That's just a bit bizarre to me. How could they not notice he's a reader? Surely he's not the only one at age 5 reading.
HJA and RRD are both under the same curriculum that my DD went through so I can guess at the answer to this one. The curriculum is all play based and child driven. When DD was in JK/SK the main reading was done with parent volunteers out in the hall. I could tell you what level every kid in the class was at since I was one of those parents. It was all wrote down in a binder so the teacher also knew but it wasn't something that they personally experienced and it wasn't an emphasis of the program.
DD8 actually liked it and we were super lucky in that she had amazing teachers and ECE's those years AND she was in a class with a few other bright (possibly gifted?) kids. I wouldn't say that she learned any math, reading or writing but she did learn a lot of other things and generally enjoyed it. Even with great social skills going in there were so many new people and situations that were new and challenging.
We did lots of stuff outside of school as well. She eventually hit a wall at school but I don't have any regrets for JK and SK for her. DS on the other hand went through before the full-day stuff came in and if I knew then what I know now we would have done things differently. In the end, we all survived and we probably wouldn't be where we are today without those experiences so it is what it is. We did the best we could at the time given the information that we had.
