spent an enormous (embarrassingly so) amount of time here going through other folks stories and curriculum choices.

 

It was by reading them here, reviewing what I could online, going to bookstores and chatting with some other local home school people I was able to sort it out and come up with some structure for after schooling.

 

I don't know if you are familiar with the actual book titled "Well-Trained Mind" (often abbreviated here as WTM) but you might want to stop at the library and check a copy out to see if it's interesting.

 

In that book, the authors illustrate a very wide range of approaches and theories, and it's quite nifty in short.

 

I'm on my second reading of it and still developing ideas to try (some will fail, I know this) as I work out what is comfortable and paced at the learning stage this child is in.

 

It really helps to look at things long term.

Edited August 19, 2011 by one*mom

[AngieC]

We afterschool our kids a year ahead and my youngest entering K isn't even 5 yet. However, we won't be accelerating them grade-wise later. I think in terms of maturity there are exactly where they should be. They like feeling "smart" at school and my 1st grader is helping out all the kids sitting at his desk. So, what I am trying to say is that there is a benefit being a bit ahead yet staying with your own age group. They love going to school and don't seem to be bored at all. So, I would just see how it goes and if you don't find any problems, let her be with her age peers.

 

 

But if your child is 4 and entering K then I am assuming he or she is young for grade. Missing the cut-off by 6 days, SKL's daughter would be old for grade - had she been born a week earlier, she would be a grade up.

 

My 2nd grade dd should only be a 1st grader this year - she missed the cut off by 2.5 weeks and should have been old for grade. We got her in early by homeschooling her for her kindergarten year (which according to the school system should have been her pre-k year) and presenting our case to the principal of our local school. We had IQ testing and the school did reading and math testing and she was accepted into 1st grade when she should have been a kindergartner.

 

I also considered going the private school route - getting her into a private K early and then the school district would have taken her directly into first. (That works in my district, but some districts have a cut-off for K and 1st, so you would have to do 2 years at a private school.)

 

Good luck with this! I really struggled with what to do because I knew putting my daughter into kindergarten 2 days before she turned 6 (we have an 8/1 cut-off) was a bad move for her, but the school systems don't make it easy to get them in early (as well they shouldn't, but there clearly are some kids who should be accepted early).

[Roadrunner]

But if your child is 4 and entering K then I am assuming he or she is young for grade. Missing the cut-off by 6 days, SKL's daughter would be old for grade - had she been born a week earlier, she would be a grade up.

 

My 2nd grade dd should only be a 1st grader this year - she missed the cut off by 2.5 weeks and should have been old for grade. We got her in early by homeschooling her for her kindergarten year (which according to the school system should have been her pre-k year) and presenting our case to the principal of our local school. We had IQ testing and the school did reading and math testing and she was accepted into 1st grade when she should have been a kindergartner.

 

I also considered going the private school route - getting her into a private K early and then the school district would have taken her directly into first. (That works in my district, but some districts have a cut-off for K and 1st, so you would have to do 2 years at a private school.)

 

Good luck with this! I really struggled with what to do because I knew putting my daughter into kindergarten 2 days before she turned 6 (we have an 8/1 cut-off) was a bad move for her, but the school systems don't make it easy to get them in early (as well they shouldn't, but there clearly are some kids who should be accepted early).

 

Got it!!! I would fight for her then. We are in CA with a Dec. 2nd cut-off, so I keep forgetting the most of the country doesn't run CA way :lol:

[Bang!Zoom!]

That's good information Angie.

 

What (if you recall) type of IQ test did they use? It was on the districts dime right? No out of pocket for you?

 

Did things have to work in a particular order? IQ then district reading and math testing?

 

Was there a big time gap between the IQ and school reading and math? I'm just wondering how you scheduled that if you remember.

[TracyR]

If you plan on accelerating I suggest going the private school route. Also check around and see if you have any schools that participate in blended classes. Montessori schools are known for this. There are both private and public Montessori schools where children will have the same teacher for two to three years.

My sister has three of her children in a public Montessori school.

Some Catholic schools will participate in this type of environment. The private school my middle two is a blended school. It is structured like this Prek/K, 1st/2nd , 3rd/4th, then it was 5th,6th,7th,8th otherwise known as the blended class. But now its just 5th and 6th together since they dropped their 7th and 8th grade.

 

So that maybe a good option for your daughter. That was she is still among her peers but will be working at the level she needs to be at.

My youngest just turned 5 but works at a 1st grade level. But mostly I think that was due to the fact that I taught her how to read early at home, and did things with her at home. Not so much the school. LOL Some things she did learn at school that I didn't teach her at home too. It was a mixture of things.

 

So yes they can thrive and accelerate if you do a mixture of the two. But you need to do your homework on which school would be best to put her in. For the most part though I do notice that the kids like to be the smartest ones in the room , even if you put them with their graded peers. That is if she doesn't have behavioral issue, and as long as you have a teacher that is really willing to work with you.

[Pamela H in Texas]

We looked into school at one point including acceleration.

 

At first, we were in Texas which has a Sept 1st cut off. My daughter's bday is later in Sept. My daughter was also extremely advanced academically. The school district said they could accept her into first grade if the local private school provided Kindy for her (there was only one private school at the time). The private school was willing to overlook the 3 weeks by which she missed the deadline. This would have allowed her to start school at almost 5 rather than almost 6.

 

Then we moved to Louisiana where they test kids into PreK, Kindy, and 1st grades. Their rule, though, is no skipping K. So age wise, my daughter would have been a young preK'er (starting just before turning 4); but since she tested high AND couldn't skip K, was accepted into Kindy. There was discussion about skipping 1st the next year.

 

In the end, we decided not to do the above things. She was much more advanced than these levels anyway and she wasn't really interested in going to school (she's an introvert).

 

One more thing though...in the fall of 2001, we were struggling so decided to put the kids in school. When we filled out the paperwork, we just grabbed the 4th grade enrollment papers off the table for dd though she was 8. At the beginning of the school year, they did testing and offered her a skip into a gifted 5th grade class. DD didn't want to do that as she had friends and it wasn't like 5th was going to be enough academically (I was doing 8th+ with her). I went ahead and pointed out her age at that point.

 

Anyway, so it is possible to accelerate if necessary. I do think you have to be mindful about whether that is best. Children are whole people, not just academic students. However, I most certainly think some kids NEED to be accelerated and some even need to be radically accelerated. I think my daughter would have done fine with just the one or two grade skips with me providing accelerated work for her and letting her have other accelerated opportunities (mentoring, college classes, etc as a preteen, dual enrollment, etc).

 

ETA: DD was only in school 8 weeks so this is mostly just my figuring on the matter as we homeschooled before and after that 8 weeks using similar accelerated opportunities.

[AngieC]

That's good information Angie.

 

What (if you recall) type of IQ test did they use? It was on the districts dime right? No out of pocket for you?

 

Did things have to work in a particular order? IQ then district reading and math testing?

 

Was there a big time gap between the IQ and school reading and math? I'm just wondering how you scheduled that if you remember.

 

 

The IQ testing was done on the district's dime, but not because of our situation. A neighboring district has a gifted charter school that our kids can attend. I applied there for my dd and she had to do the testing before she could enter the lottery (she qualified but ended up not getting a slot). At the time they did the reading/math testing, they went ahead and did the rest of the testing for the gifted program. She was originally given the WPPSI IQ test and Weschler achievement test when applying for the gifted charter. Our school district also gave her the Naglieri non-verbal abilities test and K-BIT screener to qualify her for our district's gifted program (however, we had already been accepted into the school prior to this testing taking place, so it did not factor into the decision).

 

The first round of IQ testing was done in January, because that was when the district scheduled it when applied for the charter. We did not contact our district about our situation until March, so the reading and math testing occurred mid-April, after state testing was completed at the school.

 

As for the order, I would say that being able to approach my school district with IQ results was a huge help. I'm not sure that I would have ever been able to make my case had I not had those. I had also done a lot of research on my school district's website and came across a PowerPoint presentation by the Director of Gifted Education for the district that talked about early entry and acceleration being positive things for gifted kids and also recognizing the educators in general are opposed to acceleration. In fact, this quote is on the last page of the presentation:

 

Acceleration is one of the most curious phenomena in the field of education. I can think of no other issue in which there is such a gulf between what research has revealed and what most practitioners believe. The research on acceleration is so uniformly positive, the benefits of appropriate acceleration so unequivocal, that it is diffuicult to see how an educator could oppose it. James H. Borland, Teachers College, Columbia University.

 

 

So...based on the information that I found, I contacted someone at the district level and she actually told me that she would contact the princiapl of our elementary school for me before I contacted her. Really, I think I got lucky in that we seem to be in a pretty open-minded school district and I just got lucky in general as everyone I talked to said I was the first person they had ever heard of that managed to get my child placed ahead without having to go to a private school first.

 

Sorry for the book!

[SKL]

Angie, thanks for that quote and the information on your situation. Wow, that is so true about educators. Even the private schools I've looked into have strict cutoff dates and will not even discuss an exception. The whole "gift of time" - if I hear it once more - I mean, yes, that's great for SOME children, but not for every child. I wish they would just sit down with my daughter and have a conversation with her, and then tell me that she is not ready to take on the world at the KG level. It's nice to communicate with some parents who can relate.

[BabyBre]

Yes, we did it with dd, but we were lucky to find a district (District A) that allowed advanced placement. The district we live in (District B) does not, under any circumstances. :glare: District A tested her into K when she was pre-K age, and then it was just a lateral transfer into 1st when we moved her to our neighborhood school in District B the next year.

 

We continue to afterschool a grade level ahead and this has gotten her accepted to District B's gifted program. That's the best we can do within this district because they would watch her die of boredom in her seat before they would advance her a grade level.

 

I'm in WA state, and I think it's district policy, not state policy you need to worry about here.

Edited August 23, 2011 by BabyBre