'gifted' child and kindergarten?

Question

--Please don't judge me and tell me I'm lying. Everything I say is true. He has never gone to preschool, this is home taught and natural intelligence--

My oldest son is 3 1/2. He can count over 100 with minimal help, he can do simple math with numbers 1-15, everywhere he goes he points out shapes (hexagon, trapezoid...) he knows all of his letters and their sounds (for quite some time now) and he's beginning to read short stories. He loves working in his workbooks and mazes and puzzles come easy to him.

My concern is for when he starts kindergarten. what will he do while all the other kids are learning that 'A says aah'? and he's reading chapter books?

has anyone else had to deal with a potentially gifted child being bored in school?

At this point I don't know if skipping a grade would be good for him, his intellectually advanced, but is still a 3 yr old maturity and socially wise.

do teachers usually work with advanced kids, or will he get lost in the system?

Answer 1

I think it depends on the school system.  We don't have a gifted and talented program and my son was pretty bored.  I don't think acceleration would have been a good option for him though because, while he's advanced when it comes to reading and math he is young for his age and social development is just as important.  

Hopefully you will get a teacher that is good at giving him things to do to keep him occupied like letting him read his chapter books and helping the other kids.  If not you will need to advocate for him because we had one teacher that just considered him a discipline problem because he would talk when he was bored. (He behaves just fine at home)

Answer 2

i dont believe you for one thing a 3 year old doesnt have the mentality  for that type of learning.  my 5 year old is advanced. he is reading some things

your three year old has memorized books you have read to him thats not reading

so he can count

heres what pre k teaches

their full name

saying and writing

writing all of the alphabet

writing numbers 1-5

counting

sorting

patterns

colors

shapes

your son wont be reading chapter books at 5 stop kidding yourself

he will also be learning about sharing

different holidays and what they mean

social skills

how to play with others

how to problem solve

sitting still

being quiet

you may think he knows the letters and is reading but hes not.

theres a mom in my sons class just like you turned out her kid was the farthest behind educationally. the stuff she bragged he knew  he didnt  it was all stuff she had said to him he couldnt barely count to three couldnt tell the teacher his name

never label your child as gifted specially where they hear it. he will develop an im better than you attitude. to the point of calling other kids stupid. let him be a kid.

worry more about teaching him to listen to adults and how to share

Answer 3

My advice? Get him into preschool even if he does seem to be too advanced for it already.

Otherwise what will he be doing while the other children are learning the alphabet? He'll be learning how to share, and that no, he can't read his book when it's time for PE, and that it's his responsibility to hang up his own coat - things they are learning now and that he can only really learn in a group situation.

Your son sounds ever so like mine - reading fluently and doing sums at an age when the other kids were still on letter and number recognition. But boy did mine struggle with social skills and working in a group.

Teachers do work with advanced kids - or they say they do. Mine's now 8, and he's going to private academic school this autumn because he's bored silly and has nothing in common with his classmates. We never considered moving him up a year, but that was mostly because of the social immaturity and the fact that he was only in the year he's in because he was born early.

edit: kleigh's mommy? That's nonsense. My son had read Harry Potter by five. By himself. I haven't read a book to him since he was three. Just because your son can't do it doesn't mean nobody can.

Answer 4

My oldest two kids were just like that.  Kindergarten wasn't so much of a problem because it's more about social skills and learning through play than learning academics (and even a gifted 5-year-old can find ways to learn through play at their own level).  

My oldest was reading at a 5th grade level in kindergarten (my second maybe a second or third grade level) and both were doing pretty advanced math.  My kids had a wonderful kindergarten teacher who also recognized that they were already reading chapter books and grouped them with the one or two other kids who were also reading them.  They still weren't doing things exactly at their level, but at least they weren't doing the "A" says "aahhh".  The teacher also provided extra math challenges for them (like having them figure out the odds of two dice rolling a six, rather than just counting to see what the two dice added up to).  My experience, though, is that it depends entirely on the luck of the draw with the teacher (and how overwhelmed they are with kids at the other end of the learning spectrum).  My kids have had a couple years with fabulous teachers who challenged them, but have also had years when they were bored academically at school.

Where we live there's no gifted and talented program in the public schools, but if your schools have one, you can take advantage of that.  Or consider private school.

Answer 5

I have a son just like this. He was reading by 4, and we were full of concerns as to what would happen. I'm an elementary teacher, so knew full well the options available, so I considered homeschooling as well. However, I did grades one and two in one year myself, so I know that acceleration is NOT the way to go.

In Kindergarten, it was fully obvious to the teacher that our son is gifted, so she was very good at doing enriching things with/for him. For example, he would help others with learning their letters and numbers, and she also often had him do the storytime.

A child at that age still needs to do 'regular' school things, because no matter how far they are advanced academically, they don't have the fine motor skills to do things, and need the social skills developed as well.

In school, formal testing is usually done at Grade One, then again at Grade Three - so then they evaluate whether the child would benefit from being in a special program or not (most schools have pull-out programs in addition to classroom teachers doing in-class enrichment). Depends what your school division has available. Probably, depending upon the results of the grade one testing, you would meet with the school or division educational psychologist to review options available.

Best things you can do is keep in constant touch with your child's teachers - and keep a level head on your child. That means guidance and structure, and lots of enrichment and encouragement from you and your husband at home.

The child must learn that some things at school just MUST be done, no matter how boring they seem. Sometimes kids in this situation get labeled as lazy, dreamers, etc. It's your job as parents to guide your child to still conform to schoolwork.

Good luck - it's a challenge, but FUN!!!

Answer 6

I know that our elementary school has a program for advanced learners.  The school can test him and see where he belongs, emotionally and academically.

Answer 7

Kleighs Mommy

Are you in America?

In the UK kids start school at 4, they do read chapter books at 5, my kids did.I did have a run in with one of my sons teachers as he was bored and wanted to move on to harder books, but she was too busy trying to teach the slower kids so I joined the library and he read them at home or took them into school.

Answer 8

My sisters oldest daughter is in 2nd grade and the teachers have a lot of trouble keeping her attention since she is so much more advanced than the other children.  They asked my sister for ideas on what they can do to keep her busy in school.  I think it was unprofessional of them to do this, they are the teachers and should have a set plan for when some child happens to be smarter than most, although they have no clue.  

They have even gone so far as asking my sister if her daughter could skip a grade, which is out of the question to my sister, she doesn't want her daughter to feel as an outcast if and when they were to switch her grades.  

So her outcome is, that they have taken her out of school for a week for a vacation,because they said her grades are perfect and she won't be missing out on anything that she doesn't already know, and then when she returned, they put her in the higher grade classes when they are teaching math and spelling/writing, then she returns to her normal class for other teachings.

Answer 9

I think I would start with asking someone at www.mensa.org this question, or at least ask it in the education section of this web site.

Answer 10

social intelligence is much more important than cognitive intelligence but often overlooked in our society. he still has a year or so to go before kindergarten and the school can have him evaluated to determine if he qualifies for special education (which includes services for advanced students). The district where you live might also have a early intervention program where could be evaluatesd sooner too.

Answer 11

my son went thew  the same thing he love school then he did not want to go because he was board  and his pre and kindergarten teacther said he will be OK   know he don't want to go at all and he trys to do bad so they will work with him my school  don't do gifted classes so he did get lost. so don't let it happen to your son like we did make then work with him

good luck

Answer 12

I nanny for a child who is in Kindergarten.

He is turning 7 next week so he is much older than his classmates.

He is also incredibly smart, he can read chapter books as well and most other kids cannot read.

They put him in a special group and he does special things that are not dull and boring.

But this is in an EXCELLENT school district.

He was kept back a year because of slow social development, he is on the autism spectrum.

Maybe have your child checked out he could be on the autism spectrum because those children tend to be very intelligent.

The child in question was reading at 2!!

Good luck and I am sure you child will be fine!!

Answer 13

He can be tested for "gifted and talented" in kindergarten. Hopefully he will also get a good teacher who will challenge him and give him harder stuff to do. But kindergarten is a lot about the social aspect of school - sharing, playing, etc. And he will be learning about science and social studies, too. Just make sure he gets tested for the talented program. He is more likely to be bored in 1st and 2nd grade than kindergarten, but if he can be in the more advanced program by then he should be fine.