He might be a 3 type if that can happen without getting that feeling from parents. We're pretty laid back in many ways--almost to a fault. But who knows. This kind of thing doesn't come from a vacuum...
Well, you'd think so, but they can absorb pretty subtle messages and twist the interpretation. If you praise too MUCH for high
quality work (as opposed to effort) then that can backfire. Now, when my DD earns 100% on something, I'm a little offhand about my compliments when she tells me, unless she worked really hard, and then I praise her EFFORT. I discourage others from effusive praise for exceptional-seeming
performance from her, too. (Those people mostly think that I'm insane, by the way, but I don't care.)
That has seemed to help a lot, for whatever it's worth.
Hard to say-- your anecdote could be either the first or the third type, honestly.
What is your son's strongest PASSION?
That is where he most NEEDS appropriate instruction. What did the director mean by "more of the same?" Presumably the entire curriculum isn't leveled readers and worksheets, no? So maybe he needs to be accelerated to his
actual readiness level, not just "one year" to throw you a bone. KWIM?
Slowness on computation is a problem if math isn't a passion. Because it will feel like demand is stepped up, all right, but not
the reward for meeting it. Does that make sense?
In general, I also don't tend to seek input in a single session with my DD about this. She's a fabulously unreliable narrator over it, and it's so situational that all I get are snapshots which are about the contemporaneous feelings toward various subjects. I have to observe what makes her happiest, what she procrastinates most on, what she does that she DOESN'T intend to show others, etc. and make decisions on that basis. She does NOT do math for fun. She reads, helps other people, talks about things (all kinds of things) draws and writes poetry for fun.
So math acceleration alone would be a disaster-- she's not highly intrinsically motivated for the subject, so it's all external pressure.
