Very able child in reception

[MaureenBehindtheWindow]

Never encountered this before (and what a lovely problem to have!).

A little boy in my reception class is streets ahead in reading and numeracy. In days gone by I would have had him working with a TA while I was doing teaching inputs with the rest but I have three autistic children and frankly not enough adults.

He is thoroughly enjoying himself in the sand pit atm, so I'm very reluctant to pull him out of continuous provision to teach him.

Any advice?

Take his learning to the sand. Get him problem solving using the sand. Measure, divide, count using the sand. Use the sand to encourage him to write about his play or record in role play scenarios.

You merely need to extend him using the play equipment you already have. Get him to lead the pace.

I've never done this sort of extension, and his play definitely doesn't reflect his academic ability. He's multiplying and dividing with his eyes shut. How do you brign that out with sand?

Can he problem solve?

Whilst he is academically able he is 4 and certainly shouldn't be recording or doing work sheets until nearer the end of reception. He needs to work on his social skills and engage in practical learning.

What's his psed like? How is his making relationships like? Is this an area to focus on? If not definitely problem solving.

DS was at this stage in Reception. I think they sent him to Year 1 for literacy work (he was reading chapter books) and did some maths extension work, and let him have lots of fun playing. He didn't seem bored, but we did stuff with him at home to stretch him. I didn't expect his teacher to structure too much around him, given she had 29 other kids to teach. If the child is happy playing, let him do lots of that.

PSED and social skills are actually very good. Definitely not the idea of the child who can do X Y and Z but has no friends.

His architectural designs suggest he is not bad at solving problems!

This was my son.

Honestly, playing was the best thing for him - as well as providing lots of books (having non-fiction and fiction non-scheme books freely available will be useful, especially if you find out he has specific interests), having lots of open-ended maths manipulatives, and different methods of recording (whiteboard, computer, large paper, small paper, brush and paint etc etc)

Just to give an example from DS - he learned a LO more about Maths (adding and subtracting into negative numbers, for example) from reconstructing the World Cup group tables, both current (from the class computer and the daily paper brought in by the teacher), and historic (from a book that 'just happened to be around') on big bits of sugar paper than he did from any Maths worksheets he did at pretty much any point in his primary school career.

Year 1 - structured teaching - now that was when the 'how do we meet his needs' nightmare began. Reception was somewhere he thrived.

Give him a tall narrow tube with a ping pong ball at the bottom and ask him to get it out without tipping/lifting the tube?

Focus on the autistic kids? This child will be fine whatever.

Let him have his year of fun playing and learning through that. He's got years and years of the other stuff but this year is special. Reception is a lovely time to dress up and reinvent the world in the company of so many children, that's got to be worth something.

Londoncalling68 do you work in a school?

Yes.