I am wondering if any of you have experience hiring a "tutor" for a nearly 5 year old to help keep your child intellectually engaged while they trudge through traditional kindergarten curriculum? What would a person like that even be called? An intellectual mentor? Where would you find such a person? We live near a major university but I am having trouble framing the job description. Basically, I need a person to come on the two mornings a week when my son isn't in PreK to help him explore his latest interests and stretch/challenge his mind. I would do this myself (quite happily!) but I also have 7 month old twins who demand most of my attention right now.
(The backstory): My nearly 5 year old son who is reading at a 5th or 6th grade level (possibly higher?) and doing 3rd grade math. He also shows a unique aptitude in science. Botany is one of his favorite subjects right now and we spend endless hours identifying, categorizing, and dissecting plants. I had him tested for early entrance to our district's kindergarten, and the school psychologist suggested I get him more deeply evaluated after telling me that he had the highest achievement score she had seen in 22 years. That caught me off guard. I knew my child was "bright" but we have many friends with "bright" kids and I never thought DS was THAT much more advanced than any of them. Now that I've had a little wake-up call, I have sat back and really assessed his skills versus those of his peers and I can plainly see that my original education plan for him is not going to work.
Our district has an APP program that teaches two grade levels above the standard age-indicated grade level, but every child MUST be 6 years old by August 31st of that school year to go into it. Since my son has a late September birthday, that means that if he were to be enrolled into early entrance K, he would have to either repeat K or repeat 1st grade, neither of which is an acceptable option to us at this point. So we've decided to stick with traditional PreK this year and add enrichment, then try for private gifted K next year and THEN maybe enroll him in our district's APP program (though at this point he might be too advanced for APP and we'll have to figure something else out).
Thanks for any help or experience you can give!
