Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school How many years does it take to learn the alphabets

DS4 is repeating pre-k this year due to age cutoff.

He was telling me last night that he was learning alphabets and basic phonics. He knows the alphabets since 2 and phonics since 3, and now he is still “learning” the same material 2 years later.

On the bright side, he likes going to school and thinks of it as playing even though this school is far from a play-based one.

I am really not asking for any advices. I am just venting.

First off, it is great that he likes going to school and has fun there. After all, that is pretty important, especially at that age.

Does he have the same teacher this year as last? If not, might last year's teacher be able to talk to this year's teacher and advocate a bit? If he does have the same teacher, surely he/she would see he doesn't need another year of exactly the same thing.

Have you thought about quietly mentioning to the teacher that your DS already knows the alphabet and phonics?

One thing that worked for me when my DS was in preschool and the class was working on letters and also on learning to print their first and last names was asking if it would be possible for DS to learn to write other high-frequency words, like color words, number words, etc. That way the teacher didn't really have to go out of her way to accomodate my child, but my child was still getting something out of the activities.

I am so with you! Mine has a birthday a month after cut-off and was tortured to find 4yrs of alphabet learning that he completed as a 1yr old... I think we might finally have escaped it now in 1st. K was just more of the same I'm sorry to say.

Thanks mnmom23 for some good ideas!

I am going to schedule something with the teacher in another week or two once the first weeks of school madness settles.

I tried hard last year to get DS into K to no avail. I hate to be viewed as a pushy mom.

I don't know where you are, but our experience might help. DS was not allowed to skip *into* kindergarten, even though everyone knew he should, but the law did allow him to skip *over* kindergarten the next year. So he had two years of preschool, then entered first grade at age 5, turning six a week later. His birthday was a week past the cutoff. You might try asking about that.

In the meantime, if he likes school, that's a big plus. If he has a teacher that will give him more stuff to do, to keep him liking it, that's even better.

This is what my DS did, too. And it worked well for him. He had done two years of preschool so adjusting to "doing school" wasn't an issue. Once the principal and teachers were able to see him and meet him and understood that he could sit still, listen, do the work, and take care of himself, they were willing to let him go straight to first.

On the other had, most educators find kindergarten to be indespensible, but since 1st grade tends to be slightly more academic, showing that your child has mastered all the 1st grade skills and has school experience might be helpful.

That's my general feeling as well.

I haven't thought that far ahead, but I have a feeling that I would get more resistance skipping K vs skipping preschool.

My girls have an Oct Bday.


That is what we did- two years of PreK and then 1st at 5 and turning 6 a few weeks later.It worked out really well.

Can you afford a Montessori school? Two benefits are multi-age grouping and learning more individually and independently.

Many of the eduacators I've met also resist the idea that you can learn, say, third grade math without having gone through the entire third grade book. There seems to be almost no concept that a child can learn these ideas very well in a non-typical way or that some kids don't even need instruction in some of the topics in that third grade book.

FWIW, my DD skipped K and it was easy to prove. They just gave her end-of-year tests, which were a cakewalk for her. As the kids go through higher grades, the tests may be a bit harder to ace when you don't know a thing about the curriculum they're based on. For example, a social studies test might depend on knowing certain facts that your child hasn't been exposed to. IMO, it's harder for a kindergarten-level test to include things a HG+ kid wouldn't have acquired through giftie osmosis.