Have any of you ever thought about moving your kid up a grade?...

[FooserX]

I'm sure EVERYone thinks their kiddo is the smartest lol...but I seriously think my son is not challenged in 1st grade at all. He can read fine, he can do all the math easy...and I just think he would benefit from being challenged more.

But he'll be small in a grade up...and I'm not sure what other issues come with that...academically or socially.

Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks
X

 

[bssage]

First are you sure that is a result of the grade? As opposed to the school. I.E. Would a different school have a more challenging curriculum than the one he currently attends.

DS was a borderline kid. Meaning that he could have been oldest if we waited for a year. But since we choose option #2 he is the youngest in his class.

There are some obvious maturity discrepancy issues. He makes friends much more easially with kids in a grade below his. It seems as though he sometimes is just not on the same page as his classmates socially. Academically he does fine and is slightly above the average.

Its really a roll of the dice how this will all work out. I tend to place as much emphasis on social skills as academics. Unless you intend to work alone in a lab or writing books. Social skills will mean a lot determining how successful you are in life. Just IMO.

 

[Choppy]

I'm not sure there's a lot of benefit to moving a child up a grade.

If you read Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Outliers", he makes a prett good case for keeping your child within his or her peer group. In general, he argues that children who start out with a small advantages among their peer group are likely to get more advantages as time goes on. (Most of his arguments are based on performance in hockey, but I think there are a lot of universal applications).

 

[IADad]

How receptive is the school/his teacher to finding more challenging work for him. Maybe he could do some reading in different areas not typically taught much in first grade (ie. social studies, science ) so that way he can learn about stuff he's interested in yet stay with his peers. Is his command of the material interferring in class or his relationship with his peers? Maybe there would be benefits to him spending some time mentoring another kid in class who is being challenged by math.... I Just think there are things to do to challenge a kid rather than moving them up. Another consideration is how much younger than his classmates be when they all start driving, dating, etc. I'm not saying it's an overriding consideration but it should be a consideration.