I've been lurking in this forum and also read the Genius Denied book. There's always been an advocacy that gifted children should be challenged and not bored in school. Aside from kids who are so vocal and complain regarding school, there are probably more who coast their way through school without letting their parents know or pushy parents who put up more work for their kids than is appropriate.
Which one would you rather believe? Race to Nowhere or Waiting for Superman? I haven't watched either, but know the gist of both films.
I would like to hear from people here regarding their stories of what worked and what did not. My dilemma is regarding DD5, who excels in math. We enrolled her last year (around 18 months ago at 4 years old) in Kumon as she watched too much Dora the Explorer that all of us at home (including DW and even DS2) could no longer stand it. Much to our delight, she went from counting (1 to 100) to long division within one year. She's now doing fractions and she will be starting algebra before her 6th birthday next year. Her Kumon instructor indicated that if she goes on at her current pace, she most likely can finish all the Kumon levels before her 7th birthday which includes some college math!
While we are really happy she is learning high school and some college math this early, what do we do next? She is now in kindergarten and while her math skills are many years advanced and her reading skills are about 3 years advanced, we did not accelerate her due to having to jump through too many hoops and that she is not developmentally ready. She is not even top in her class now, as her handwriting is pretty sloppy (which even causes some answers to be wrong when she answers her Kumon math). We cringed when she told us that she answered her tests in school very, very fast as she was used to the Kumon method having a time limit. Unfortunately, that meant she finished REALLY fast, but overlooked a couple of questions and this incident confirms she is not mature enough to interact with older children. We are also in a bilingual school, which basically meant that while her English (which we use to speak to her and she has Kumon reading to help her) is above her grade level; all she knows in Chinese, she learned in school.
We are not in the US, and although am willing and capable of teaching her advanced math myself, the question is, if she finishes math early, then what? Is it time to slow down the pace? She's not complaining and doesn't seem to be overwhelmed at all. It takes one hour of her time everyday now doing both Kumon math and reading. And if she doesn't do Kumon, she will just use that one hour to watch a replay of her favorite cartoons or play Angry Birds anyway. I myself coasted in school before, and am thinking that with more parental involvement, DD should aspire higher and not coast. Just didn't expect she is doing better than I thought, also asking myself what could've been if I was given more opportunities in the past and worked harder. I see a lot of myself in DD and DW even remarks that only your child can be such a nerd! LOL... We were about to test her for giftedness, but held back when we asked ourselves, what do we do with the test score? Maybe we should prepare for rapid acceleration or early college in the future? But is it necessary to prepare this early?
Anyone with similar situation and how you handled it?
