Hi Newcomer - I don't come here often, but saw your post and thought I should add my 2 cents here. Our daughter is 12 now, but the description of your son's preschool years sound very much like hers. We seem to be 8 years ahead of you on this road. My suggestion would be to get him tested so that you have the score. Know that teachers (I've been one) don't learn anything about what giftedness is when they go through college. Many have a very negative idea about what it is. Before your son starts his elementary school years, you need to explore what the possible school does with gifted kids - are they OK with accelerating, or do they believe that kids need to stay with age peers? Do they allow single-subject acceleration - if your son needs to go to an older classroom for one or more subjects, would they set up a schedule that would allow that? Our d ended up in a school with an administrator and teachers who were dead-set against any kind of acceleration. They had no understanding of the different levels of giftedness. When she became emotional because of the bad educational environment, they blamed it on her "inability to adapt to the increased demands of 2nd grade". She had taught herself multiplication, how to work with negative numbers, fractions... and she read at a high school level. It truly felt like we had been dropped into an insane world. You can't be too careful about picking out an elementary school. If you can get into a school that has a gifted consultant or director, that would help. We are on a first name basis with the one we have. She's arranged subject accelerations and a grade skip that we never would have been able to get alone. Preschool is probably something you will just have to get through, unless you are lucky enough to get people who are open to learning about giftedness.
