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This is such a challenging issue, and I wish you well and hope for all kinds of success in whatever decisions you make for your son!

I may be a dissenting voice in the crowd, but I can speak from personal experience. I tested at at 12th-grade reading level when I was in the first grade, and my parents decided to move me ahead a grade. While this somewhat addressed my needs for new intellectual stimulation, it was a decidedly awkward experience for me, and remained so for the entirety of my youthful education.

I was intuitive enough to easily realize that while I had many intellectual advantages, I wasn't as emotionally mature and certainly wasn't as developmentally mature. This was difficult in the early years, as I was always one of the smallest girls in every class, wasn't as coordinated as my elder peers, and it took a while, probably three years, for me to adjust socially. Social status is such a valued commodity in public schools, and physical prowess is such a standard measure of valuable masculinity in boys, that I urge you to consider that aspect of the issue.

Such developmental delays became a real point of contention for me as adolescence loomed. It was so difficult - even as a girl, where daintiness and fragility can often be seen as attributes. I cannot imagine how emotionally frustrating it would be for a young boy to try and fit in where he is physiologically truly inferior, simply because he is a year to a year and a half younger than everyone in his social set.

I absolutely agree with the educational ideal of advancing our children according to their intellectual needs rather than age, but if MY child is the only child out of the bunch moving along that way in a public school system and social environment, I would hesitate before making such a decision.