Hi JamisJS,
I would suggest researching your zoned school first. Try to see what kind of accommodations (if any) they make for children who are above their grade level in any subject. You have plenty of time so do as much homework as you can. See if there are any other options besides your zoned school just in case they are unable to meet your child's needs.
The reason I say this is because my oldest is 9, I taught her to read before she turned 4. This was before LR. I used flash cards and various other methods. She was tested at the beginning of kindergarten and was reading at the second grade level. Unfortunately I live in Chicago and most of the CPS (Chicago Public Schools) schools are horrific. I can't afford the over $12,000 a year or more that most of the good private schools wanted. There are a few good CPS Magnet schools but the only way to get in is through lottery. I applied my daughter to 20 different schools and she did not win the lottery for any of them. So my only other option was to try a charter school(which is a public school just not controlled by CPS).
The problem we had was that the Charter School she was in was not willing to accommodate her. At the beginning of the year the teacher didn't even believe she could read. The school year starts at the end of August for Charter Schools here, and by October the teacher expressed concerns that she was unable to read. She said she didn't know any of the sight words and would be in danger of failing Kindergarten if she didn't pass the reading test at the end of the year.
When I asked my daughter why she wasn't reading for her teacher she said it was too boring. So I scheduled a parent teacher conference. I brought my own materials and bribed my daughter with two brand new toys if she fully cooperated and read whatever I or the teacher asked her to.(I know it's not the best thing to do, but I really needed her teacher to see what she was capable of.)
Long story short, she read everything the teacher put in front of her. Including all of the sight words they had to learn for the whole year(most of which they hadn't covered yet) and second grade material from another class. The teacher was stunned.
I offered to send some of the material we were working on at home(I was afterschooling at that point) so that when she finished her "easy" classwork(her words not mine), she could work on something more at her level. The teacher said no she had to stick with their curriculum. The teacher just wanted her to read the books that were at kindergarten level when she finished work early. Of course my daughter thought these books were boring as well. And refused to read them.
So then when she finished her work early she would goof around and get in trouble. She started to refuse to read the sight words for her teacher again. Her teacher finally told me to stop reading with her at home because it was making the teachers stuff seem boring. And if I stopped reading with her completely she would be more interested in the books and sight words at school. Yes that's right I could not even read stories To Her!
She said she would fail unless I complied because she would not pass the test at the end of the school year. I told her "But that doesn't make sense, you know she can read!" She said it didn't matter if the teacher knew she could read. What mattered was her passing the test. Well of course I got scared and foolishly stopped reading with my daughter. I did not want her to fail kindergarten for reading when I knew she could read at a second grade level.
At the end of the school year I started to teach her again and she actually fell behind. She struggled to read things that were extremely easy for her at the beginning of the school year. Worst of all was that she now Hated Reading or anything to do with learning. I immediately pulled her out of school and started homeschooling her. It took a year and a half just to get her to be okay with learning and tolerate reading.
She is now 9 and still doesn't love reading the way she used to. I feel really bad and if I could do it over again I would have probably waited until she was in first grade to try school or just kept her at home and homeschooled her.
Digg
