NJ Res, I have experience with this…won’t say in what capacity. but yes, if she wants to she should. If the school will consider it and if she already recognizes that she could do it, I hate to tell you but she may never fit in with the age cohort very well. Or she could fit in anywhere and it wouldn’t have mattered. One of the personal experiences i had was an early skip that was denied, followed by a skip in middle school that was suggested by the school. the skippee still welcomed this transition but says it would have been easier if they “had listened in kindergarten”. each girl has her own story…I hope Sarah’s turns out well for her. (edited to add that my personal experience is with a relative, it wasn’t me)
Who is Rex Morgan? What do you mean by this?
Probably they meant to write Doogie Howser rather than Rex Morgan.
Rex Morgan, MD is a comic strip. In a nutshell, the main characters are June and Rex Morgan - they have a precocious daughter Sarah who is starting a new school - they’re trying to decide if she should skip first grade.
It is a topic worthy of discussion, but yes a comic strip got me thinking about it.
I wish we had accelerated our daughter when we had the chance - and I think it would have been better in the early years of her education. In middle school and high school, she was frequently with older students who definitely treated her as a “nerd” - academically she was achieving on a much higher level than they were, but socially they absolutely shunned her. If she had accelerated early on, I don’t think the age difference would have been an issue in later years. And yes, I think if anyone should accelerate, Sarah is the perfect candidate! 
I skipped 4th grade–dont think it was a good thing for me. I was very immature when I started college (turned 17 at the beginning of second semester freshman year). I think the decision to skip a grade often depends on the individual child, the child’s family, and the family’s resources. My parents were immigrants–they didnt have many resources and didn’t comsider any downsides to skipping a grade.
Today, there is much more of an age range within a grade than in the dark ages when I skipped–so maybe skipping ahead doesn’t make you stand out.
Loved Rex Morgan. But only in cartoons do kids stay young for what seems like forever. Rex and June got married in 1995 and she was born “a few years later.”
Elementary school is more like a scavenger hunt for skills and abilities, not a race – so zipping through the list early on doesn’t promise anything for the next list. Finding half of it instantly doesn’t mean the other half will be as easy. A kid who reads at 4 is less important than a kid who still reads at 14.
S2 was in the district’s gray area, where parents got to choose whether to start at 4.75 or stay out until you are 5.75. We kept him out – he was no way ready for the social parts and I didn’t want to part with him, frankly. It all turned out just fine. Generally in schools, skipping is only for the spectacularly, completely, utterly advanced. And most of our kids are wonderful – but they aren’t that
One of the reasons we decided as a family to let D graduate early and so young is that she is very focused on what she wants to do, where she wants to do it and why. The schools she applied to, save one, are small, have strong freshman support programs, have stricter rules than traditional colleges when it comes to dorm life, study hours, some even have dress codes, and one has a curfew. D can focus on being a student, meeting like-minded classmates and dorm friends and we can worry a little less. She already been in summer programs at colleges with older kids, and even on another continent, so she knew going in what it might be like. We’ve always assured her that if it doesn’t work out next year, her life is not over and she has other options.
I skipped first grade. Although my reading skills were way beyond first grade level at the time, I still missed a lot by being skipped. I always felt as if I were playing “catch up” socially and emotionally. I would not advise it.
My middle one started complaining about Kindergarten about a month in. She wanted to go to first grade badly. She had a late spring birthday (cut-off was Sept. 1) so she was on the younger side. We moved her up and never looked back. Most of her friends ended up being the older kids in the class so she was often younger by 1.5-2 years. Middle school was probably the hardest because she was also a late bloomer. But, it all worked out fine. She was always going to march to her own drummer anyway. My oldest left high school after her sophomore year (she was one of the youngest in her class) for an early entry program and it was great for her. The big issue for her was graduating from college at 19 and not being able to go out for a drink with co-workers at her first job. It really, really, really depends on the school and on the family.
My experience with our kids was that the first half of first grade repeats later K lessons, to make sure most are at the same level. Then the first half of second grade repeats later first grade lessons, again, to try to get everyone up to speed. Ime, the real learning doesn’t start til third. I do know kids who were utterly bored by this repetition. And some who had (temporary) behavior issues because of it.
There are some funny comments on comics sites about how little Sarah might be obnoxious in school.
It was emerging behavioral problems that tipped the decision over into sending our middle one on ahead. My kids were typically extremely well behaved in group setting, but she was beginning to act out at circle time and make fun of the pre-literacy activities.
The youngest one is every bit as smart as the older two, but she stayed on the age-cohort schedule. She’s just a different kid and was happy being part of the group even when she wasn’t being academically challenged.
My kids’ school allowed students to take different level of courses based on their abilities. There was a 9th grader in D1’s Calculus BC class. The seniors all thought he was cute (young), and they were nice to him when he was in class, but they didn’t hang out together. This student still stayed in his grade for homeroom, other humanities courses and for sports.
I am not a big supporter of having kids skip grades because socially it can be difficult. I would prefer to have the kid take more advance courses or college courses, but stay in the same grade with same age students.
S1 skipped 4th grade. He was bored in school and not all of his teachers were willing to appropriately challenge him. We assumed he’d hit puberty relatively early for a boy, which he did, so we didn’t think he’d look younger than his new classmates as they all matured. Not driving at the same age as them was probably the biggest issue, and it wasn’t much of one. I think overall he’s glad that he skipped.
I had skipped 2nd grade, so I had some personal experience with it. I was teased mercilessly in junior high because I reached puberty so much later than the other girls, so that’s why I was sensitive to whether that would be an issue for my son.
I think Sarah (from Rex Morgan, M.D.) should be home-schooled, or else she should attend a very flexible private school. Perhaps a public school that offers a Montessori program would work. I think that Sarah from the comic strip would not find most public schools very well suited to her. Skipping a grade is not the solution, in my opinion.
Incidentally, in real life, my mother skipped 2 grades and headed for college (with a scholarship) at age 16, with braces still on her teeth. Although it worked out reasonably well for her, she was opposed to grade-skipping for any of her children or grandchildren.
cobrat, I was speaking of it from the parent’s point of view, that it is scary to send your 17 year old off to college. I was also 17 for my first semester at college and it wasn’t scary for me at all, but I have no idea how my parents felt about it.
For my daughter who is very small and not very worldly, it was scary for me. Every time I had to sign a form she couldn’t sign because she wasn’t 18, I thought “should she be here? will she be safe? is there a reason why the world doesn’t think a 17 year old should be allowed to sign contracts?” There was a mix up with her housing, and the housing director suggested she and another freshman move out of freshman housing (about 90% of the freshmen lived in a freshman village) to an apartment off campus. That complex is owned by the university, but is only for upperclassmen. This school is 75% male, 30% international, and quite a few are older than traditional students. That was a big NO from me. She wasn’t going to live farther away, with mostly men, and have to travel to the central dining hall on campus (probably about 1 mile) to eat.