My son is five and currently in Kindgergarten (Montessori). He's doing great there. Next year we have the choice to repeat Kindergarten at a public school or move him into 1st Grade.
His birthday is October, so if we send him to 1st, he'll be 5, turning 6 - young. If we do Kindergarten again, he'll be older. Kindergarten was our original plan, but now hearing comments from his pediatrician and others, I'm re-thinking that maybe 1st Grade would be better for him.
I know the trend is to wait, especially for boys. I will be getting his current teacher's recommendation soon. I want to forward him ahead, but I also don't want him to struggle later. I see pros and cons to both.
I'm so confused!
Thanks for any advice.
I listened to what my preschool teacher recommended for my 2 boys (August/September) birthdays, and it was the right advice for both boys. The teacher's recommendation carried more weight for me since she was in the best situation to see how my boys learned and interacted with others.
I am sure that you will get many suggestions and that they will equally be valid for either decision. I have a daughter - late Nov BDay. We also had her in Montessori kindergarten last school year (07-08). She was the youngest in this class. It was a great school/program. We spoke to her teacher and decided to have her repeat public school kindergarten this year. This was my initial intention. I can say that I am very happy with this decision now. This just seemed to be the right option for my daughter. You might have to set a special meeting with your current teacher (our official parent teacher conference did not match up with the public school enrollment process). The teachers will have the best assessment on your son's academic and social skills.
Good luck!
I was a teacher before I started staying home after we had our first daughter 2 1/2 years ago. I have never heard of any parent regretting their decision to wait another year. Good luck with your decision. I know it is a hard one.
I am a 3rd grade teacher, and I have a daughter who misses the cutoff by a week and a day (so she will be one of the older ones in her kinder class) and I have a younger daughter born in mid-November. After this school year with the kids in my current 3rd grade class, I am convinced that my older daughter's being the oldest in her class will be a good thing, and that my younger daughter will definitely be waiting to start kinder til she is almost 6. I personally think kindergarten is mostly about social skills, learning how to be in school, learning expectations, learning how to get along with others, etc. Yes, there are more academics in kinder now but the main thrust of kindergarten is socialization. Therefore I do not feel your child would be "bored" in kindergarten. Also, although it may not show up now or even next year in terms of readiness, believe me, it starts to catch up. I have an extremely "young" class this year (with about half of my class on the "young" side--bdays in the late summer or fall) and I can *really* tell which kids are the younger ones from their difficulty sitting still, focusing, completing work, and just social skills like listening, not calling out, etc. All of the kids who have issues like these are the "young" children. It has been very eye-opening to me. I would recommend waiting. A lot of preschool teachers and directors have told me that it is a gift to have a late fall birthday because that extra year is so valuable. After seeing my current group, I would have to agree!
My girls have a late November birthday so we decided to have them repeat K when they started public school - our reasoning was that they were moving from a preschool where they were the 'biggest fish in the small pond" to a much bigger public school, and while we thought they probably were academically ready for first grade we thought that socially they'd benefit from another year of K. Also we figured if they started in K and it turned out to be not challenging enough, we could request having them move up to 1st grade, but if we started them in 1st grade and it was just too overwhelming for them, it'd be a much more difficult transition to have them moved back to K during the school year (another family whose oldest son attended the same private K as we did several years earlier tried starting their son in 1st grade at their public school - the transition was difficult/overwhelming for him and they ended up moving him back to K). It turned out to be the right decision for our family, but FWIW another family whose twins are 2 weeks older than ours started K in our public school the year before our girls did and they did just fine even though they were the youngest in their class.
In addition to what the other folks have said, I'd see if you could talk to any of the K teachers at the public school to see how they handle having kids of different levels of academic readiness. One thing that made our decision easier was that the K teachers reassured us that they do have more challenging work for kids who are a bit ahead of their classmates.
Ok, here's my take on it. I'm a homeschool mom.
I've watched the public schools push certain skills and academics to the lower and lower grades all the time. Every year, they expect more and more from the younger kids. Moms post to this board all the time about how stressed out their kids are and how the teachers are putting pressure on the kids for more, more, more. Some even have homework, and quite a bit of it, in the lower grades. Meanwhile I don't see the california schools exceeding as far as standard test scores.Indeed, they are on the bottom. I'm not saying this to be judgemental, I'm saying that the push for more academics at lower levels is not the answer. If it was, the state scores would reflect it.
That is a BIG change between private k-Montesorri and PUBLIC SCHOOL grade 1. In many of the schools, Grade 1 is expected not only to be reading and writing pretty well, but also spelling, and some are even introducing early concepts of algebra.
As a teacher I saw in my own children that there comes an age when the brain is "ready" for formal writing instruction. Age 6 is a good age to be "starting" writing and spelling. I tried, as many other homeschool moms I know, to start my son at formal letter formation by age 5. Nope. It wasn't going to happen. He wasn't emotionally or physically ready. If you let kids mature enough to be physically capable of the actions you are asking them to perform, you can avoid much stress, havoc and learning blocks. I am assuming that they are beginning formal writing in k grade- if the kids are 6 in that grade?
My opinion is to put the child in the grade appropriate for his age, grade K.
If you can have her repeat, go for it. I put my daughter in Kindergarten at 4 turning 5 and she was the baby in the class. Most of the class was 6 years old already! So then she was falling behind, (of course, 1/2 the kids were 1 1/2 years older than her.) I have talked to many of the 6 year olds moms and they said they waited that extra year or put them in again so that they would feel very comfortable with school - and they do. If we were to move, I would have both of my girls repeat the grade they’re in. After a few years it becomes hard to hold them back, friends, after school activities etc. This is a perfect time for them to repeat without any of the damages of being in the same school.
Good Luck!
My younger son has a November birthday. His preschool teachers definitely recommended that he was read for kindergarten. I think if we had held him back another year in preschool, he'd have gone out of his mind with boredom. He started kindergarten when he was 4, and yes, because of the trend of keeping kids back these days, he is a full year younger than some of the kids in his class. But he's done great, both academically and socially. Your son's preschool teachers should be able to give you a recommendation based on his academic, social and emotional readiness. Good luck!
