Have we taught him the wrong things?

[Kingswood123]

Our very happy three year old knows a lot! He loves crafts and imaginative okay. Jigsaws and cutting. He can recognise all letters upper and lower case. Can count to 100 with minimal help. He knows his shapes and colours and loves learning new things and how things work.

But from starting nursery it feels like this isn't what he needs to know. They won't be showing him a single letter all year. He's also quieter than others.

Have we approached this whole education thing incorrectly already?

It's not about what's right. There are lots of things to learn and you have focussed more on academic knowledge. Nursery will be looking to broaden his understanding of the world, play and social skills. He will use his craft skills and improve his coordination and imagination. They will let him do a wider range of activities than you have up to now. Learning through play is really important.
Numbers, letters and shapes etc will all come in useful in time.

Don't worry. He has a great base and as long as he's happy, that's the main thing.

Sounds great. A few comments however.

Does he also know about being kind, sharing, listening, and taking turns? Those are very important in nursery.

With recognising letters, have you taught him the sounds (good) or the names (potentially confusing).

Counting to 100 is all very well, but does he comprehend what that means? More useful in developing skills would be to only work with numbers to 10 or 20, but do things like '1 more' and '1 less', stuff like that.

he has some rote knowledge, no harm in this, but he has a lot of broadening out to do.

The thing is, is he happy?

Nothing else matters at this stage.

I think that what is important is you have taught him learning matters, learning is fun, you will do it together and be delighted when he gets it right.

In this sense, it is irrelevant if you have taught him to name the letters of the alphabet, in English, Greek or Russian!