I do still think that even if you work with a kid there is no way that would automatically yield exceptionally high achievement scores. A child that is of average intelligence simply would not be able to advance that dramatically (say 5 years above their age) academically even with tutoring.
Agree or not?
I don't know if there are any studies out there regarding how far one can "hothouse" a child, so to speak, but I suspect that the further one gets out of grade level, the more likely the child is gifted and not just hothoused.
The closest to anything along those lines that I could find was on Kumon's website (I checked both them and Sylvan, assuming that they are two major tutoring centers nationwide) that noted that,
In the United States, more than half of Kumon math students study material that is above their grade level, and 24 percent of those students are learning materials two to three years above their grade in school.
(
http://www.kumon.com/AboutKumon.aspx)
What I know of Kumon is that it is pretty drill intensive, so I am having a hard time imagining that more than half of their students, or even 12% of their students (24% of 50%), are gifted-highly gifted. That, to me, would lend toward indicating that it may be possible to get a ND child to perform up to 2-3 grade levels up. (I'm sure that there are some gifted kids going to tutoring programs like Sylvan and Kumon, I'm just not sure that it is that many of their clients.)
