If ds can read in pre-school, how will he not get bored witless in reception etc?

[Aloha]

Ok, i know this is a PARP subject for lots of people, but it's a serious concern for me.
Ds is at pre-school - he's one of the oldest kids in his year as he's September born so he's 4.4 yrs. He's dyspraxic with some Asperger's like traits so he has his problems.He is very bright though, and I think we are only just realising, though talking to his senco/ot etc just how bright.
He can breeze through all the 45 sight words he's supposed to know by the end of reception, and I'm pretty certain he can also read all the words he's supposed to know by the end of yr2.
I really love his school, and the Senco is wonderful and they are talking about the Gifted and Talented register and extension work, but does that actually work? I really want him to love school and he adores learning and I don't want him to be bored witless and go off the whole idea of school. Does anyone have experience of what will actually happen?

Oh, and in answer to the question will he get bored? Yes my ds2 was bored in Reception and is still bored in Year 3. Teachers just don't seem to understand their job is to teach all children - not just the ones who haven't yet learnt by themselves.

I could read absolutely fluently before starting reception - my mum did some with me, and she was a university lecturer, so when she was tutoring she took me in and the Prof taught me to read! My mum claims I had read all sorts of books before starting school (Alice in Wonderland) which I find hard to believe, but I do remember being VERY bored at fishing for the word 'and' and 'the' and reading it. But on the other hand, with reading you can always be given a book appropriate to your standard.

I could read fluently before I started school (Great Expectations at 5 anyone) and found the reading lessons utterly boring. the teacher got round it by getting me to help with the other children's reading I enjoyed that.

I could read well before I went to school and remember being bored senseless while other children struggled to read aloud in class. For this reason, I decided not to try to teach my kids to read before they went to school. However, in my day reading was done as a whole class activity, not on a one to one basis as it is in my kids school now. Any decent school will have systems in place now to ensure all children are given work according to their ability. My son is is reception and they are already in different groups for literacy, etc.

My ds2 was very able ata young age and also has AS traits. he did have problems in reception in that it didn't meet his expectations of school. No wooden desks, ink wells, robed teachers. Certainly at times I felt he needed more academic stretching.
What reception gave him though was vastly improved social skills. He went into school talking about the Titanic when other kids were talking Tweenies. It wasn't dumbing down at all just learning to join in on many levels.
He did join the G&T programme and this helped enormously. They worked on thinking skills studying Escher. They also did extended writing and reading but it was more about deeper thinking.

Ds' reception class is split into reading and maths groups already and it's essential because there is a HUGE range of ability.

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Thanks for all your thoughts and experiences. I don't want ds moved up as he is quite young socially and small for his age and behind on his gross motor skills (that's running, jumping, climbing, using a scooter and all those things) and I think being with older kids might make those things stand out more.
I love him doing non-academic things. They all ate noodles with chopsticks yesterday for Chinese New Year which I thought was fantastic, and he can choose his own books on PACT day which he loves. I suppose it's more when they get to reception and YR1 and 2 when there is more formal classroom learning that concerns me. Enid, I can't see him being able to help other children much - that's such a girl thing, because they are so grown up and sophisticated at four it takes my breath away. Mind you, he loves to 'teach' his baby sister, so you never know.
Btw out of curiosity printed off the entire list of all the key words to be learned by the end of yr2 and he read them all out to me while I was making his toast this morning. he can also add, subtract and multiply low numbers and recognise numbers into the hundreds. But I don't think he'll find elementary number work boring. Well, we'll see I suppose, and the Senco has two grown up clever children herself (both doctors) so she is quite switched on. I think I worry because ds has special needs but is ALSO bright, and that has confused even quite eminent people so far.

I want him to enjoy school particularly because I want him to develop social skills....adn not have to spend the rest of his life on the internet

though actually my dsd has superb social skills and cannot be peeled off her msn.

aloha, you sound so sensible! Btw, read your last post as 'cannot be peeled of her man'....which is I suppose a social skill

My experience of extension work has been very good with DS, now in year 1. I think the most important thing is that the school recognises a child's strengths - I know we had a few issues at the beginning of reception where we felt that some of the work he brought home was way below what he was capable of doing (and did) at home - interestingly this was not just an issue in reading but also in art, for example, where the rudimentary scribbles he brought home bore no resemblance to the stuff he produced at the weekend. It seems as though your school has recognised your ds will need to be stretched and all sounds very positive.

Important too to realise that school is about a lot more than literacy - especially in reception there are huge challenges for children who need to learn to be in a big group with their peers, adapt to the school day and environment, negotiate new friendships and experiences, play independently at lunch time....the list goes on. I found that my son's academic ability let him concentrate more on some of the other aspects of school and that did help him in the first year.

hausfrau - educationally feral! - that's exactly how dh & I were describing ds yesterday.

Aloha, our experience is a lot to do with the personality of the child. Ds and dd are both very bright (according to ed psychs) - but dd (5 last Oct) loves to please, has a perky happy attitude and most importantly seems to be able to find something interesting in everything they're given to do. So the school has moved her up to year 1 and she is bouncing along.

Ds (7 in April, year 2) is, well, capable of being educationally feral - despite the school's real willingness to accommodate and extend him whenever he'll co-operate. I feel, somehow, that he colludes in his own boredom - so one of my biggest tasks is to try to persuade him not to just "switch off" if he doesn't feel immediately inspired.

school is so different now aloha

they didnt stream or group when I was at primary school but they do now obviously, so being left to tutor other kids is unlikely to have to happen.

Hopefully there may be some other very bright children there - there seem to be more of them than ever before! Then he can work alongside them.

At my son's school they work across age ranges in some areas. So for example a reading group for year 1 children may have some children from reception in it too, depending on ability.

my own experience of a girl in my village - incredibly bright, reading fluently - labelled G and T, but unfortunately the parents DIDNT feel the local primary could give her what she needed and she was always a bit of a fish out of water. They took her out and sent her to the local very good private prep and she flourished there and is doing brilliantly with lots of friends etc.

Enid, actually I think it would do him the world of good to help out with younger children (only of course, there aren't any atm!) - if he has the social skills to do this. Not opposed to it at all.

aloha, dd is in a similar position to your ds but in yr1 now. Although it is never formally said to the parents, they are all grouped into little groups of 5 or 6 for work (in a class of 30) and so dd sits in the red group which as far as I can see gets slighter harder spellings etc. Her reading books she has always been able to select her own level - so from reception, they let her start the ORT at a level they thought the story was appropriate to her social development but was long enough to be a challenge (can't remember where but it was the magic key stories). So even though she could already read anything, they felt it was better to let her go through the scheme and try and enjoy some of the books. She now brings home novels (but again with an appropriate story so things like the proper old version of the Magic Porridge Pot).

Even now, they still do phonic stuff. THey are doing the sound 'ng' and have to come up with words that have that sound in it. She doesn't appear bored with this sort of work and the teacher lets her develop her own little rhymes based around the letter combinations that they are doing.

I too am far more concerned about her social development. She's one of the youngest in her year so I'd rather she concentrated on getting that right and having friends round to play etc. than getting extension work.

In a round about way, what I'm trying to say is that dd has never really been that bored. I'm sure she has her moments but she loves all the other subjects they do aswell (Geography, Science) and the best thing about being able to read is that they can choose non-fiction books to bring home from their library about any subject they enjoy.

ah bless

he might be able to do it when he's a bit older

It must be very school-dependent I guess. At my children's school they were in different reading groups from the first week, as there were quite a few already reading, and others who didn't know their letters. The teachers all managed fine, somehow. There is a boy in dd's class who was reading complex books (of the order of Harry Potter) when he started, so they just let him go to the P2 class for reading sessions. Similarly, he was in P3 for maths and so on. This way they get to stay with their peer group but still have the flexibility of moving across a wide range of groups. I think it's a good system, much better than moving up a year.

School is to some extent about the whole class and not just individuals.

Each child is good at some aspects of school and struggles more with others. So children in reception who are socially mature and can concentrate and work quietly without interfering with others WILL be held back because other children can't yet. Not only that but there lives will to some degree be made unpleasant by other children's rude and aggressive behaviour, and this can put them off school. Obviously teachers try to address this but the problem is not totally solvable, and the well-behaved suffer.

Similarly, the same goes for above average readers. They will be held back to an extent because others are less advanced in this skill and it may well lead to them being bored with school. He may develop other valuable skills if his role is to help others less able - but it might not stretch him academically.

It is realistic to expect an evening out process in the first few years of school, both in social skills and academically.

There is just 1 teacher for 30 students, and for each child to be given exactly the optimal attention in each aspect of their education and socialisation is unrealistic. I think you should therefore expect that your son will not be pushed to his full potential - but nor will any of the others in his class be. School is part of life in the big wide world, and it won't all be as you would ideally wish, but this may be not such a bad thing.

Well you see I was terribly bored at school (remember being told that I couldn't possibly have done my homework, that I couldn't possibly have read that book and being told off etc) and went on to hate and loathe every minute of my education. Which does seem a shame as I love to learn, to investigate, to find things out.
I really, really don't want it to be my son's experience (he is quite a lot like me, I think) as school is such a huge part of their young lives. i am happy with his his preschool and have had encouraging meetings with the senco, but I do know what a blight it is when you hate school. And that is a bad thing.

Aloha, I understand your concerns about boredom at school, and there may be problems, but I don?t think boredom needs to be a problem with respect to reading.
I could read when I started school and my reception year was traumatic so I was worried when my dd came to start school too. She could read anything that was put in front of her so I was sure she would be bored. I need not have worried. It took a few weeks for the teachers to get to know her but they soon realised that she could read. The reception year at our local primary was quite play based and I had worried it would not be accademic enough for her, but infact it helped that they did not really push reading in reception. She used to take her own books along from home to read at school (she still does in yr1). She read a few times a week to one of the adults just as the other children did. It didn?t matter that she was reading books aimed at 9 year olds while many of the others were reading books with almost no words. The letter recognition type work they did was done in small groups and my dd just worked with a different group doing something else. She fluorished socially in reception and loves school.

They are split into ability groups in ds's class too - I don't think the children are supposed to realise - ds1 certainly doesn't know it's ability based. He reads one to one with teacher/TA 2-3 times a week and he is reading pretty much at his level (I think the books are a little easy for him tbh but not ridiculously so) and others will be reading at their level. There is one boy in his class who is reading years ahead of everyone else - he just reads books in his one to one that are more for his level.

Everything else they do in reception is 'new' and interesting though so I can't see how they would get bored - I know ds has been doing about capacity and measurements and they are also learning about weather.

Aloha, DD1 could read and do some maths when she started Receptopn.
She was the youngest of the older group, IYSWIM, and she did look it too!
DD1 has verbal dyspraxia and is rather ungainly at times. but is fantastic at reading and spelling. TBH, it was a relief as she had such poor speech and there was alwys a awoory that it would be a problem phonetically.

Her class has 4 groups, and she is in the top one, and they are quite a lot further ahead than the rest. They are able to go at heir pown pace, and encouraged to do so.

So, no, she isn't bored at school, the social side has been fab for her as she has come out of herself. her speech has improved dramatically and she jhas learnt to hop and almost to skip.

I was bright at school and had a ridiculously high reading age, finishing the set books before others had started. Made no difference to me socially. My mother actually told the Head that she only sent me to school for the social side, as she could have helped me to learn everything else. Obviously at Primary. The Head laughed and made sure that I got involved in less academic things too.