my DS5 has been at his current Montessori preschool for over 3 years...we have been up and down about his preschool over the past year because his teacher has been willing to really try to work with his Sensory Disorder and he seems comfortable there but she has been wishy/washy about meeting his needs academic wise (she has set times/ages that she introduces lessons and we have had a hard time swaying her to pick up the pace for our bored little guy)..he qualifies for the Florida McKay scholarship for K next year and I have helped the school complete all the paperwork to become a McKay school so we can use the scholarship...our idea was that since his tuition for the year would be covered, we could then take the money we would have spent on tuition and use it to do lots of other enrichment activities - so he would be happy with going to school and we could help with enrichment to keep him from getting bored...fast forward to today at pickup from school....
DS5 has been reading books by himself for well over a year now - math is his passion but he goes through spurts with undying interest in reading to not wanting to pick up a book - so we haven't pushed it - we read stories to him at night that he picks out and he has a large array of books to pick from when he feels like reading. This past week was an "I love reading week" and he finished his pack of level 5 Bob Books which he read through in like 15 minutes and finished several of his early chapter books. So when I picked him up from school today, I had some new books I got for him as a suprise - he had to run back into his school to show his teacher his new books. He told her what he had read this week and she looked at me and his new books and said, "mom, you have to slow down, I have no idea what I am going to do with him for the fall as far as reading". I was confused and asked her to explain. She said that all she had was up to level 2 bob books and a handful of early readers that were way below him and that she doesn't usually introduce those until Fall of K and here he is not in K yet and is way beyond. She said I shouldn't let him advance anymore because he is going to be way ahead next year. I could feel my jaw drop and was just shocked that she honestly thought that I should stop allowing my son to read at his level. I told her that I will always allow him to continue to grow and achieve at the level he feels comfortable with and will not stop just because he is way above everyone else in class and then I offered to help purchase materials for her to use in class with him next year. I was just totally flabbergasted - anyone else deal with something like this!? How would you handle it?
