Skipping middle school for certain things?

[rubyslippers]

My oldest daughter will be 7th grade age next year.  She is on grade level for math, a year ahead in language, and her reading level/comprehension are both well beyond her years.  I am looking at history, geography, etc. for middle school, trying to best choose the thing that will prepare her for high school. On a whim, I looked at some 9th grade curricula for these subjects and realize she could probably handle it without a problem.

 

Has anyone just skipped from 6th grade straight to the high school requirements for literature and history?  Pros? Cons?  

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Dmmetler]

We didn't skip, just did the next thing, but DD started high school content in some areas quite early-she actually audited her first college class at age 8.

 

What I have found is that it's easy to move on to high school content early-but you may find difficulty in actually counting it without doing a formal grade skip, and you will likely find it hard to find outside providers that will take a middle school student in a high school class, especially live classes. I don't worry about it. I figure DD will have classes somewhere during high school that can go on the transcript, and that will suffice.

[Arcadia]

For history and literature, input wasn't the problem for my kids. Output as good as an excellent high school kid was the problem.

[EndOfOrdinary]

What dmmetler said.

 

There are very few middle school sources that we use. We use light weight high school stuff much more often. Ds does not get high school credit for it at this point. They are just foundational for advanced coursework in high school. Next year the goal is to begin AP tests so that outside verification can happen. Somewhere in the vast future that might mean high school credits, but as of now it is just building the Ivy League resume my son wants. If the tests go well, they can be transfered into community college credits later on at 14.

 

High school level outside classes start next year for foriegn language. Up until now, Ds has not had the executive function to be able to handle getting high school credit for anything. It requires far too much of me for me to be comfortable granting credit. If he stands relatively on his own, then Latin 1 might go on his transcript this young. We will see. There is no need to decide right now.

 

Without outside verification of the credit, mommy grades this young are seen as completely invalid for subjects other than math or foriegn language. Even then, it is iffy. Often including them is concidered "padding a transcipt." This is the major reason for us choosing AP testing versus credit granting. The credits transfer later by an outside body which is not me.

[nobeatenpath]

Our system is very different than the US system, but we have effectively 'skipped' middle school and gone straight to highschool level work. However we will most likely be using outside testing (IGCSE) as validation of results rather than creating our own transcript, so this is not an issue. In terms of inupt and output - he can handle the input, we are still working on the output, more through lack of ability to concentrate/executive function skills rather than lack of knowledge.

[Laura Corin]

Our system is very different than the US system, but we have effectively 'skipped' middle school and gone straight to highschool level work. However we will most likely be using outside testing (IGCSE) as validation of results rather than creating our own transcript, so this is not an issue. In terms of inupt and output - he can handle the input, we are still working on the output, more through lack of ability to concentrate/executive function skills rather than lack of knowledge.

 

Yes.  We started on high school work early, first choosing a subject that required only short-answer responses on the IGCSE exam.  Calvin took IGCSE biology at age 11, then Classical Civilisation and Chinese exams at 13.

 

The Class Civ was hard, because it required essays in the exam - I should have delayed that one - but the others went fine.  His maths wasn't secure enough to study the other sciences early.

 

When he went to school, they were happy to excuse him from further biology based on the exam; he picked bio up again when he went into the IB, with no problems.

[Mike in SA]

For younger DS, we largely skipped elementary material and went straight to middle school stuff.

 

But, for older DS, we did simply jump into the higher material when it was clear he needed it.  As dmmetler stated, there's plenty of additional content available to fill out a high school transcript.  If you are hoping to stop/graduate early, though, you will need to be thinking about tracking credits as if it is for high school.  Colleges won't care at all about a middle school transcript, but the high school work should be legit.

 

In our case, we've planned to continue education beyond the traditional high school limits, so getting four credits in each major subject area is no big deal.

[rubyslippers]

Thank you for your advice about this subject. I appreciate it.

 

I am still green in the area of transcripts and high school requirement. I've done some reading over the last few weeks, and it seems to me (correct me if I'm wrong) that the colleges simply look for a high school transcript, done by the parents. It should include:

 

The course taken

The grade received

The credit awarded

 

I was under the assumption that if I went ahead and did a 9th grade lit course with her that I could indicate that on her transcript, therefore opening up some time in high school for her to take some courses at the local university or to do some volunteer work, etc.

 

What you all are saying is to keep going, keep challenging her, and just wait and count all the stuff from 9-12 on her transcript? So a course taken at the university could go on her transcript also as dual credit? That makes a lot of sense actually.

 

Empress Bee, I'm very interested in what you said about AP testing and how that is superior to a transcript compiled by the mother. I know nothing about this route, though. Does it require going through the public school system?

[Dmmetler]

It depends on your state and how it works. Here, you have to register with someone, and I register with a private umbrella school that is very hands-off, except that they don't let you count high school coursework in middle school except for one year of math and one year of foreign language. So, what I'm doing is putting what we do on DD's record with the book and materials lists. I admit it looks kind of silly when "Math, grade 6" is "AoPS introduction to Geometry" (and science gets downright ludicrous) , but the materials are there should we need them in the future. Whatever her last four classes are will get transcripted. By that point, it's likely they'll be university classes counted for both.

 

FWIW, around here taking college classes is basically a matter of test score-for universities, SAT or ACT, for the community college, being the minimum age and taking the Accuplacer. You don't need a high school transcript for that purpose, and after that point, you'll have the college transcript to document.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2016 by dmmetler

[chiguirre]

We skipped from fifth to eighth by accident. We had been using MCT language arts and when I enrolled T in Landry's English sequence she ended up in eighth grade English. They use the regular schedule and we had been on the gifted schedule. The class also did Lightning Lit's eighth grade program. This was a bit of a jump from what we had been doing in terms of output but it worked out well. This year T is doing their high school ancient lit class. The writing is challenging but not too hard.

 

I plan to keep taking high school level lit and comp classes until T is old enough to dual enroll at 16.

Edited March 19, 2016 by chiguirre

[bluedarling]

I'm pretty much in the same boat, except we're looking at going from ps 4th grade to 7th grade materials . DD thinks that makes her a 7th grader (except 6th math which she wants to accelerate), She wants to go for early college, but I'm thinking of just aiming for dual enrollment at 16, so that we can set her up well for scholarships.  I'm afraid by calling her 7th at 10yo, that would make her 9th grade at 12yo, and taking SAT/ACT and dual enrollment at 14?  How do I know at this point that she'll be ready in maturity?  She might, but I don't want to gamble on that.  It seems at this point like just keeping her grade level by age and seeing how advanced of materials we can use probably makes more sense...it could mean the difference between no scholarships and not?

[SeaConquest]

I think that most of the ALs here do something like logic stage work during the grammar years and rhetoric level work during middle school. By the time high school rolls around, many are doing university (lower and upper division) level work in high school. This may not hold true for all subjects, where there is asynchrony, but seems to be the general pattern.

[rubyslippers]

Thank you! This is all helpful information. 

[LisaKinVA]

Input vs. output, and it varied by subject.

 

LEGOManiac was ready for high-school level input and output for math and science, but not ready for that level of output in English/Social Science (input...yes...output, definitely not)

PonyGirl was ready for input and output in all areas, but instead of putting everything at high school level we simply followed areas of interest (added German at a high school level, art at a high school level).

PokeMan will be doing foreign language, math and science at a high school level (for credit), plus one elective (all areas of high interest), but everything else will be at a middle school level.

 

If one of my children had a high interest in history/English, but not in math/science this would probably look different.  So far this hasn't happened yet.

[JoanHomeEd]

Alternatively, if she is not competition/contest averse, she could spend more time on stuff like History Day Contest/Geography Bee/Spelling Bee, etc. 

 

Mine did Spelling Bee (not just spelling but also vocab) only in 8th (the last yr eligible) since most of 7th was all taken up by math and non-academic competitions.

 

If your DD is interested, she can also start high school foreign language and would be able to do advanced foreign language earlier and maybe have time to branch off to other languages. Mine started some high school Latin before 7th and did a modern foreign language for 4 years from 7th. DC was interested in adding another language in 11th, but by then had no more time to spare since math, chem, and non-academics competitions took over.

 

There are definitely pros and cons, like a lot of things in life.

 

ETA more details in foreign language.

Edited March 20, 2016 by JoanHomeEd