Quote Originally Posted by fishdr
This is majorly OT, but thought I'd post it here to get a wide point of view from TE...

As some of you know - I'm switching jobs and moving to Louisiana. My daughter (FishJr) is currently in 4K. She is having fun, but is bored and dissappointed because she says she isn't learning anything. She is doing math (addition and some subtraction), can write all of her letters, her name, and numerous other words, etc. She's mature for her age (emotionally and intellectually) and her teacher suggested that we put her in Kindergarten when we move.
I have no real education on the matter but my own experience, but because both my sister and I were reading/writing when we went into Kindergarten (no Pre-K yet where we were) we were both really bored, and out of that boredom and the awkwardness of being so advanced for our ages, other things developed. I got anxiety disorder and had panic attacks when I wasn't getting some kind of challenge (it lessened when I had advanced classes on the side, medication, etc, and stopped much later in school) and my sister developed an anxiety problem probably more due to the kids in her class singling her out for getting the best grades and always knowing the answers... Both of us would've done well to have been advanced a grade or two especially early on, because it would've kept up with our learning abilties. We were kept where we were because we weren't 'socally skilled' enough to be advanced, which was unfair (I think) because the only people we identified with on an intellectual level were adults.

I would say that the jump from pre-k to K would be just fine for her. It's when you start thinking about 16 year olds in college (a friend of mine did that, and though he was quiet and lonely for the first couple of years, he really developed after getting the 'hang' of it. He was a software developer and not very socially gifted, anyway) that you start running into some problems, but every situation is unique.