I'm jumping in late here, but from what I've read his math knowledge is already on par with science, right? He'll be making friends, or at least acquaintances in his science right now. If they don't go for acceleration in math right now, I'd ask for the whole jump in math for next year. That'd get him even in science & math next year, he'll know kids in math from his science classes. And let the school know if they don't accelerate him in math this year that you will expect it next year and ask for differentiation in his math now to prepare him for the skip next year.

Dottie has probably already posted this lol but I've read the WJIII shouldn't be used for grade placement. There aren't enough questions per grade level to make that decision. You would then go to out of level achievement tests, SCAT or the STEP testing.

Let me throw something out there like Kriston did:

He's 8 years old and had managed to acquire a scientific knowledge that rivals late high schoolers/maybe beginning college freshman. Why even bother putting him in the 7th grade class? He got where he is without science in school so far. All the 7th grade class will do, it seems, is put an emphasis on skills that he doesn't have yet - writing - with no growth of the skills that he does have - high school/university level knowledge. That could sour him on the subject and dampen his enthusiasm. Why not exempt him from his elementary school science class and let him explore through an independent study course (that he chooses) during that time, then find him a mentor at a local college and let him keep learning the way that he has been so far. He's certainly been successful on his own up to now.

Just a thought!

I'm with CFK. I'm just not convinced that this skip does him any real good in the short term, though maybe it sets him up better for 4 or 5 years down the road. (But that's just a maybe--without same-level math acceleration, I'm it's far from a given...) If the multiple math skips aren't a good solution, then it doesn't seem like a very helpful skip for your DS, ebeth.

At the same time, it seems like it carries a pretty high risk.

Anytime I see that combo of high risk/low immediate reward, I get nervous.

I think I'd favor independent study over this particular solution, too. It seems more appropriate to the child right now.

But I freely admit that I'm no expert...

We had another round of discussions with the school this morning. They seem to have come to the same decision: the math skills need to be advanced in order to keep up with the science. They are proposing that DS should have curriculum compacting in math, so that he would cover 4th and 5th this year, and 6th and 7th next year. I'm am still a little uncertain how this curriculum compacting would be accomplished since DH was the one discussing it with the school. (Anyone who knows DH would say that he is an absurdly optimistic person who always sees the silver lining in a storm cloud.) But it sounded from DH like the school would pull DS out of his regular 4th grade math class for individual math instruction with the gifted teacher. Could this be too good to be true?

So it looks like we are proceeding with the radical acceleration to 7th grade in science. DS will either go up to the Jr. High today or on Monday for a trial run. If all goes well, we will make next Wednesday his first official day in 7th grade science. The school wants to wait for few weeks before beginning the math compacting in order to not completely overwhelm him. But hopefully by the end of Sept., DS will have a special math tutor at his school.

Wow. And all of this happened in a matter of 24 hours?

I think the school understands the need to watch this carefully and make sure that it is a happy fit for DS. They are planning to monitor the acceleration carefully, and are willing to step in and pull him back if things do not work out.

I just need to think about it one day at a time. Let's see what DS thinks of the new class, and what the teacher thinks of DS (his writing skills and maturity). Then we will proceed from there. I like the suggestion of asking for sample homeworks or lab reports. Hopefully I will get a better feel for if DS will be in over his head or not.

DS has probably learned science along the same pathway that he has learned math so far. He feeds off of exciting, abstract concepts, and the more abstract the idea, the more he craves it. And so he knows a great deal about physics, biology, chemistry, geology... but all from a very abstract perspective. It is similar to wanting to know algebra, but not wanting to sit and work out the nitty-gritty deals. He could probably use to go through some of these basic science classes, if only so that they would teach him to focus on some of the basic concepts, i.e. the boring stuff that he just skips over. He is a child who sees the big picture right away and wants to jump to step 10 of an idea, without ever covering the first nine steps. I think that an early Jr. High class would be about right for teaching him to focus on details that he would naturally choose to rush over.

I guess we will soon see. It is a giant leap of faith at this point.

Very interesting! I had not heard of the SCAT or STEP achievement testing before this discussion. I will have to look into it. It is curious then that if the WJ III is so quick and dirty as an achievement test, with very few questions per grade level, that it is one of the achievement test accepted for the DYS application. It must be fairly decent for spreading out the upper achievement test scores for it to be DYS-worthy??

Is it just then that the WJ III is measuring potential (with the scaled scores which look like IQ scores?) and not a grade level? But I thought that the difference between IQ tests and Achievement tests was that IQ measured what a child had the potential to learn, while the Achievement tests measured what they had already mastered. This seems to be the opposite of the scaled scores verses grade equivalent debate? It seems that the WJ III would be best suited to deliver GE scores?

Maybe this confusion is what is really throwing me for a loop with these WJ III scores?

Wow Ebeth, sounds amazing!!!!! LOVE the math plan! This could just work, .

He sounds very much like my son but LOGs more advanced. lol.

Good luck! I'm just amazed that the school is even willing to sit and discuss all this.

A psych friend, who was reviewing WJIII scores for me for a friend, when I tried to give him GE said something like "Oh those numbers are useless. I don't need those."