DS 5 has been in Kindergarten for just 2-3 months (49 days he would say). Everything has been wonderful. He is happy and we have been excited to see him gain his love of learning back at such a short time. Last year in Pre-K, ds was against doing any learning if he suspected it. Now he is excited to think, discover, and learn again. He was advanced by about 2 years in reading and 1 year in math and I suspected that he was ready to learn more in all areas last year but he was unwillingly to do so. When we got him into a gifted program I was hoping it would be a good fit for him. Indeed the material was just a bit challenging and he did balk at it at first. I think since he hadn't been challenged since he was about 3 having learned all the Pre-k/kindergarten skills by then). A month into school the frustrations lessened and he was able to do his homework independently and he was able to think and work out problems. For example, he would take 3 seconds to figure out a math problem whereas before he would have cried and said he couldn't do it because he had to stop and think about it. Now another month or so of school has gone by and he has advanced almost whole grade in reading and could probably finish all of 1st grade in a month if the teacher let him (he started at K math and was jumped to 1st) . Once they taught him what adding and subtracting was as well as how to count by 2,5,10s, and the value of the coins he pretty much knows the material well enough to move on. The work is not challenging him at all anymore.
1 year advancement in math seemed fine but now he seems ready to moved to second grade math and it iss only the end of November. He really didn't know any of the 1st grade math material before he started the year so I don't know how it all of a sudden become almost easy. They were able to accomodate his reading at 2nd grade level but now he is moving on to 3rd. He was already the highest in his class by about a year when he started even though everyone in the class passed the g&t test. I am worried he will lose his enthusiasm for learning and his ability to persevere. I felt like he had made such progress with that. Frankly I am much more worried about those two character traits than advancing in the academics. The science and the specials may keep him challenged since they are going pretty fast and in depth with those areas. I thought that once we got him into this program we could just let the professionals take over but now I feel like I am going to back where we started pretty soon. DS only scored in the moderately gifted for the SB 5 and the WPPSI so he's not even highly gifted. I figured he would be close to his peers in this program but he seems to be need more acceleration than them even his teacher seemed to be surprised at his pace. Has anyone been through this? I would love to know if perhaps it wasn't a problem at all for your dc or if you had to accomodate your children further. Thanks.
