Question
At my son’s Parent Teacher Conference this past February, his Kindergarten teacher told me she saw him getting bored in class because of his ability to understand the concepts so quickly. So she came up with a plan (and I agreed to it), to teach him all Kindergarten level material, and while the other children were working on the sheets (with the teacher’s assistant) she would sit with him and teach him 1st grade reading and math. It worked and he was liking it. Is this the way to do it? Just want to be sure. And then, how should we approach 1st grade now in August?
Answer
This is common for intelligent children in grades K-2 BUT I don't recommend advancing them academically.
Why? Because K-3 has a huge social emotional skill that children HAVE to learn to be successful socially, emotionally and academically moving forward: the skill is to learn how to be one of many. To be able to tolerate being one of many a child has to manage patience, which can be frustrating and boredom which can make some children sad. Instead of FIXING the lack of patience and the boredom for them by giving them academic work which only increases their intelligence not their social emotional learning, I prefer the teacher and the adults around the child to make them conscious of practicing their patience power and finding ways to be helpful in the classroom when they are bored which increases empathy and the social emotional skill of learning to be one of many.
A good message to send your boy, and one for the teacher to say is, "Wow, you were able to finish your work quickly because you understood the math the first time you heard it. Now it's time to work on your patience and being helpful in the classroom. To be patient, we can breathe slowly, read a book, calm our body while we listen to the sounds around us. To be helpful, we notice how our classmates need to hear things once, or twice or even three times and if we can help them we offer to help or we notice if the teacher needs help and offer to help her."
Intelligence and Social Emotional Learning are separate but one can't happen without the other. In K-3 the intelligent ones usually need lots of work on their social emotional world.