Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments K or homeschool? Age cut off issue...

Here's a thought related to that-- one possible/plausible advantage to homeschooling (or maybe it's a disadvantage, actually)-- is that when homeschooling a child through PreK~4, you have to be pretty conservative in order to not gain on academic readiness at about a 2- or even 3-to-1 rate.

So if you homeschool K for a year, you might actually wind up needing a placement at 2nd or even 3rd grade the year following.

Here's why I say that could be either a good or a bad thing: 1) if the school is WILLING to trial entry at a higher-than-chronological placement, you can get a "freebie" grade-skip out of this, and one that matters the most, since those early grades tend to be where the absolutely worst fit occurs, but 2) if they WILL NOT entertain the notion of an out-of-age placement upon entry, it could well make the fit far, far worse.

We lucked out and got the former-- after a "year" (okay, it was 18 mo or so) of "PreK and K" our virtual charter school didn't cavil a bit over a 3rd grade placement (we provided them with a home-proctored CAT-5 at second grade, which DD had handily 99'ed). If they had balked, however, we just would have said "thanks, but no thanks," and figured something else out. It was pretty clear that a 1st grade placement would have been utterly wrong.

Just something to think about. Plan your homeschooling activities accordingly.

HK said what I was trying to say Just much more eloquently and to the point.

Thanks for these thoughtful questions. One complication is that we may be looking for jobs, which may relocate us to another state, if we are lucky. How I curse that silly age-cutoff.
If we were to stay, I think he would get into that particular school the year after in 1st grade (even without K this year), though I would think they would want to reevaluate him in the spring. I don't believe he would be ready for 2nd grade in that particular school the year after, mostly because it appears to be fairly writing intensive. And they do appear to differentiate in reading/writing. Math is an entirely different question - I doubt he will be challenged.
At most other schools, I am quite sure he could enter 1st grade right now - and still be ahead in math and probably reading (looking at a standard 1st grade curriculum). And this is with *very* little formal instruction (and with English being his weakest language). And yes, HowlerKarma, we realize that if we formally homeschool, it may actually increase the gap with 1-1 attention - he learns so quickly; we could probably cover a few years in math in particular. So far, we have on purpose focused on stimulating his mind in ways that are not necessarily academic, but that he enjoys - 200 piece puzzles (that are tedious to us), advanced Lego, learning about space, earth, the body etc. And on teaching reading and writing in one of his native languages. He also spends hours a day drawing and playing with his younger brother - in that sense he is a perfectly normal kid (and full day academic K may be quite long).
We don't really feel comfortable talking to the school about our concerns, as they have only that one class for K, so there is not much they could do. We don't know why the teacher and DS did not click. But us complaining and then taking him out after a few months certainly doesn't help matters. We don't know how good of a match the next teacher would be.