Thanks Indigo and Isabel.
We have a meeting scheduled for later in the month to discuss this.
We talk everyday about his day, what he liked and didn't like. My impression is that he doesn't think he's supposed to be learning stuff there. Which is fine when it comes to things like world history. Those things don't require the child to "know" that they're learning to absorb the new information. But it also suggests that he's not tuning in because he doesn't think it's important.
We did find out what made him wonder about being too different. Apparently, there had been a classroom discussion about Kindergarten and some how our son got the impression that if he was too different from the others, he would go to Kindergarten early (I guess based on what you're supposed to know) while they couldn't (because they don't know that stuff yet). This was earlier in the year so I don't know how long it's been percolating in his head before he mentioned it to us.
There's also the issue of perfectionism, which they are working on. I'll be patient there since it could be impacting a range of things.
The meeting should be a clarifier on what differentiation looks like for him. If he can phonetically read 4+ syllable words, how do they strengthen other phonetic skills like spelling. Starting with if they even know that he can do this or if they think he's just sight reading. They focus on the development of soft skills just as much as everything else so they might be working on that more aggressively for him.
I've got a week or so to finish my prep.
