As it turns out, Tony is well-advanced over most of the other kids in his kindergarten class — possibly all of them, though I’m not exactly running the little tykes through a skill appraisal just to see where my own son ranks. I expected him to excel at reading, and in fact he’s doing extremely well. Where I’ve seen some of his classmates struggle to sound out a few letters in series, Tony now reads the stories in his Highlights magazines on his own, as well as short books. Partially this is because we nudge him to do so — on our weekly trips to the library, at least one book he selects has to be one he will read to me (Peanuts books have been a hit, recently). But he’s also motivated; my wife wandered out of our bedroom one morning to find him perusing the the phonics book I used to teach him to read. It was open on his lap.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m looking over my reading lessons so I don’t forget them.”

Our five-year-old is voluntarily reviewing his lessons? Cool.

Despite my relative innumeracy, Tony is also advanced in math, though not so dramatically so as in reading. I’ve been running him through those math game books you can pick up at book stores, and he’s acquired a good, basic understanding of addition and subtraction. I’ll formalize the lessons though — I just ordered a math home study kit that will, I hope, prove as successful as the phonics program.

Of course, this means that I’m really sending him to kindergarten so he can socialize and so I have time to work out. There’s value in that, too.