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My 4 year old is in Pre-K. She is the youngest in her grade too.

I have consistently had preschool and Sunday school teachers tell me for the past 2 years how mature she is in class. She shows other signs of intellectual maturity or "giftedness" such as awareness, memory, and attention to detail.

She also gets bored very easily, asks for me to give her homework, and asks to go to school more.

Is this a phase most Pre-K kids go through?
Since she can't start Kindergarten until next year what kind of things can I do to give her more education that she seems to be craving?
Likewise, what kind of schooling should I be looking into for her to excel once she is in school?

Both her father and I are tested/considered "highly intelligent", so it is probable that she may also be. Therefore we want to be sure we are educating her adequately.

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    Can she read? If not, I would work towards that. If she can, there are a lot more options for "more work".
    – JPhi1618
    Oct 28, 2015 at 21:20
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    Just a random idea to toss in there: See what board-games she may be up to and find interesting AND challenging. Stimulating AND fun for the whole family! Cataan Junior may still be over her head, but sounds about the kind of game she may enjoy AND learn from.
    – Layna
    Oct 29, 2015 at 13:52

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For a highly intelligent person, especially a child ahead of her peers in school, I find that the best remedy is reading. My wife is a teacher and swears by phonics. She taught all my children to read early, and to this day that has served them extremely well. My first is now in college, and loving it. My second is a junior in HS, but already being recruited by top universities like MIT, Harvard, Caltech and others. When school gets boring, they pick up a book and read. Sometimes it is fiction, but sometimes it is a biography or a science book. My son has often picked up an Encyclopedia (yes, old school, hard-bound World Book Encyclopedia) and read through several articles in a sitting.

I would strongly suggest that you learn about phonics and take your child through it. You can start by putting up an alphabet chart or just the alphabet letters all in a row, big ones, all around her room. Then each day teach her one, its name, and its sound. My wife did this with my son, one letter per day, but when she got to M, my son got impatient and made her sit down and teach him the rest of the alphabet in one seating.

Read a lot with her, and point to the words as you are reading them to her, and don't limit yourself to books for just her age. I read the Chronicles of Narnia to our kids several times, before they could read, substituting their names for the names of the kids in the book, and they loved it.

Teaching a kid to read and to love reading is one of the best gifts a parent can give their child. For a gifted child it is even more special as it gives them a way to feed and exercise their intellect that is only limited by the size of the libraries available to them.

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  • Thanks! I love reading myself. We've been reading Chronicles of Narnia for a few months. Glad to hear affirmation of this!
    – Hayley C
    Nov 9, 2015 at 2:01
  • You are welcome. And I wanted to pass on another recommendation on reading, an author, Andrew Clements. His writing is excellent, and I strongly recommend his books for your kid. My kids all loved them and so did I. For a gifted child, I especially recommend The Report Card.
    – user16557
    Nov 9, 2015 at 14:09

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