OLAC Gifted Education Professional Development

OLAC Gifted Education Professional Development

Foundational Concept: Acceleration

Decades of research, including rigorous meta-analyses, show that acceleration is the single most beneficial provision for gifted students. Ohio policy strongly supports acceleration for all advanced learners. One of the major national organizations researching and advocating acceleration has even developed a scale to help families and educators discuss the appropriateness of acceleration for any student.

This Foundational Concept

• defines acceleration,
• summarizes the rationale for the practice and the research support behind it,
• details relevant Ohio education policy,
• points to relevant case studies of students—including Ohio students—who have been accelerated, and
• uses research findings to allay prevalent fears about acceleration.

Definition
Acceleration is the completion of an educational program in fewer years than commonly required. The idea is very simple. Fewer years = acceleration.
Assouline, Colangelo, and VanTassel-Baska (2015) call this approach, grade-based acceleration. It abbreviates the course of study. What they call content-based acceleration provides advanced content without such an abbreviation. The OLAC Gifted Education Professional Development workshops deal with this second sort of provision under the Foundational Concept, Advanced Curriculum.

Please note: Participants should review theOLAC Module, Diversity: Ensuring Everyone Learns, including the videos before completing this section.

Rationale and Research

Research studies as well as personal testimony from advanced learners show that completing school programs early is appropriate for nearly all such students. For instance, it should be normal for advanced learners to complete college by the age of 20. In many cases graduating from college by age 18 is appropriate. Despite evidence providing strong support for acceleration, early completion—either of high school or college—remains unusual in America.

The research on acceleration is particularly strong. Most studies document the benefits (KulikKulik, 1984). Moreover, results that confirm the benefits keep accumulating (Colangelo, Assouline, & VanTassel-Baska, 2015). The research also shows that common fears about negative effects of acceleration are usually unwarranted.

Rationale.Why do advanced learners and identified gifted students need acceleration? First, advanced learners exhibit achievement well above their grade level. Advanced achievement can be evident in one subject or many. Often it is more than one. Second, above-level achievement is evidence that advanced learners have—prior to their identification—acquired knowledge and skills at a very rapid rate. Third, this situation needs attention because it’s important to sustain rapid learning.

Research. Studies of the effects of acceleration on student achievement are consistent and positive and have accumulated for a very long time. The most recent compendium of this research appeared in volume two of A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students (edited by Colangelo, Assouline, & Gross, 2004). The full report is available online and is worth close reading (

The major researcher examining the literature on acceleration is James Kulik, coauthor of the first meta-analysis to summarize the results of many studies on acceleration (completed in 1984). Additional evidence has accumulated in the years since Kulik and Kulik’s 1984 meta-analysis. Kulik summarized the findings in a chapter of Nation Deceived:

• No other arrangement for gifted children works as well as acceleration.
• Accelerated students are more likely than non-accelerants to aspire to advanced educational degrees.
• Acceleration is far more effective in raising student achievement than the most successful school reform models.

Nation Deceived was updated in 2015 (Colangelo, Assouline, & VanTassel-Baska, 2015). The news hadn’t changed. The new volume ( lists the major finding from research (along with 19 other findings): Acceleration is the most effective academic intervention for gifted children.

A research finding this clear, this widely applicable, and this well supported is rare across all fields of education.Some sense of this research proceeds from descriptions of three rigorous studies.

Three Studies

Reference / Study Details / Major Findings
Kulik, J., & Kulik, C-L. C. (1984). Effects of accelerated instruction. Review of Educational Research, 54(3), 409-425. / Meta-analysis based on 26 controlled experiments of acceleration using grade-skipping, curriculum compression, and extended calendar year. Individual studies reviewed were published between 1937 and 1974. / The effect size of acceleration on achievement was .88 (i.e., of accelerants compared to non-accelerants of similar age and IQ). In popular summaries, the authors describe this effect as equivalent to one year of learning.
Park, G., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2013). When less is more: Effects of grade-skipping on adult STEM accomplishments among mathematically precocious youth. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105, 176-198. / Longitudinal quasi-experiment; members of the comparison group were statistically matched to the grade-skippers using propensity score matching / This study compared adult accomplishment of advanced math learners (top 1% when young) who had skipped grades in elementary school to those who had not. Grade-skippers earned doctorates, produced publications, and received patents at rates at least 50% higher than those in the comparison group.
Steenbergen-Hu S., & Moon, S. (2011). The effects of acceleration on high-ability learners: A meta-analysis. Gifted Child Quarterly, 55(1), 39-53. / Meta-analysis examining 38 studies of acceleration published after 1984. Some of the 38 studies conducted were outside the US. / Results were consistent with Kulik and Kulik’s conclusions, though the effect sizes for achievement were more modest (g = .18).

Ohio Policy

Ohio policy has long required schools to accelerate advanced learners. Only nine states have such policies (Assouline et al., 2015).

In April 2006 the Ohio Board of Education adopted the Model Student Acceleration Policy for Advanced Learners as required by Section 3324.10 of the Ohio Revised Code. According to the policy (ODE, 2006),

Research conducted nationally and within Ohio’s public schools has demonstrated that academic acceleration can be a powerful and cost-effective strategy for providing appropriately challenging, standards-based instruction for students who are ready to learn above grade-level content.... However, acceleration is currently severely underutilized in Ohio [emphasis added] (p. 2)

The policy was adopted to help districts and schools expand and improve their use of acceleration. The ODE (2017a) has developed an academic acceleration toolkit ( for educators and the public.

The recently updated operating standards for gifted education (ODE, 2017c) naturally include support for acceleration as well:

Gifted services must include instruction that is differentiated from the standard curriculum ... in depth, breadth, complexity, pace, and/or where content is above-grade level. (p. 5)

Acceleration is part of the continuum of services for the gifted, explicitly including grade-skipping, early entrance, and early graduation from high school. The expectation of Ohio policy is that gifted students and other advanced learners will be accelerated. The ODE (2017b) provides a policy implementation guide for districts ( Additional guidelines from researcher-advocates are also worth consulting and sharing with district and school leaders (e.g., Colangelo, Assouline, Marron, Castellano, Clinkenbeard, Rogers, . . . & Smith, 2010).

Types of Acceleration

Here the focus is on the provisions, that in themselves abbreviate the years students spend in elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. The Foundational Concept on Advanced Curriculum will consider provisions that give access to above-grade-level content without abbreviating the overall number of years that students remain in school.

In effect, just three concepts apply: early entry, grade-skipping, and early graduation. Each type of acceleration, however, differs somewhat by grade-level context:

• early entry to Kindergarten,
• early entry to first grade,
• whole-grade acceleration (grade skipping)
• early entry to high school,
• early graduation from high school,
• early entry to college, and
• early graduation from college

The contextual details, unfortunately, are among the barriers to acceleration. If acceleration is unused in general, then difficulties navigating early entry, early graduation, and grade-skipping are the pressure points.

Early entry to Kindergarten. The Ohio acceleration policy (Ohio Department of Education, 2006) describes this practice: “A child who can read independently and is socially similar to typical five-year-olds is admitted to kindergarten, although he will not reach his fifth birthday until the end of the school year.” It’s important to recall that research suggests that gifted students (and advanced learners generally) are not—on average—socially different either from their age-peers or from somewhat older children.

Early entry to first-grade. Typically, under prevailing policy, Ohio schools do not admit to first grade any student who has not completed Kindergarten (see This typical expectation is not, however, appropriate for advanced learners. Advanced learners of age 6 who have not completed Kindergarten can be admitted to first grade under the state’s acceleration policy.

Whole-grade acceleration (grade-skipping). Whole-grade acceleration—the term used in Ohio’s acceleration policy—could be practiced at any education level, but is easiest to implement in elementary and middle school. In high school and college, the practice is mediated by the accumulation of “credits.” Districts may or may not have clear policies that promote whole-grade acceleration for advanced learners. Much work remains to be done to establish and implement local policies that reflect state-level policy intentions.

Early entry to high school. This practice is a form of whole-grade acceleration that requires collaboration between middle school and high school leaders and staff. The need for collaboration (and the difficulty of such collaboration) across schools is a barrier in many situations.

Early graduation from high school. Advanced learners often accumulate sufficient credits to graduate in two or three instead of four years. Whether they do graduate is partly an issue of the planning done by educators and families.

Early entry to college. Early enrollment in college is different from early graduation from high school because most colleges and universities do not actually require a high school diploma! Instead, they require evidence of talent and achievement, including transcripts of coursework and test scores. In Ohio, advanced learners can start accumulating college credit as early as grade 7.

Early graduation from college. Preparation for college is a K-12 responsibility. So, in the case of advanced learners, early graduation from college needs to be part of the picture. Why? Early college completion is a normal expectation for these students. Skipping an elementary grade and completing high school requirements a year early position a student to graduate two years early from college. A student who completes college coursework in three years instead of four could graduate at age 19.

Which kind of acceleration to use, and when, are matters for judgment for the adults who know the student well. But the judgment needs far more often to favor acceleration than it does at present: both research and Ohio policy agree. Click here to see a brief video explaining why schools often choose not to use acceleration, despite its effectiveness:

Case Studies

The ODE presents seven case studies ( of students who were accelerated in Ohio schools. Assouline and colleagues (2015) also provide case studies. Here’s an example (in full) from the ODE collection:

Sarah [a pseudonym] was brought to my attention in kindergarten by her classroom teacher. She had written a chapter book on the class computer and illustrated it with her own drawings. At first I thought that her parents had helped her write it, but later learned that it was all written independently. When tested, she was easily identified in the gifted range. The gifted staff provided curricular support for Sarah’s teacher, but her main concern was regarding Sarah’s preference for playing alone during recess.

Her first grade teacher saw the need for subject acceleration in language arts as Sarah’s lexile score was falling in the high fourth-grade level. She was reading fluently and with expression and continued to write complete stories with correct grammar and creative detail. After several months of going to a second grade teacher for reading and language arts, Sarah complained about not wanting to leave her first grade class. She felt like she didn’t belong to either class. The principal, her teachers, her parents and the gifted coordinator met and decided to let her remain full time in first grade with support from the gifted education specialist.

We then started to discuss whole grade acceleration and began using the Iowa Acceleration Scale to help us make the best decision for her. According to the IAS, she was an excellent candidate for whole grade acceleration. We met with the principal, parents, gifted education coordinator, first grade teacher and potential third grade teacher, and decided that Sarah would begin third grade instead of second grade in the fall. We had a meeting after Sarah’s first month in third grade and the teacher’s greatest concern during that meeting was that she continued to need gifted support for her academics. Three years later she remains at the top of her class, with lots of friends. I feel confident that accelerating Sarah at a young age helped her maintain a positive attitude toward school and helped to better meet her academic and social needs.

Why are case studies useful? Reading them gives access to a range of experiences that might otherwise take a teacher a decade or more to acquire. Good case studies reveal the kind of openness, improvisation, and flexibility required when families and educators determine that acceleration might be wise. Formal research articles tell us that acceleration is effective, but they are short on the sorts of details captured in good descriptions of particular cases.

Everyone’s experience is different, and based on your own experience you probably have some intuitions about acceleration. Here’s a tool to help you capture those impressions. It’s based on research conducted in 24 districts in Northwest OH (Southern, Jones, & Fiscus, 1989).

Beliefs about Acceleration: Self-Assessment

Beliefs about Acceleration: Self-Assessment
(Items used with authors’ permission.)
NOTE:
Average scores in brackets are from the OH research conducted in 1989. / Ratings
1 = strongly disagree
2 = disagree
3 = neutral
4= agree
5 = strongly agree
Your Rating _____
Your Rating _____
Your Rating _____
Your Rating _____
Your Rating _____
Your Rating _____
Your Rating _____
Your Rating _____ /

1. Accelerants will miss important social interactions. [3.64]

1. Acceleration is not as suitable as enrichment for gifted students. [3.52]

1. Accelerants will be deprived of necessary early childhood experiences. [3.10]

1. Accelerants will not socialize well with older children [2.91]

1. Accelerants will not do as well in the new classrooms because of increased academic competition. [2.31]

1. Accelerants tend to be less reliable than precocious children who remain in elementary classrooms with their same-age peers [2.32]

1. A high level of academic demand will later lead to diminished performance. [2.33]

1. Elementary school accelerants tend to become more rebellious. [2.34]

Southern, W. T., Jones, E., & Fiscus, E. (1989). Practitioner objections to the academic acceleration of gifted children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 33(1), 29-35.

Unwarranted Fears

Although the academic and intellectual benefits of acceleration are well-established, many educators and parents fear that acceleration will produce social and emotional damage. One can understand the concerns: acceleration goes against prevailing norms. The violation of social norms often entails social and emotional costs. But how does this generality apply to acceleration?

Research has considered the issue. The two meta-analyses described above (KulikKulik, 1984; Steenburgen & Moon 2011) estimated the social and emotional effects of acceleration. Kulik and Kulik judged the research inconclusive. Steenburgen and Moon reported small positive effects. Rogers (2015), reviewing six acceleration-relevant meta-analyses, found small positive effects for social and emotional well-being.

The most conservative interpretation of these findings is that fears of social and emotional harm proceeding from acceleration are generally unfounded. We do know that time and again, as a general finding, acceleration seems not to cause social or emotional harm.

The Experience of Grade-skipping:
What Everyone Had to Say
A study that asked students, parents, and educators about their grade-skipping experiences shows what grade-skipping can do for advanced learners, and it helps allay fears. Click here to see a brief video about the study:

Based on Kleinbok, O., & Vidergor, H. (2009). Grade skipping: A retrospective case study on academic and social implications. Gifted and Talented International, 24(2), 21-38.

Of course, temporary and manageable social or emotional challenges do often confront accelerants and their families. In most cases, these challenges can be met. If the challenges prove more difficult, they too can be dealt with productively. The case studies cited previously all deal with such issues—which are normal, typical, and predictable.

Finally, advanced learners, including the gifted, have social and emotional lives—the same as everyone else. And a change from the usual age-grade lockstep will of course influence students’ social and emotional lives! That dimension will be considered in the Foundational Concept devoted to the social and emotional development of advanced learners.

References

Assouline, S., Colangelo, N., & VanTassel-Baska, J. (2015). A nation empowered: Evidence trumps the excuses holding back America’s brightest students. Iowa City, IA: The Connie Belin & Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development. Retrieved from