My son has just turned 6, and Im trying to work out what to do next with him. He is reading fluently - he loves the Magic Treehouse books, and also Zak Power, Spy Kid novels. His handwriting is readable but not fantastic. With math he can add up to 20, take away, and knows his 2, 5 and 10 times tables. All the first grade books are now too easy for him. I don't want to push him too hard, and give him a lot of hands on play time, but do I just push forward with spelling, grammar and math and ignore his age as a factor? I wouldn't say he is gifted, he is just a bit precocious I think! He was resistant for ages, then just took off!
Kids don't learn in a lesson-by-lesson way as textbooks would have you to believe. It's normal for them to struggle for a while and then jump ahead, seemingly overnight. Just keep going. When you hit a wall, back off for a while and wait for maturity of thought to catch up. There's plenty of time for both learning and play. IMHO, all children should be challenged at whatever level they're on. If they're pushed, they'll learn to hate learning. If they're held back, they'll learn to hate learning. However, if appropriately challenged on an individual basis, they'll learn to crave new information. Besides, every publisher, every teacher, and every nation has their own idea about what a 6 year old needs to know. There are no rules or boundaries on learning other than genetics and environment. Don't form him into someone else's mold unless you plan to send him to public school later or something like that.
Yes, ignore his age. Let him go at his own pace, doing what seems best for him. Don't push him, but don't hold him back, either. BTW, my daughter was a bit like that in reading. The trouble we ran into was that, while many "older" books were at her "reading level", they were way above her "maturity level".
I have had the same problem, Jackie, thank goodness for the Magic Treehouse. My daughter is older, and though she is working "above grade" has the maturity and understanding to cope with the material. I think I might back off a bit and let him work on other things, like handwriting, and give him the option of learning about a subject of his choice, and let him catch up with his maturity of thought. We are not going to send either of them into the public school system. I think I have to understand children are not "one size fits all" and what works for one, might not for the other. My daughter is very happy working through methodically, and though is workign above grade, is very much a step by step learner. My son seems to not take anything in, and them takes off, taking me by surprise! I wonder if lapbooking might be a good idea. I tried it with my daughter but she really was not at all into it.
That! One of the beauties of homeschooling is you can throw 'grade-level' out the window and let your child work at his/her own level-even if they are on a 1st grade reading level and a 6th grade science level and a 4th grade math level no matter what age they are. Might I suggest some old books? Back in the day books weren't dumbed down. Look into some public domain books (try OldFashionedEducation or Ambleside Online for ideas) Many of these books are 'meatier' without being too mature in content. At 6 there are lots of good old fairy tales. Try Andrew Lang's Fairy Books (there are 12-all named after colors) or Beatrix Potter books (my 5 year old is a huge Potter fan!) Books by Thornton Burgess or Arthur Scott Bailey might work for you as well. Or just look through some old children's books online-- public domain books are usually fairly easy (and free!) to read online, print or got on the kindle. Try looking here http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Category:Children's_Bookshelf here http://archive.org/details/iacl or here http://www.amazon.com/mn/search/?_e...nkCode=shr&tag=cowsdontmoo-20&node=2245146011
Another good on-line source of books for children is the Baldwin Project. http://www.mainlesson.com/main/displayarticle.php?article=feature
