Acceleration of Gifted Students

1. Acceleration of Gifted Students By: Peggy Humphries

2. What does Acceleration Mean? • “Progress through an educational program at rates faster or at ages younger than conventional”(Pressy,1949,p.2)

3. Forms of Grade-based Acceleration: • Early entrance to school • Whole-grade acceleration (grade skipping) • Grade telescoping • Early entrance to college

4. Research Support For Acceleration • Effective intervention for high-ability students • Carefully planned acceleration decisions are successful • Grade-accelerated students generally out-perform older classmates academically • No negative effects on social-emotional development

5. Factors to consider • Do you have an assessment of the accelerated student’s academic performance? • Acceleration should not have a negative impact on social and behavioral adjustment. • Is there going to be enough academic challenge for the student?

6. Barriers to acceleration • Absolute age requirements for entering school • Curriculum requirements for entering school • Curriculum requirements for specific grades • Prerequisites for certain courses or programs • Limiting participation in dual enrollment programs • Attitudes of parents, teachers, counselors, and administrators

7. Acceleration of poor or minority students • Research has not addressed whether poor and minority students are less likely to be grade-accelerated than others with similar academic achievement.

8. Pros to grade acceleration • Students are challenged and less likely to experience isolation and underachievement • More likely to be in gifted and talented program in high school • Improved achievement test scores than older students with similar achievement • More time to pursue interests after college • More likely to enter graduate school and further their education • Saves the district and taxpayers money

9. Legislation for No Child Left Behind • Quest to raise achievement levels of the nation’s lowest-performing students • Ignores the three to five percent of children nationwide that are considered academically gifted • Ignores gifted learners rights to equity in education

10. Gifted students at risk • If work is not challenging, students become invisible • Drop out rates are almost as high as non-gifted students • Failure to accelerate may cause relationship problems • Become underachievers and never reach their potential • Never develop study skills

11. A nation in decline • Nation’s schools are lagging behind other countries • Our nation’s brightest students are being held back • Excellence can become complacency and apathetic • National standards are being lowered by ignoring our gifted students and not allowing them to reach their potentials

12. Accelerated leaders of America • Martin Luther King, Jr., - leader of the Civil Rights Movement and Nobel Peace Prize winner graduated from high school at 15. • Justice Sandra Day O’Connor – Supreme Court Justice graduated at 16. • W.E.B. DuBois- graduated from high school at 16. • T.S. Eliot- finished his undergraduate degree at Harvard in three years, his masters degree in one year, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

13. Parents and Educators Fears • Fears that motor skills and stamina are not advanced enough • Children will be hurried out of their childhood • Acceleration hurts children socially • Political concerns about equity • Other students will be offended if one child is accelerated

14. Research Confirms that: • Acceleration is the most effective curriculum intervention for gifted children. • Acceleration has long-term benefits, both academically and socially for gifted students. • Acceleration is very economical . • Acceleration provides a better personal maturity match with classmates for gifted students.

15. References • Cloud, J.B. (2004). Saving the smart kids. Time, 164(13), 56-61. • Colangelo, N.A. (2004). A Nation deceived. Iowa City: The University of Iowa. • Colangelo, N.A. (2010), Guidelines for developing an academic policy. Journal of Advanced • Academics, 21(2), 180-203. • Delisle, J.P. (2003). The survival guide for teachers of gifted kids. Minneapolis: Free Spirit • Publishing Inc. • Kuo, Y.L. (2011). The timing of grade skipping. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 731-741. • Neihart, M. (2007). The socioaffective impact of acceleration and ability grouping. Gifted Child Quarterly, 51(4), 330-341. • Pollins, L. (1983). The effects of acceleration on the social and emotional development of gifted students. John Hopkins Universtiy Press. • Shepard, S.L. (2009). Early entrance to college and self-concept: comparisons across the first semester of enrollment. Journal of Advanced Academics, 21(1), 40-57.  • Vanderkam, L.W. (2009). Whatever happened to grade skipping? Education Week, 28(37), 30-36. • Viadero, D. (2004). Report urges acceleration of gifted students. Education Week, 24(5) 5. • Wells, R.L. (2009). What factors are associated with grade acceleration? Journal of Advanced Academics, 20(2), 248-273. • Winebrenner, S. (2001). Teaching gifted kids in the regular classroom. Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing I Inc.