He was not the only kid reading above level. Most were not as intense but they were above 2nd grade level for sure. Another interesting thing was how catchy it was in class. Everyone wanted to read the same thing. My son was loaning out his books to a bunch of other kids.
Yes, when we grade accelerated DD from K to 1, there were so many advanced readers in the class that at first I wondered if we made a mistake accelerating her. Probably 1/3 of the class was already reading chapter books. I asked the teacher if this was "normal" and that I didn't think most first graders (early in the year) were already reading books like this and she said that it was an unusual group and when you have a group of advanced kids together they "feed" off each other and want to read what the others are reading. What a concept, let kids read as high as they want to go. If it's too complicated/difficult/mature for them, they're not going to do it. DS has a different first grade teacher but I know the one DD had is still trying to move kids up, assessing their reading, etc. I asked DS's teacher when is the last time his reading was assessed, and she won't answer any of my questions. If it's a situation where she simply CAN'T give him a higher level assessment due to some sort of bizarre school or district policy requiring a cap or celiling, then fine. Let me know. But don't just avoid/ignore the questions.
She did respond to my email where I told her I'm sending in harder level books and said that sounds like a good idea. So the main problem is the instructional level.
