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I am little concerned for my daughter who is set to start Prep this year.
I have been told by the current child care that she attends that she in fact may get bored at Prep as she already reads & writes herself - I am serious, the only time she asks for help is if she can't phonetically sound it out.
Have any other parents come across this & if so, how have they handled it?
Most teachers should be able to pick up on that and they will give her extra, or harder work to do to ensure that she isn't bored. talk about it with her teacher before she starts if you can and discuss your concerns, but for the first week or two they will mostly be getting used to school etc and emphasis wont actually be on learning all the time kwim?
Oh, that sounds good. That might be just what she needs. That is at least one thing I can not worry so much about. Thank youTrillian for your fast response.
No worries :) One other thing I forgot to say is that with my children's school, they have separate lessons for literacy etc, so they are all put into groups with other children at the same level as they are, so they always learn at the level they are at and put up into a higher group as they need it etc, I assume you're not in NSW, so I don't know how other schools do it, but ask if they do a program like that?
I remember that when I started school (in the early 90's), I was also a pretty advanced reader and writer and my teachers picked up on it straight away. They not only gave me extra/harder work to do, but when the class was split into groups it was according to their level of achievement so far, so I was in the 'smart' groups and the slower kids were given easier work, stuff that was to everyone's ability and easily coped with.
Just make sure that if the teacher doesn't pick up on it and that there are problems (some kids will act up if they are bored), that you inform her because the last thing the world needs is more kids running around on Ritalin because their teachers won't go to the extra effort of ensuring they're engaged and challenged by the work they're being given.
Good luck!
I was super-advanced for reading and writing at school. At first, I was given more play-time because I could do all my reading, so I got to pick which books I wanted to read and would read them to myself (hmmm, maybe they should have given me socialisation lessons instead!). I wasn't bored because there's so much to do at school, not just reading and writing (eg art, sandpit, play house).
Later, I had read every book in the school, I was given the chance to help the slower classmates - ones with learning difficulties. I spent time helping them to read. This was because the teacher had picked up on the fact I was getting bored; I couldn't be given more work because I was ahead of the children a year older than me in the same class.
I'm not so sure that early streaming is the best idea; children need to know everyone has different abilities and not everyone can keep up with them - and that others are better at some things than they are. I remember one teacher would put work on the board and give us a half-hour in which to do all the maths. The slower ones may only do 10 of the questions, the easy ones, whereas I'd generally do 25-30 (of 30) and get to the hard ones at the end. That way the slower ones could have a go and the brighter ones be challenged - and the whole class learnt when the answers were put on the board.
I have this concern for my DS actually. He is starting kindy this year, and then prep next year. He can already read and spell - he asks for "M-I-L-K" etc, and he also plays around with letters - "what does it spell if you say O-O-P instead of P-O-O" etc. He can also count to 100, is always doing addition and subtraction by himself, just in every day situations, he can count backwards also and has just started doing multiplication "mummy 3 lots of 2 are 6" etc. This is all self taught. He amazes people when we are out and he reads the signs using phonetics - he read the name of every train station from home to the city the other day - didn't pronounce them all 100% correctly but boy did he get close.
Sorry, I've gone off track. The answer to your question is yes, I am worried about this. His carers tell me he is at a prep level socially as well, he just mixes better with older kids. So this is what I'm going to do - firstly, I'm going to choose a school carefully. The one I am looking at has small numbers in the classroom and also mixed age group (ie preps and 1s together, but with 2 teachers). I am going to talk to them early this year to make sure they will be able to cater for him. I will watch for signs of boredom and stay in constant touch with the teachers to let them know how I think he's doing, and to find out how they think he's doing. And hopefully between us we can come up with some strategies like allowing him to do extra activities and giving him more challenges at home if need be. The idea with bright kids apparently is to extend on what's being learnt in school, not keep adding new things. A good teacher should be able to help with this, and there are special ed teachers available in the system who are trained in helping brighter kids. You just might need to push to get them involved.
So, that is what I plan on doing. I hope that helps you somewhat. I would also be very interested in hearing how you go this year. Feel free to keep us updated. GL!