Hello thought I'd just give my thoughts on this....I am a mom, not a teacher and not a psychologist.
But when my son was in kindergarten we had a teacher that, fresh out of graduate school, thought that everything she was taught was supposed to work....so she, in October of kindergarten, decided that these little kiddies should be doing "inventive spelling"....we tried that at home and it was a full out disaster...and decided we don't do invetive spelling in our home anymore in kindergarten and would help the kid sound out with phonics the spelling and he would go to school with a correct spelling of words. After all this was kindergarten and this was October and these kids barely knew the alphabet let alone the phonics of it...so we were not a fan of that teacher....She ended up walking out on our parent teacher conference on us because I stood up to the no inventive spelling thing in my house...later on found out she was not a fan of many parents in the district over several years...she was only in our district for about 4 years and moved on.
But at the time and in my state (I have no idea what it is now) kindergarten was not even required you could legally keep your kid out of school till they turned of first grade age and put them in first grade.
I also had a child that was reading in kindergarten, 2nd grade level and the teachers told me that "we don't teach reading in kindergarten"...so why did they even take the time to test her because she read a book to the class and the teacher thought "oh this kid is reading"...
So the point is that if your kid is a good kid, not disruptive and getting along fine at home and in school....go with your parental instincts and stop fretting.
But.....back to my son..who could have gone to school a year earlier than he did and I decided to hold him due to my parental instincts (yes the thought of getting my little kid off to school early was enticing) the fact I had noticed things that told me he may not be ready....so he was a full 5 3/4 going on six till he entered school in kindergarten and that made a huge difference in his maturity and learning ability. But the funny thing was the year he did not go to school due to maturity about half way through that school year...I thought "I could have sent this kid to school last September"...yes in those few months his level of learning ability had increased dramatically. But I was still glad I kept him out and waited.
So to add to the others that this kindergarten program may be a little too regimented and teaching things that are somewhat above the kids level now. I would in your shoes give him (after all he's in school now make the best of it) the extra learning things they are suggesting, what do you have to lose, and I would help him all I could without stressing the kid out too much.... because you don't want to lose his enthusiasm of learning by over indulging this kindergarten curriculum that may be way over the kids heads.
Now when your kids get into the next few grads I can give you more stories about the curriculum that doesn't quite go the way they think it should..In my house there was one specific math lesson they had "carte blanc" on and could, as long as they tried their best, get an "F" and be congratulated at home for it.
By the way ....My two kids are in college now ....one an honor student in honors college about to graduate and be...you guessed it....a teacher. The other a "B" student (he's the boy) and doing just great too in his third year of college. Proud as a peacock of them and couldn't have asked for anything better.
Sorry this is long and sorry if I made any of you teachers out there angry.
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