First grade is an important part of school. Many of the academic habits that students develop are first forming in the first grade. If a student is too advance for first grade, parents may be worried that the child will be bored, and begin to dislike the learning process altogether. However, knowing what the next step is when a child is too advanced for first grade can be difficult.

The next thing that you need to do once you’ve determined that a child is too advanced for first grade is to consider how advanced the child is socially. There are many important skills beyond academics that children are exposed to during first grade. After you have decided that your child is too advanced academically for first grade, the next step is to look realistically at whether he is advanced enough, socially, to move on.

After looking at the social aspect, you need to look at other circumstances. For example, is the child willing to consider skipping a grade? She may not like the idea of being separated from her friends from kindergarten. She may be intimidated by being around older children, even if they are only a year older. On the other hand, she might relish the prospect of being a “bigger girl” by moving up a grade. While you can not make the decision based solely on what your first grader wants, it is important to take her feelings and her opinion into account in terms of the bigger picture.

You also need to look at the overall family situation when your child is too advanced for first grade. Skipping a grade can be stressful. Are there other stressors, such as a divorce, or having a new baby, or moving to a new city, or a death in the family that may be weighing on your first grader’s mind? If something like this is going on, it might be easier to let your child stay in first grade, to have an easier year of things.

The fact of the matter is that, even if a child is too advanced for first grade, skipping first grade is not always the answer. There will certainly be opportunities later on, if the child is truly that advanced, to skip a grade.

Posted in School Issues

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