As a kindergartner, Kaitlyn Price spent a lot of time in the principal's office.

It wasn't because she was a bad kid, but because she was ahead of the curve.

"I could already read in kindergarten," said Kaitlyn, now a senior at Shaler Area High School. "So when other kids were learning their ABCs, I went down to the principal's office and read to him because I had nothing better to do. And he listened to me read the Harry Potter books, if I recall correctly."

While very modest when talking about herself, the Reserve teenager has pretty much stayed ahead of the curve in her 16 years.

A gifted student, a talented musician and an advanced computer programmer who skipped the fifth-grade because she was learning faster than her classmates, Kaitlyn has most recently been recognized for her skill at speaking Japanese.

In March, she took first place in the most advanced group at the annual Japanese Speech Contest, which is organized by the University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center, in collaboration with Pitt's Japanese Speaking Society and the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania. This year, 72 students from eight area high schools participated.

In addition to winning in the advanced-plus category of the contest, she also took the Consulate Award, which is presented to the student with the best overall performance.

The contest required participants in her category to give a three- to five-minute speech on a pressing problem that high school students face. She gave her 4-minute, 26-second speech on the challenge youth face trying to get their first job when they have no experience.

Her passion for the Japanese language was ignited when the same principal she had read to, Walter Engle, brought back necklaces from Japan for all the students at Reserve Elementary. Strung on the necklace was a Japanese coin, which is considered a good luck charm.

"I was really intrigued by it," she said. "I wanted to know everything about Japan, its culture and language. I was hooked by the language almost immediately."

Shortly after receiving the coin necklace, Kaitlyn started to study the language on her own. Soon, she was learning the language's complex set of characters, which includes two sets of 70 characters and another set of 4,000 characters.

After several years of studying on her own, in eighth-grade she enrolled in Shaler Area's Japanese class and is currently in her fifth year of study there. She also has traveled to the country twice, thanks to school programs.

While she loves speaking and writing Japanese, she has other passions.

She started playing music as a first-grader and can play the piano, guitar and violin. In addition to teaching others to play, she has composed music and is currently writing a musical for a school project.

"I'm not skilled enough to play music as a career, but it's what I enjoy doing the most," she said. "And I like playing for other people because you get to see the joy it brings them."

She enjoys computer programming and is putting the finishing touches on four different study aid programs she hopes to market to schools. The games, inspired by classic video games such as Pac-Man and Asteroids, can be easily programmed for any subject by teachers, she said. All proceeds from the sets, which she plans to sell for about $50, will be donated to Pennies for Peace. The nonprofit group works to build secular schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, so students have options other than schools run by the Taliban.

"I think it's a great cause," she said, adding that she is independently studying the Arabic language. "I love Arabic and I'm learning it. I hope to get a scholarship that's available so I can travel to the Middle East."

She also is interested in law, after getting a taste for it via her school's mock trial team, which has competed in statewide competitions.

She says that while she enjoys public speaking and doesn't worry about forgetting her speech-- she said she has a photographic memory -- she still gets nervous.

Take her experience at a recent mock trial:

"[My teacher] told me that I should try to lean on the jury box and talk directly to them because that's what the teams that always win do," she said. "I was so nervous my legs were shaking, so I had to lean on the jury box or I would have fallen over."

Kaitlyn plans to attend Oberlin College in Ohio this fall and hopes to study language and computer science. But, that could change, she admits.

After college, she would like to travel to Japan to teach English there.

Not unlike most 16-year-olds, her plans beyond that are uncertain.

Possible career goals are working in artificial intelligence, being a diplomat to Japan, practicing law, and continuing to compose and teach music.

"I'm not really sure what I want to study," she said. "There's a lot that I want to do, so I'll just have to wait and see."

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