a) Will her progress slow down at some point? Will she begin to level off? Should I anticipate her getting through grades 5 and 6 next year? If so, what does this mean for her academic trajectory? What happens to these kids? Does anyone else have a kid like this?
Maybe? Wolf is 5 1/2 right now and by the end of the year will have gone through 1st grade phonics and 3rd grade phoncs (we skipped 2nd). However he is a really mathy kid but hasn't done more than about a year of math, which is a change from previous years. I wouldn't be surprised if he is taking college courses online by his early teens if not before and on campus courses not much later than that. However I also know of a kid who sort of skipped the college thing and went straight to working for a high end company doing programming in his teens, so who knows?
b) Will she eventually just figure out how to do math (i.e. teach herself) the way she learned how to read � or is math a different animal? Or is it possible to be amazing at reading and just so-so in math. Should you teach math facts to a 4 year old or is that too much?
Wolf seems to learn the most through osmosis. I have no idea how he does it. That is how both he and Bear learned most of their basic math, although Wolf loved workbooks for a good stretch of time so that probably helped. It is very possible to be amazing at math and no so much at reading and vice versa. If she is interested in learning go right ahead and teach her, but don't make it work. If it stops being fun it needs to stop altogether in my opinion.
c) What does this mean for her ability to find friends? Should I anticipate social difficulties? How can I help her connect with kids that might be like her?
Wolf is a social butterfly and gets along with everyone. There might be some issues when she starts to realize she is different from the other kids, but a lot of that depends on how the other kids deal with it. If they tease that's not ok, but Wolf has had nothing but support from the kids he knows.
I wish I knew how to connect with kids like him. That's one of the main reasons we applied to Davidson. We're really hoping that they can help him make connections.
d) Would you share this information with your pediatrician?
Yes. But then I'm somewhat close with our pediatrician and we've been with her since the oldest was born. It would have been impossible to hide what they could do from her without lying! LOL I don't expect "expert" advice from her, but she does give suggestions and support that has proven useful.
