We struggled to find a place that would meet his needs. We tried a Montessori school that seemed flexible. While the staff delighted in his precociousness, his energy level and intensity soon wore them down, and after a few months, he began to "regress" acting more child like than the little man we knew. Following the advice of this site, and noticing that he really enjoyed playing with older kids, this fall we talked a local academic private school into accelerating him. At 3, he is the youngest in his PreK class by a year. We knew it was going to be a good fit after his first day when he told us, "My classmates can talk!!"
Three months into it, he really enjoys it and is very popular with the kids in his class. Many parents tell us their kids talk about him all the time. A few of the staff were skeptical at first, but now they say he fits in great - and academically, he is still way ahead. (The school recently assessed his class using a standardized test and he tested higher than any kid has for the PreK class in the history of the school.) They give him first and second grade worksheets to try to stay ahead of him. One good part is that the school works on handwriting and art - areas which due to his physical age are challenging for him, and is learning to struggle like the other kids in these areas. We've since found another local, small private school that specializes in kids working at or above the 96th percentile and already have an accelerated program beginning with PreK. They have accepted him into either their K or first grade class for next year, thus he will keep his skip or get accelerated again. Since this school usually works 1-2 grades ahead anyway, we HOPE this will be the final chapter in our search for a place where our son will get the appropriate education. The school told us they know what works in terms of acceleration and had several stories to share about this, both about who it has worked for right away and how some kids needed to work on social skills for a while, too. The flip side of this is that kids who do not start out in this accelerated program often cannot work at the accelerated pace if they come in three years or more after PreK. We are talking kids who are already > 96 percentile in regular schools. This suggests that going slow has a permanent effect on bright kids' abilities. I had not seen literature on this, but this school has had a number of bad outcomes with trying to slot kids in. Acceleration has worked very well for us so far and our son is happy to go to school every day.
Parent
Plano, TX
11/13/11