After a couple of years of anxious fretting about my son's education, kindergarten is less than a week away! A question: is it better to warn a kindergarten teacher of your child's abilities when you first meet her, or better to let her figure it out for herself? Even though we've found a great charter that focuses on science, math, and robotics, I'm afraid my son is going to be well-beyond the kindergarten curriculum. For instance, he's currently reading at about a 5th grade level and he recently taught himself multiplication.

Any advice? Thanks in advance!

I would probably give the teacher a few days or so to get to know the kids. Not a lot of learning happens in the first few days, and I've always found it helpful to let a teacher met my child first. There is a lot for the teacher to take in the first few days, and I always found it helpful for the teacher to have at least met my child before I brought up how to best accommodate him.

am wrestling with the same decision. We have the scores and will meet principal and teacher before hand but still...

I would wait to see if the teacher sends home an about me or about your child form. Both my kids had these types of forms sent home home the first day.

I would wait. Many teachers seem to send home a sheet for you to fill out about your child during the first week of school. I took that opportunity to share about my child's abilities. And it became pretty obvious to them quickly, as well.

If there are not earlier opportunities, you can use email to share any pertinent information or share any major issues your child might have (they might not have any) after a couple weeks of school. I tend to ask for a conference a month after school starts since the regular conference time is far too late.

When our DD started pre-K and then K in different school districts, we found it unnecessary to prepare the teachers ahead of time. Rather, the teachers sought us out at the first opportunity. "Do you know your DD can do... ?!" They didn't know the half of it, but they certainly had seen enough.

It also makes things easier to discuss when the teacher can associate the conversation with a name and a face they already know.

Wrestling here, too, with my 1st grader. I decided to wait a bit until they get settled in class.

I'm also lucky because the K teacher is friendly with the 1st grade teacher, so I strongly suspect the 1st grade teacher has had a head's-up. Still, they probably - like Dude said - don't know the half of it (and honestly, we didn't either until we finally had testing done this summer), but we'll save that for parent-teacher conferences.

What a great and supportive community! Many thanks for the advice everyone!

Even with an awesome teacher and a formal diagnosis, they never really noticed my kid was smart last year. In the spring, they read "A little egg lay on a leaf..." and were shocked when DS wanted to discuss the life cycles of insects. They didn't expect him to know that. (Good thing they didn't read a book about a happy little gene on a leaf, not sure what they'd have thought when he explained about how proteins are built from DNA )

I'm in a bad mood, right now, but I guess I'm just saying. Whatever will be will be. In K it's so easy to dismiss complex ideas as confused (because the kid knows more about that than the teacher), or to assume the kid is simply rambling meaninglessly.

It really depends on what the school/teacher is able to do and what you expect from them. Some teachers/schools don't have the capacity to really teach the very advanced kids, so it doesn't matter that much whether they know that your kid needs a lot more challenge.

I tried to inform the K and 1st grade teachers about DS, following instructions in GT education books (taking your child's work at home to show the teachers, tell the teachers what books your child is reading at home, showing them IQ score, etc). But we've come to the conclusion that the school was not equipped with the right personnel and the right mindset to deal with very advanced kids. Yes, if someone is one grade level above classmates, the teachers are happy to do something. If someone is five grade levels above, they don't see it. So we pretty much stopped hoping for much from school since maybe 2nd grade, and we hardly had much communications with the teachers other than the once-a-year parent-teacher meetings which we politely sit through. And we never really talked with teachers/schools about our DD--we learned the lesson. For her, the goal is to be happy at school and we will handle academics at home.

I think you should also try to get to know other gifted kids and their families in your area (especially kids older than yours) to see what they are doing at school and at home. I think this is the best way to find out whether it's useful at all to talk to the teachers.

This is helpful advice, playandlearn. We learned in the parent-teacher night meeting this week that by the end of the year, the children should be well versed in phonics. Once a week, they do buddy reading with 1st graders. Also, that no matter how quickly they progress through the kindergarten math curriculum, they will not begin 1st grade curriculum until 1st grade. Despite my initial sense of doom, my husband and I decided that we'll try to see school as being all about socialization, learning patience, tolerance, cooperation, listening skills, etc. My main concern is that he'll become bored and disruptive, and then be labelled as a problem child. On the upside, they did do MAP testing this week. I hope this helps the school recognize what he's capable of. That being said, after almost 2 weeks, he loves school so far. This is promising.

I almost wrote this post. This is exactly where our family is at (only, my DS is in 2nd grade now).

My best recommendation is to afterschool using the curriculum of your choice or enroll your child in appropriate enrichment classes or find the right tutors/coaches for your child.