I think what you'll find depends on your local center and their staff. Our ds went to Sylvan for awhile and there was a wide assortment of kids going there - from children who were struggling to children working ahead. Our ds really liked the way Sylvan worked... but it wasn't easy on our pocketbooks so we eventually gave up on it. I did find their assessment really helpful though - it gave us a good idea of what ds needed to work on and it also gave us another achievement test score we could use in advocating (our center used the CAT-5).
I may be remembering this incorrectly - but one thing I *think* I remember about Sylvan was that there was no homework, and it was purposely designed as a no-homework thing for early elementary kids (I'm sure the high school kids must be doing homework lol!)... sooo.. I think it's possible if you go in and ask for work to work on at home to be sure your ds is flying through as quickly as you can "push" him they might see you as an overly pushy parent. Our center definitely was all about having children learn at their own pace, whatever that pace was. It wasn't the type of program I could have micromanaged and asked that they fill in gap x first instead gap y... but was the type of program where they did the assessment and made a learning plan based on what they felt ds needed, and then ds was free to work through that plan as fast as he could or as slow as he might need to. There were frequent informal assessments along the way, and a bit of multisensory learning to so all in all, it worked great for us.
polarbear
