Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Kindergarten is coming

I agree that the DK early readers, and some of the separate Step Into Reading series too, might help, as my son liked some of them.

Another thing you can do is try to determine the source of your son's current dislike. If it's decoding slowness or difficulty, you could probably get him over the hump quite easily with something like these Phonics Made Easy flash cards. You will probably see an improvement in a very short time. On the front of each of these cards is a letter or combination, often expressed in multiple ways in the picture (some of them are quite whimsical). On the back, you will see that letter or combo highlighted in multiple words, and on many cards there are also related or additional words in smaller type down at the bottom to focus on after he's gotten the main ones.

Florida law mandates that before a child is allowed to enroll into grade one they must be 6 years old AND have completed K. Private schools may be able to work around this, but our public Magnet school can't. I have a GT DD8 at the school so thankfully, I am familiar with the territory. The only difference is that my son is twice as determined and motivated to move fast as my DD was/is. He wants to do everything better, bigger, and faster than the older kids, academics included. He also has little tolerance for repetition or "baby stuff" which is going to make school extra difficult for all involved.

He does read... he likes Biscuit books.. we are about through all of them. I have been getting from the library "I'm going to read books". He is very good at sounding out words. That being said... if I buy a book a level up .. he won't even try to read it.. he guesses at words. He did take the MAP test last week and his results were pretty good.. in reading he was in the 79th percentile in reading for end of kinder and math was 91st percentile. I am thinking by fall MAPS, he will be right there at the top of first grade students. For him to have skipped, he needed 90 in both

Hello Floridama,
I am in FL too. My DD6 was officially in Kindergarden this year but for the first semester they pulled her out to do first grade math, reading and writing (still easy for her but much better than K). She ended up in 1st grade fulltime by the 3rd semester but on paper she is still in K (as required by FL law).
In order to make this work, I approached the teachers I knew at the school before she went to K. I spoke to a K teacher and a first grade teacher individually, told them about her abilities and asked if they could try and work something out for her. (They know from experience how gifted my DS8 is so agreed to work with me on DD6). Once I got buy in from the teachers, they actually ended up taking the lead with the principle. (He chastized me severely for reaching out to the teachers directly but I knew this was the only was I could get results. It worked!).
My DS6 also gets frustrated with 'easy' work, so it would have been a real problem if she had not had this option available to her.
Could approaching good teachers in your school work for you? Just a thought
Aly

Most don't offer early entrance, but are willing to look at a mid year "whole grade acceleration". Florida "rules" are very similar to GA. DS7 skipped K right before the first 9 weeks were up (in GA). They tested him and everything.

Sounds sneaky.. I like it! I won't know who DS teachers are till Aug and we are not allowed to make request, so I am going to have to wait and see which cards are dealt. I already planned on working the teacher angle first, although with the new class size laws, I doubt they will be open to letting him sit in as an extra 1st grader as it will put them over the 18 quota. They will switch classes for reading, so atleast the kids who don't know their letter sounds will not be in his reading class; however, most of them will still be a long way off from his reading abiities, and for Math the gap will be even worse. The kid loves EPGY, what can I say.

My DS will be early entry to K at a gifted school. I'm a nervous nelly. He is a fall bday, so hopefully he will fit right in.



I'm seriously having anxiety over it, even though I know it's the right thing to do.

We are. After a lot of visiting schools and some set-backs, we're starting early at a local private school that is suffering financially (low enrollment with the recession-- though the local public just laid of a ton of teachers, so more folks might flee this coming year) but has a history of rigor, acceleration, and prestigious college acceptances. That's of course assuming that they eventually send the contract to us. Every few weeks we get an email saying they should be coming out "next week."

Re: liking to read: The magic treehouse books were like crack to my son. Sometimes we'd take turns reading (him a page, me a page) but definitely something he sought out and read himself in order to find out what happens next. The magic school bus books were a hit too, specifically the easy readers and the old ones from the 1970s. He hasn't really been hooked so much on their chapter books or the comic book or the newer ones that are the same size as the ones from the 1970s but have the tv cast art.

"Any ideas how to help him "like" to read?"

this has worked for us -- keeping an open mind as to what constitutes reading: calvin & hobbes (pretty high level of vocab., awesomely funny), comic books, manga, etc.
Reading to him books over his level reading-wise, but on his level interest-wise (I read harry potter to our ds5/6, about 30 astronomy books to our dd4, and so on).

They are still learning the vocabulary verbally and of course the creative writing or understanding of the solar system are always great things to be exposed to...
I know part of the read-to-me ritual around here is a bonding thing, the kids just love it, as do I.

Oh, almost forgot, results so far: ds10 is reading several grade levels ahead and LOVES reading, dd5 (just turned 5) is truly reading well now after some wondering whether she ever would(lol!) and of course very proud of herself!! (just little books so far)

WE read about 30 books on the solar system. Some he was able to read to us.. some our dd7 read and a few we read to them. We than built a solar system. I think that following his interests more may be better than level 1 and 2 readers. I did look at the DG ( I think those were the non fiction readers) last week. I may have to go back and get some. I am wondering if there are any math reading books on this level as this is truly where his interest is. He told me yesterday, he wants to learn about the united america states over the summer (USA maps). So now I have been challenged to find inexpensive materials.