CHAPTER 25
ACCELERATION
alented students who are accelerated achieve more than their equally talented age-mates who are not. In some cases, students can acquire mastery of school subjects inusual curricular sequence. Acceleration is often equated with grade skipping in the public mind, but there are numerous forms of acceleration. Achievement and educational attainment outcomes are positive. Educators and parents worry that acceleration places high-ability learners at risk for social and emotional difficulties. These effects are less thoroughly researched than academic outcomes, but recent analyses have uncovered ques• tions that would benefit from additional investigation rather than
problems that would prevent the use of accelerative strategies.
WHAT WE KNOW
Acceleration of academically talented students is one of the most commonly recommended practices (Shore, Cornell
BEST PRACTICES IN GIFTED EDUCATION
Robinson, & Ward, 1991). Favorable empirical studies appeared as early as the
1930s and consistently positive reviews appeared in the succeeding decades (Daurio, 1979; Passow, 1958; Pressey, 1949; Rogers, 2004). Most recently, a national report, A Nation Deceived: How SchoolsHold Back America’s Brightest Students, focused on the benefits of acceleration and communicated them to policymakers and the public (Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004). In gen• eral, acceleration is defined as the recognition of students’ prior achievement (Southern, Jones, & Stanley, 1993). However, the practice also includes aca• demic progress based on individual abilities without regard for age (Paulus,
1984) and implies adjustment of the curriculum, as well as administrative pro•
cedures, for student placement (Schiever & Maker, 2003).
Although educators tend to assume that acceleration means grade skipping (Southern,Jones, & Fiscus, 1989), there are several other kinds of acceleration: early entrance to kindergarten or first grade, subject acceleration in ~hich a student attends part of a day at a more advanced grade level, telescoping cur• riculum to accomplish 3 years of instruction in 2, fast-paced extracurricular classes, and early college entrance (Southern &Jones, 2004).
EarlyAdmission
Although studies on early admission to kindergarten or first grade exist, many of the studies are more concerned with school readiness and do not generally account for early admission cases based on precocious achievement (Southern et al., 1993). Rogers’ (1992) meta-analysis included studies of early entrance, but noted that the information in the studies was often so sketchy that it was difficult to analyze. More recently, Gagne and Gagnier (2004) found few differences between early entrants and a comparison group of regular-aged children when evaluated by kindergarten and grade 2 teachers. Robinson and Weimer (1991) and Robinson (2004) reviewed the early entrance literature and concluded that while the studies of late birth date children obscured our understanding of early entrance on carefully selected precocious learners, the academic and social and emotional results are positive.
Grade Advancementfor Talented Students
In 1984, Kulik and Kulik published an influential meta-analysis on accel• eration. Nearly a decade later, Kulik (1992) revisited the analysis with much the same results. The 1984 review included 21 reports, and the 1992 review had
23 studies. To be included in the meta-analysis, the studies had to use control or comparison groups. All studies used standardized tests of achievement as the outcome measure (Kulik, 1992, p. 36).
Kulik and Kulik (1984) found two kinds of comparisons: Half of the studies used same-age equally able students who were not accelerated to assess the effects of acceleration; the other half compared accelerants with older aca• demically able control students. Results for the two types of comparisons differ. When compared with same age talented nonaccelerants, accelerated students scored approximately one grade higher. When compared with older equally able students, accelerants held their own. Kulik (1992) noted that the compari• son of accelerants with older students was particularly impressive because most accelerants were at least one year younger than their talented counterparts.
The studies included in the meta-analytic review tended to investigate telescoped curriculum in upper elementary or junior high grade levels (Kulik,1992). Nine of the 23 studies focused on mathematics. For example, Ludeman
(1969) investigated the compression of seventh- and eighth-grade mathemat• ics in 1 year rather than 2; Klausmeier and Wiersma (1964) looked at the com• pression of six semesters of mathematics in grades 9 and 10. The other studies examined more comprehensive acceleration programs, which usually shortened
3-year curriculum programs to 2 years. Several of the studies reviewed by ~he
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