The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Mini Money Mustaches => Topic started by: nottoolatetostart on January 17, 2017, 04:12:23 AM
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Hi all - we have a 4 yo girl that is enrolled half-time in Pre-K for $2k per year. She is eligible to start free Kindegarten in August. She turns 5 days before school starts - cutoff is Sept 1, her birthday is August 27.
Many parents around here hold their younger kids back for a variety of reasons, sports or feeling like their kids are not intellectually/emotionally ready.
If I read the K prerequisite knowledge requirements, my daughter meets them today, let alone in 7 months' time, I hope she can be starting to read more. Her Pre-K teacher does not think my daughter is ready, but I can't tell if it is because all her peers are 5+ and will be going on 6 for K. The teacher says that my daughter is one of the first kids to help another kid if he falls down and rsteshigh on social skills.I hate that other parents make this competitive and hold back kids with June and July birthdays.
We also work on writing/problem solving/tracing/etc worksheets with our daughter (no other parent I have spoken to does this) and build in counting, learning letters in everything we do throughout our day.
My husband and I were thinking about enrolling her in free K (it's a half day program) and if need be, hold her back and do second year of Kindegarten. I hate holding her back already, without giving her a chance to try it first. Plus, I don't want to spend more money on Pre-K.
BTW - our local public school is one of the best in the state. Enrollment is just a few weeks away for Aug 2017.
Anyone have similar experience? Thoughts? Thanks!
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Things are different now I'm sure, but my birthday is early November and I started school at four so I was nearly a year younger than many of my classmates and it was never a problem. Mom always said I was precocious, but I suspect she was biased.
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Things are different now I'm sure, but my birthday is early November and I started school at four so I was nearly a year younger than many of my classmates and it was never a problem. Mom always said I was precocious, but I suspect she was biased.
Same here. I had an Aug birthday, on the younger side, less than ideal home life, uninterested mom, no dad, was on my own a lot, and did fine. My daughter is so blessed with her life right now (whether she knows it or not...hahaha!).
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If the Pre-K teacher feels she is not ready, it's important to understand why. What early learning/school readiness skills is your daughter still learning/does she need to develop? School readiness skills goes beyond knowledge and social skills. It also includes functional communication, executive functioning skills, etc.
If her teacher is experienced, she's probably been around the blocks a few times, and understands the skills necessary for kindergarten, and I doubt she would just randomly say your daughter is not ready for kindergarten just because her birthday is a few days before the cut off date. Once you understand the teacher's concerns, you can work with your daughter at home to develop those particular lagging skills, and she may be ready for kindergarten in August.
Of course, if, after listening to the teacher's observations and comments, it turns out that the teacher has no basis in making those comments, then by all means just keep on doing what you're already doing, and put your daughter in kindergarten in August.
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our child is expected around the end of august. my wife and i both prefer to hold our child back one year. Have you read Malcolm Gladwell's book outliers. its a good read. it focuses on timing and a lot of it revolves around sports. for example the cut off for baseball is typically June 1 so the kid born june 2nd is playing with younger kids and looks bigger better faster stronger. not coincidentally most baseball players are born in the summer months of June July and August. Why? b/c they looked better than the competition and were given more opportunities to succeed. Personally i think the same applies to schooling. A child that is older has a more developed brain and will appear to be a faster learner than the rest. Giving them a leg up and confidence on top of everything else. not to mention if they play sports too they will be bigger/older than most allwoing them a better chance to make the teams since they are grade based not age based.
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the mustachian answer is to start your child on time. Why would you want to handicap your child by having them learn with younger kids. Challenge them. The few months age difference will be negligible as they age through elementary school. Plus it will be one less year you have to support them.
We have a son that will be in the same grade, but he's born in February so we wont have the same dilemma as you.
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Things are different now I'm sure, but my birthday is early November and I started school at four so I was nearly a year younger than many of my classmates and it was never a problem. Mom always said I was precocious, but I suspect she was biased.
I turned 5 mid December of my Kindergarten year. I didn't really have any issues until I got to middle school. Middle school kids are brutal and there's a a big difference between 12 and 14. Still I would not hold my daughter back. In fact her birthday is Nov and I'm really bummed she won't be able to start at 4 here (they say the cut off date is Sept 30).
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the mustachian answer is to start your child on time. Why would you want to handicap your child by having them learn with younger kids. Challenge them. The few months age difference will be negligible as they age through elementary school. Plus it will be one less year you have to support them.
We have a son that will be in the same grade, but he's born in February so we wont have the same dilemma as you.
a few months is not negligble its far from it esp at that age.
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I have a June birthday and my parents held me back so I was 6 when I started kindergarten. Honestly, academically and socially I feel like it was the right decision for me. i agree with Freedomin5, really understand why the pre k teacher wants her to wait another year. And really examine why you want her to start now. Several of my friends started school early because their parents wanted them out of the house not because they felt they were ready for school. Just remember, whatever you decide will be the right decision for her as you know the situation better than we do
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at the end of the day its a very small amount of money for one extra prekindergarten year if it gets them at the top of their class and lots of scholarships.
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We have done it both ways. Oldest was born in July and started K at 5 (both we and the teacher thought she was ready). Youngest born in early August and started at 6 (we didn't think he was ready). I do think it helps socially to wait.
Both have done well. It's important to evaluate the child and listen to their teachers in making the decision.
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If the Pre-K teacher feels she is not ready, it's important to understand why. What early learning/school readiness skills is your daughter still learning/does she need to develop? School readiness skills goes beyond knowledge and social skills. It also includes functional communication, executive functioning skills, etc.
If her teacher is experienced, she's probably been around the blocks a few times, and understands the skills necessary for kindergarten, and I doubt she would just randomly say your daughter is not ready for kindergarten just because her birthday is a few days before the cut off date. Once you understand the teacher's concerns, you can work with your daughter at home to develop those particular lagging skills, and she may be ready for kindergarten in August.
Of course, if, after listening to the teacher's observations and comments, it turns out that the teacher has no basis in making those comments, then by all means just keep on doing what you're already doing, and put your daughter in kindergarten in August.
I agree - really listen to the teacher and see why she thinks that way. Also, check with your school district and have her evaluated - I believe most districts have a kindergarten readiness screening (at least they do in our area).
My daughter was one that was told to wait a year. We didn't. It's been rough. When we had her tested for the gifted program, we found out (officially) why. Her processing speed is in the bottom 20th percentile. That's huge....her overall IQ was high enough to get her into the program, but that deficit.....man. I wish we had held her back.
So please ask a lot of questions as to why they think that. It could be nothing. But it could be something other than her just being young, and the fact that she has a summer birthday gives you more options (as opposed to a January birthday, where she would be noticeably older than other kids if you held her back).
(Also, I'm a first year PreK teacher. There's maybe one kid out of thirty I would think might need to be held back, so if she's the one kid, I'd wanna know why a teacher is saying that!)
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I are debating the same thing at our house. Our youngest will turn five middle of this September and makes the cutoff for Kindergarten. We are currently paying close to $15k for full time preschool/daycare, so starting him would be a significant savings. Academically and socially he is ready for kindergarten. But we will likely wait. It's not that Kindergarten is hard, it's that first and second grade are much harder than they used to be. The kids are expected to do seat work and testing for extended periods of time. They are also expected to read much earlier than my generation. Our oldest is in 2nd grade and turned 8 in December. We had to wait with him because he didn't make the cutoff, but he is still one of the older kids in class. Watching him in first and second grade, I'm glad we had to wait.
You may hate that "parents make this competitive and hold back kids with June and July birthdays", but if you go ahead and put her in she'll always be compared to older more mature kids. It will probably be fine in Kindergarten, but might come back to bite you later.
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Yes! What BeanCounter said as well. 1st and 2nd grade are much, MUCH different than what you may remember. Also, depending on your district, they may only get 1 recess a day. That can be rough for some kids.
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Thanks. I guess what is the harm in sending her to K in August and then holding her back to repeat K if needed?
3 hours a day of K (which includes parties, days off, field trips, snack time) and then an hour of homework in K. Every time I turn around, the kids are out of school. Maybe I am undermining K. The parents I talk to hate the homework because they work, but we are already doing worksheets and stuff (and they are not), so the homework is negligible for me.
I did read to that holding kids back tends to be a more affluent decision, furthering widening gap between rich and poor. More affluent households can afford to hold back, whereas lower income households must send their kids.
Also, where our daughter goes to school now is a blue ribbon school. So I wonder if their expectations for students is above the curve compared to the public school, which will see the overall curve widen.
There are no free Pre-K programs here. $2-4K is a lot.
In November, she was struggling with some fine motor skills (tracing well) and writing her letters and staying inside lines. She follows directions, is asking questions of her teachers in a social setting, leads with other kids. Two months later, she can recognize her letters, sounding them out (even words we see on streets), reading little words, putting together cause and effect, problem solve, trace, write out letters. We are still working on free form writing (not tracing) - that is her biggest. Her areas of improvement according to her early assessment is on that and tracing.
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My wife has an early October birthday, her parents sent her on, and she has forever felt like that made for a less enjoyable experience for her in school. She was always the least mature one, and the smallest stature child. Confidence is key. I think it does give the kid an edge to be the oldest versus the youngest in a class. So, my son has a mid September birthday, and we held him out to go to what we call TK , which is pre kindergarten. Every kid is different, that said, I know we did the right thing for my son.
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Educator here.
I think talking to the PreK teacher about the specifics of her concerns would be a good place to start. I would also go to your state education agency website and look at the grade level expectations and see what a student is expected to know before and after Kindergarten (they might not have this posted if Kinder is not required in your state).
In my state, the rigor of the Kinder curriculum is BRUTAL. In the last few years, the expectations have ramped up to a developmentally inappropriate level for 5 year olds. But what do I know, It's not like I spent all my time in grad school studying childhood developmental psychology. Better to trust our state congress to know what is best (Grr. Sorry, got off on a tangent).
In your shoes I would be hesitant to go to Kinder, especially if the Pre-K teacher has some good reasoning. When I was working as an intervention specialist, the Kinder kiddos that got referred to me were almost always the summer birthdays and the younger part of the cohort (ie, kids who were 5 and 1 month vs 5 and 10 months).
The fact that your elementary is the 'best in the state' would also worry me. These are the kinds of schools where average kiddos get referred and lots of concern because advanced = average, and average = behind. Could be a lot of pressure for a younger cohort Kinder kiddo.
As some personal evidence, My sister and I also have September birthdays and our parents started us at 4 turning 5. For my sister, she was clearly not ready and ended up repeating kinder. I was fine academically, but I was too young and not ready emotionally and it showed big time, particularly in later years of middle school and high school. I also screwed around and wasted time in college because I wasn't mature enough to be ready.
Also, I have a little girl whose birthday is end of September and I am psyched that I don't have to make this decision and that I get to keep her out of Kinder until she is in the older group.
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Thanks. I guess what is the harm in sending her to K in August and then holding her back to repeat K if needed?
3 hours a day of K (which includes parties, days off, field trips, snack time) and then an hour of homework in K. Every time I turn around, the kids are out of school. Maybe I am undermining K. The parents I talk to hate the homework because they work, but we are already doing worksheets and stuff (and they are not), so the homework is negligible for me.
I did read to that holding kids back tends to be a more affluent decision, furthering widening gap between rich and poor. More affluent households can afford to hold back, whereas lower income households must send their kids.
Also, where our daughter goes to school now is a blue ribbon school. So I wonder if their expectations for students is above the curve compared to the public school, which will see the overall curve widen.
There are no free Pre-K programs here. $2-4K is a lot.
In November, she was struggling with some fine motor skills (tracing well) and writing her letters and staying inside lines. She follows directions, is asking questions of her teachers in a social setting, leads with other kids. Two months later, she can recognize her letters, sounding them out (even words we see on streets), reading little words, putting together cause and effect, problem solve, trace, write out letters. We are still working on free form writing (not tracing) - that is her biggest. Her areas of improvement according to her early assessment is on that and tracing.
The more you post the more I think you should wait.
The harm is that you may not get the choice. The school may say that she is ready to move on from K, only to then struggle in a later grade.
My son goes to a Blue Ribbon private school and I believe the academics are a bit harder. And most of the kids with a fall birthday wait. So your child will likely be the youngest in her grade her whole life. Which could be a problem for academics, or socially- think dating even.
My son's school still does handwriting. If she is struggling with fine motor and her handwriting is more delayed than her older classmates this will be very discouraging for her. And more practice doesn't always help, sometimes it's just something they have to grow into. Trust me- you do not want her to have the worst handwriting in the class!!
A few more months of maturity also helps with executive function down the road. Like I said, Kinder might be fine, but a few years down the road if she is unable to sit still or unable to execute bigger projects because she lacks that extra maturity it will be very hard on her self esteem.
In the grand scheme of things $2-$4k and another year is NOT a LOT. But having to push your child to meet higher expectations for the next 12 years could be devastating for her.
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The fact that your elementary is the 'best in the state' would also worry me. These are the kinds of schools where average kiddos get referred and lots of concern because advanced = average, and average = behind. Could be a lot of pressure for a younger cohort Kinder kiddo.
posted while I posted. DING, DING, DING!!!! YES.
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It may be worth having someone outside of the preschool test your child.
We have no info about the qualification of the person that made this possibly
off the cuff remark.
After having a kindergarten teach run my daughter through some tests, she said
she was good to start. The only thing she couldn't do was skip, I got the blame for that!
I taught her the next day.
My wife altered a birth certificate and got her in school early, she has a Sept. birthday.
She did well and graduated 4th in a class of over 400.
That was 20 years ago, we're past the statute of limitations.
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The fact that your elementary is the 'best in the state' would also worry me. These are the kinds of schools where average kiddos get referred and lots of concern because advanced = average, and average = behind. Could be a lot of pressure for a younger cohort Kinder kiddo.
posted while I posted. DING, DING, DING!!!! YES.
I am really overwhelmed with all the thoughtful responses everyone posted. Thank you so much!!!!!
You all make such great points, esp average = behind. Ok, will talk to my husband and put in a call today to the elementary on options.
If only we waited 1 more month to have a baby, I would not have this decision at all to make. Hahaha. Wouldn't life be easier?
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The fact that your elementary is the 'best in the state' would also worry me. These are the kinds of schools where average kiddos get referred and lots of concern because advanced = average, and average = behind. Could be a lot of pressure for a younger cohort Kinder kiddo.
posted while I posted. DING, DING, DING!!!! YES.
I am really overwhelmed with all the thoughtful responses everyone posted. Thank you so much!!!!!
You all make such great points, esp average = behind. Ok, will talk to my husband and put in a call today to the elementary on options.
If only we waited 1 more month to have a baby, I would not have this decision at all to make. Hahaha. Wouldn't life be easier?
an elementary school is going to tell you they are ready b/c the guildlines are at this age they are ready.
Again saving 2k now at the cost of likely much much more money in scholarships later seems like a bad investment IMO.
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Throw her in!
There's no real downside. Absolute worst case she repeats a year.
If you delay, there's no getting back that year gone.
Good luck!
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The fact that your elementary is the 'best in the state' would also worry me. These are the kinds of schools where average kiddos get referred and lots of concern because advanced = average, and average = behind. Could be a lot of pressure for a younger cohort Kinder kiddo.
posted while I posted. DING, DING, DING!!!! YES.
I am really overwhelmed with all the thoughtful responses everyone posted. Thank you so much!!!!!
You all make such great points, esp average = behind. Ok, will talk to my husband and put in a call today to the elementary on options.
If only we waited 1 more month to have a baby, I would not have this decision at all to make. Hahaha. Wouldn't life be easier?
FWIW, my older child was born in July and started on time (5 y/o in K). She has done fine and is near the top of her class in a highly ranked school. She was ready so we let her start. We noticed the social issues of having older classmates when she was younger much more than we do now.
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The fact that your elementary is the 'best in the state' would also worry me. These are the kinds of schools where average kiddos get referred and lots of concern because advanced = average, and average = behind. Could be a lot of pressure for a younger cohort Kinder kiddo.
I wonder if the blue ribbon school just wants to keep that appearance up? Ask the teacher detailed questions about why she's not ready - and listen carefully to the answers with an open mind.
FYI, the assumption that younger students won't do as well may not be accurate:
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/youngest-kid-smartest-kid
I'm an August baby, and I started on-time so I was always the youngest in my grade. I did extremely well academically - gifted & talented programs, scholarships, ivy league college, etc. And this began early - in 2nd grade I was offered a slot in the 2/3rd grade split class they had (they sought advanced 2nd graders and average 3rd graders). Socially, my folks were only worried because I was small for my age. I honestly didn't even realize I was one of the youngest kids in my grade until 8th, when the English teacher had us sit by age. Re sports - well, it probably depends on what sport you do. I did fairly well in a variety of sports (including state championships for one) and was generally "athletic", but was never going to win an athletic scholarship.
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The fact that your elementary is the 'best in the state' would also worry me. These are the kinds of schools where average kiddos get referred and lots of concern because advanced = average, and average = behind. Could be a lot of pressure for a younger cohort Kinder kiddo.
I wonder if the blue ribbon school just wants to keep that appearance up? Ask the teacher detailed questions about why she's not ready - and listen carefully to the answers with an open mind.
FYI, the assumption that younger students won't do as well may not be accurate:
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/youngest-kid-smartest-kid
I'm an August baby, and I started on-time so I was always the youngest in my grade. I did extremely well academically - gifted & talented programs, scholarships, ivy league college, etc. And this began early - in 2nd grade I was offered a slot in the 2/3rd grade split class they had (they sought advanced 2nd graders and average 3rd graders). Socially, my folks were only worried because I was small for my age. I honestly didn't even realize I was one of the youngest kids in my grade until 8th, when the English teacher had us sit by age. Re sports - well, it probably depends on what sport you do. I did fairly well in a variety of sports (including state championships for one) and was generally "athletic", but was never going to win an athletic scholarship.
amazing research from a sample size of one .. yourself.
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i'll take your single sample and raise you 55 times but still not that large
http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/academic-redshirting/
kids who get red shirted are happy they were
kids who werent wish they were.
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It is interesting that the cut off isn't the calendar year. Here (Canada), it all goes by calendar year, so all kids born in 2012 will be in the same class regardless of whether they are born in January or December. In those first few years, the difference is noticeable for sure...buy by the time they hit grade 2 or 3...it isn't anymore. I would register her and just move forward with it. I wouldn't want to hold my child back and have them be a year behind their peers when they are teens, young adults because of a few months difference when they are 4. My daughter is also 4 and was born August 18th and going to kindergarten in Sept as well. There will be (January) kids who might be a bit further ahead...but honestly, who cares...then she will learn from them! I'd rather have my child be challenged than bored (I have a January son who was bored to death the first 3 years...but now it is evening out). Good luck with whatever you decide! (and don't let someone else make the call for you...if the school didn't want June/July August kids in Kindergarten, then they should change the cut off date!)
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It is interesting that the cut off isn't the calendar year. Here (Canada), it all goes by calendar year, so all kids born in 2012 will be in the same class regardless of whether they are born in January or December. In those first few years, the difference is noticeable for sure...buy by the time they hit grade 2 or 3...it isn't anymore. I would register her and just move forward with it. I wouldn't want to hold my child back and have them be a year behind their peers when they are teens, young adults because of a few months difference when they are 4. My daughter is also 4 and was born August 18th and going to kindergarten in Sept as well. There will be (January) kids who might be a bit further ahead...but honestly, who cares...then she will learn from them! I'd rather have my child be challenged than bored (I have a January son who was bored to death the first 3 years...but now it is evening out). Good luck with whatever you decide! (and don't let someone else make the call for you...if the school didn't want June/July August kids in Kindergarten, then they should change the cut off date!)
But if you're in an area where waiting is common, then your not "holding them back", you're starting them "early".
I would rather have a kid that's older and bored in some areas (you can give more or different work for that) than a child that is "challenged" which could lead to discouragement. Unfortunately you don't know until you're there, and then it's too late.
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It is interesting that the cut off isn't the calendar year. Here (Canada), it all goes by calendar year, so all kids born in 2012 will be in the same class regardless of whether they are born in January or December. In those first few years, the difference is noticeable for sure...buy by the time they hit grade 2 or 3...it isn't anymore. I would register her and just move forward with it. I wouldn't want to hold my child back and have them be a year behind their peers when they are teens, young adults because of a few months difference when they are 4. My daughter is also 4 and was born August 18th and going to kindergarten in Sept as well. There will be (January) kids who might be a bit further ahead...but honestly, who cares...then she will learn from them! I'd rather have my child be challenged than bored (I have a January son who was bored to death the first 3 years...but now it is evening out). Good luck with whatever you decide! (and don't let someone else make the call for you...if the school didn't want June/July August kids in Kindergarten, then they should change the cut off date!)
But if you're in an area where waiting is common, then your not "holding them back", you're starting them "early".
I would rather have a kid that's older and bored in some areas (you can give more or different work for that) than a child that is "challenged" which could lead to discouragement. Unfortunately you don't know until you're there, and then it's too late.
you also have the ability as a parent to teach them as well not everything has to come from the classroom if they arent stimulated.
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In my state, the rigor of the Kinder curriculum is BRUTAL. In the last few years, the expectations have ramped up to a developmentally inappropriate level for 5 year olds. But what do I know, It's not like I spent all my time in grad school studying childhood developmental psychology. Better to trust our state congress to know what is best (Grr. Sorry, got off on a tangent).
I think the above is really important and I'm glad that Pyschstache mentioned it.
Our oldest is right on the cusp (he would turn 5 two weeks after K started) and we opted to start him next year. One of the biggest reasons was that current expectations do seem to be developmentally inappropriate. We hope the extra year in pre-k will help him enjoy school more now. And he seems to be learning a ton through play-based interaction.
Another note on developmentally inappropriate stuff- ie Homework for 5 year olds. Our pre-k and pre-school both send weekly homework packets home for our children. I've told both teachers that we will not be doing weekly homework assignments (especially for our 3 year old). They argued a bit at first but I convinced them that it wasn't my own "laziness" as one called it, but a deep belief that it is not good for them. It is worth mentioning to a teacher. In most states the teacher is simply required to Assign the homework. If the child is mastering the skills without homework, the teacher may not mind that much.
A thought I've been having lately related to red-shirting. When the coursework for Kindergarten is so inappropriate that many parents feel a need to red shirt their kids just to pass kindergarten - isn't it really first grade? and if so- why don't we go back to 5 year olds going to play based kindergarten and "formal" education starting first grade at age 6
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In my state, the rigor of the Kinder curriculum is BRUTAL. In the last few years, the expectations have ramped up to a developmentally inappropriate level for 5 year olds. But what do I know, It's not like I spent all my time in grad school studying childhood developmental psychology. Better to trust our state congress to know what is best (Grr. Sorry, got off on a tangent).
. One of the biggest reasons was that current expectations do seem to be developmentally inappropriate.
I am not in early education or childhood development, so this is an honest question out of curiousity. What are some examples of the current expectations that are "developmentally inappropriate" for 5 year olds? Thanks.
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wait you get homework in kindergarten now?
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A thought I've been having lately related to red-shirting. When the coursework for Kindergarten is so inappropriate that many parents feel a need to red shirt their kids just to pass kindergarten - isn't it really first grade? and if so- why don't we go back to 5 year olds going to play based kindergarten and "formal" education starting first grade at age 6
Totally agree. I am still shocked at what work is required for 1st and 2nd grade. It's a whole different world than when we went to school. I think this is the reason"red shirting" has become popular, not because of sports or competitive parents.
With our oldest we did a year of full time Montessori for pre-K. That allowed him the freedom to learn at his own pace and focus on doing work that he really enjoyed, which was science and math. My youngest is doing the same, but he prefers to spend his time doing art at school. It seems to be a great (however expensive) intro into kindergarten.
Honestly I would prefer that my children could do Montessori K-4th or 6th grade, but it's not an option for us.
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It is interesting that the cut off isn't the calendar year. Here (Canada), it all goes by calendar year, so all kids born in 2012 will be in the same class regardless of whether they are born in January or December. In those first few years, the difference is noticeable for sure...buy by the time they hit grade 2 or 3...it isn't anymore. I would register her and just move forward with it. I wouldn't want to hold my child back and have them be a year behind their peers when they are teens, young adults because of a few months difference when they are 4. My daughter is also 4 and was born August 18th and going to kindergarten in Sept as well. There will be (January) kids who might be a bit further ahead...but honestly, who cares...then she will learn from them! I'd rather have my child be challenged than bored (I have a January son who was bored to death the first 3 years...but now it is evening out). Good luck with whatever you decide! (and don't let someone else make the call for you...if the school didn't want June/July August kids in Kindergarten, then they should change the cut off date!)
Canada has cut offs as well, here it's Jan 31.
I had a friend/neighbor who was 1 year younger with a shared birthday (so he was exactly 365 days younger) and 2 grades lower. In the 80's there was red shirting in Canada as well, in my case I was the youngest in my class and he was the oldest.
Throughout school there's differences. I needed to catch up in grade 1 when I fell behind in reading, I was assigned 1 on 1 time with the specialist, I was slightly behind due to my age, it lasted a few months I was the last to get my drivers license in my peer group, my classmates got use to me asking for rides for a year. I was one of the last in my class to hit puberty (not the last, I was ahead of the average age but started up to 11 months behind), I fell behind on sports for a year, after puberty my size was the same but sports can be a big deal to some kids. Lets be honest, youngest kids in the class generally hit all the milestones after the oldest kids, its how life works.
I capped it off with moving out at 17.5 years old. One of the logical outcomes with starting early is finishing early and moving on early. If I had been delayed I would have moved out at 18.5 years, my parents would have had one more year with me. The easiest way to sum up the merits for red shirting is what's the rush to grow up? Its the journey and not the finish line that matters in life, make the journey the best for you and your child. Do you want your child to get a job and move out a year early? That's the benefit of affluence, poor people need to have their kids move out to save food costs (among other childhood expenses), rich families can absorb the extra costs.
My children will be on the older side of their classes. I look forward to the extra year at home when they get older.
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wait you get homework in kindergarten now?
I dont remember homework for K, wow.
But I did have homework assigned every week 1st grade and 2-3 times per week 2nd grade. This was early 80s.
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In my state, the rigor of the Kinder curriculum is BRUTAL. In the last few years, the expectations have ramped up to a developmentally inappropriate level for 5 year olds. But what do I know, It's not like I spent all my time in grad school studying childhood developmental psychology. Better to trust our state congress to know what is best (Grr. Sorry, got off on a tangent).
. One of the biggest reasons was that current expectations do seem to be developmentally inappropriate.
I'm not an educator and I'm not sure that it was "developmentally inappropriate", but my child was expected to be reading at a level D and taking Accelerated Reader tests on comprehension at the end of Kindergarten as well as doing some creative writing stories (even if they had to phonetically do the spelling for their story). When I was in Kinder (35 years ago), we spent Kindergarten learning the letters and their sounds. And counting.
edited to try and fix the quote.
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our child is expected around the end of august. my wife and i both prefer to hold our child back one year. Have you read Malcolm Gladwell's book outliers. its a good read. it focuses on timing and a lot of it revolves around sports. for example the cut off for baseball is typically June 1 so the kid born june 2nd is playing with younger kids and looks bigger better faster stronger. not coincidentally most baseball players are born in the summer months of June July and August. Why? b/c they looked better than the competition and were given more opportunities to succeed. Personally i think the same applies to schooling. A child that is older has a more developed brain and will appear to be a faster learner than the rest. Giving them a leg up and confidence on top of everything else. not to mention if they play sports too they will be bigger/older than most allwoing them a better chance to make the teams since they are grade based not age based.
+1
My son was born in early Sept and we put him in school when he was eligible.
He was extremely smart (of course I would say this), but his social skills were a little lacking.
He was crazy about sports, but stopped playing basketball in middle school. The other kids had gone thru puberty and we much bigger/aggressive ...
Edit: DS2 was born in April, he made it on time. Even a few months time make a lot of difference in maturity.
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In my state, the rigor of the Kinder curriculum is BRUTAL. In the last few years, the expectations have ramped up to a developmentally inappropriate level for 5 year olds. But what do I know, It's not like I spent all my time in grad school studying childhood developmental psychology. Better to trust our state congress to know what is best (Grr. Sorry, got off on a tangent).
. One of the biggest reasons was that current expectations do seem to be developmentally inappropriate.
I am not in early education or childhood development, so this is an honest question out of curiousity. What are some examples of the current expectations that are "developmentally inappropriate" for 5 year olds? Thanks.
I'm not in education either but from doing a lot of research the biggest issues for us were: nightly homework, a short recess only twice a week, and too much sitting still time in desks. Also I feel like our district uses ipads and screen time way too much at a young age so I am happy to delay that for a year.
For actual educational requirements, too many worksheets and the expectation that the child can read, write sentences, add, subtract and be learning basic multiplication by the end of kindergarten. Basically to get through the homework and worksheets your child should know how to read and write before they start kindergarten (at least that is how it feels in our school district.)
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I don't think there's any real bad long term effect from repeating kindergarten - IF your child can get past the stigma of flunking a year of school. For some, that propels them into a self-fulfilling prophecy of believing they are bad at school. If you go with putting your child into kindergarten now, I suggest now, before they start, have a conversation with them about it, that they are entering it a year ahead of many children and that you expect them to repeat it once when they are the same age as their classmates.
I don't want to call it brainwashing ... but that's what it is. Brainwashing them into understanding that what they are doing is advanced, and keep that messaging up throughout the year. If they are struggling with a concept, you just keep repeating "Wow, I'm so impressed that you are trying this, when it's aimed at people a year older than you. That's like your classmates doing work from the first grade room!"
At the end of the year, either they move ahead and all is good, or they repeat the year, but they are prepped to spend the rest of their school career explaining (to themselves or friends) that they repeated kindergarten because they did the first year of it at a super young age - not that they were "too stupid" for kindergarten or developmentally slow in some way.
Another thing to consider is whether - once your child is in kindergarten - there is outside pressure on their teacher to inflate their grades or promote them to the next grade whether or not they are ready. There can be a lot of pressure on teachers to make it look like all their kids are succeeding. If children in the classroom aren't ready for an activity and can't master it yet, the administrators may evaluate the teacher as "ineffective" - even though it's more a statement about the maturity of the kids than the teacher. And if a school has to hold a child back a grade, that might be a thing they have to report to the state, which can effect their school rating, their funding, all sorts of things.
It may actually be easier to put them in another local school kindergarten if you have schools of choice where you live, and then transfer them to their final local school district, so the receiving school doesn't have motivation to push them through to first grade if they aren't ready for it. You'd have to do more research on the feasibility of that. If it's doable, it might also help remove stigma for your child to restart kindergarten in a new school, so they aren't faced with seeing all their friends moved to first grade, and all their friends aren't knowing them as "that kid who flunked."
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The fact that your elementary is the 'best in the state' would also worry me. These are the kinds of schools where average kiddos get referred and lots of concern because advanced = average, and average = behind. Could be a lot of pressure for a younger cohort Kinder kiddo.
I wonder if the blue ribbon school just wants to keep that appearance up? Ask the teacher detailed questions about why she's not ready - and listen carefully to the answers with an open mind.
FYI, the assumption that younger students won't do as well may not be accurate:
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/youngest-kid-smartest-kid
I'm an August baby, and I started on-time so I was always the youngest in my grade. I did extremely well academically - gifted & talented programs, scholarships, ivy league college, etc. And this began early - in 2nd grade I was offered a slot in the 2/3rd grade split class they had (they sought advanced 2nd graders and average 3rd graders). Socially, my folks were only worried because I was small for my age. I honestly didn't even realize I was one of the youngest kids in my grade until 8th, when the English teacher had us sit by age. Re sports - well, it probably depends on what sport you do. I did fairly well in a variety of sports (including state championships for one) and was generally "athletic", but was never going to win an athletic scholarship.
amazing research from a sample size of one .. yourself.
Forum rules, play nicely? No need for snark.
I posted first an article, which references data/studies of many. I've excerpted part of it below, since it seems you didn't read it. Because a lot of people were posting about their personal stories, I posted mine as a counterpoint. I'm not sure why it's ok to post on the other side without criticism or snark, but not on this side.
The data, however, belies this assumption. While earlier studies have argued that redshirted children do better both socially and academically—citing data on school evaluations, leadership positions, and test scores—more recent analyses suggest that the opposite may well be the case: the youngest kids, who barely make the age cutoff but are enrolled anyway, ultimately end up on top—not their older classmates. When a group of economists followed Norwegian children born between 1962 and 1988, until the youngest turned eighteen, in 2006, they found that, at age eighteen, children who started school a year later had I.Q. scores that were significantly lower than their younger counterparts. Their earnings also suffered: through age thirty, men who started school later earned less. A separate study, of the entire Swedish population born between 1935 and 1984, came to a similar conclusion: in the course of the life of a typical Swede, starting school later translated to reduced over-all earnings. In a 2008 study at Harvard University, researchers found that, within the U.S., increased rates of redshirting were leading to equally worrisome patterns. The delayed age of entry, the authors argued, resulted in academic stagnation: it decreased completion rates for both high-school and college students, increased the gender gap in graduation rates (men fell behind women), and intensified socioeconomic differences.
As it turns out, the benefits of being older and more mature may not be as important as the benefits of being younger than your classmates. In 2007, the economists Elizabeth Cascio and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach decided to analyze the data of Tennessee’s Project STAR—an experiment originally designed to test the effects of classroom size on learning—with a different set of considerations: How would the relative class composition affect student performance? Their approach differed from most studies of redshirting in one crucial way: the students had been assigned totally randomly to their kindergarten classrooms, with no option for parents to lobby for, say, a different teacher, a different school, or a class in which the child would have some other perceived or actual relative advantage. This led to true experimental variation in relative age and maturity. That is, the same student could be relatively younger in one class, but relatively older in another, depending on his initial class assignment. The researchers discovered that relatively more mature students didn’t have an academic edge; instead, when they looked at their progress at the end of kindergarten, and, later, when they reached middle school, they were worse off in multiple respects. Not only did they score significantly lower on achievement tests—both in kindergarten and middle school—they were also more likely to have been kept back a year by the time they reached middle school, and were less likely to take college-entrance exams. The less mature students, on the other hand, experienced positive effects from being in a relatively more mature environment: in striving to catch up with their peers, they ended up surpassing them.
[snip]
Few researchers would dispute that, in the immediate term, being relatively bigger, quicker, smarter, and stronger is a good thing. Repeatedly, the studies have found exactly that—older kindergarten students perform better on tests, receive better teacher evaluations, and do better socially. But then, something happens: after that early boost, their performance takes a nosedive. By the time they get to eighth grade, any disparity has largely evened out—and, by college, younger students repeatedly outperform older ones in any given year.
Why would that be the case? It all comes back to that relative difference: if you are always bigger and smarter, you may be more likely to get bored, and to think that everything—learning included—should come easily. You don’t have to strive and overcome obstacles in the form of older, more developed kids. If, on the other hand, you’re on the younger end of the spectrum, you are constantly forced to reach for your limits. And unlike in sports, where physical size often plays an undeniable, difficult-to-circumvent role in your eventual success, in school a physical disadvantage can turn into an academic advantage: children may learn to compete where they can succeed, where their persistence and attention can accomplish what their physical size may not.
These skills translate to a mindset that is crucial to lifelong achievement. In a way, the choice between redshirting and not is the choice between providing your child with a maturity boost or a challenge. While there is certainly an absolute benefit to being bigger and stronger, learning to deal with and overcome obstacles also has a long-lasting effect. It’s a quality the psychologist Angela Duckworth calls “grit,” and Carol Dweck dubs the “incremental mindset”: the knowledge that perseverance, dedication, and motivation can help you where an absolute advantage may not immediately come to the rescue. If you’ve always been praised as the best and brightest, chances are that that self-perception will eventually backfire; if you’ve had to earn your distinctions, they’re more likely to last.
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Regarding size, why do so many people assume that matters? I was born in the middle of the year and was always the smallest kid in the class. I knew it, they knew it, and after some initial teasing when I just owned my height it was never a thing again. Teaching your kids resilience, and that there will always be differences among people, is far more important than some arbitrary notion that height is super important. Also, puberty. My family starts puberty late, so the fact that I was a middle-of-the-year kid meant absolutely nothing in terms of that. If I'd started school early I still would have been considered "late" in some ways. There's an average time and some kids will start earlier or later no matter what. My best friend got her period when she was nine, long before they started teaching about puberty in school. This has not affected our grownup lives whatsoever.
I expect that my daughter will also be among the shortest in her class, no matter what year we enroll her in. She's got a mid-November birthday and I'm giving serious consideration to trying to test her into kindergarten early or just skipping kindergarten when the time comes and going straight to 1st grade. Why? Because she learns better from older kids. She's super helpful and loves helping other kids, but in terms of learning she does far better when she sees older kids doing something. She's better on her balance bike than the 6-year-old next door because she saw the other kid doing a skill and then realized she could too. Then she mastered it before the 6-yr-old. My concerns about enrolling early only have to do with attention span, which is why it's still up in the air. We'll see what her attention span is like when the time comes, and look into other factors such as how much recess she'd get. I'd also only enroll her in 1/2-day kindergarten if she starts early. I remember being bored and I'd rather have my (smart) kid challenged than bored all day long.
So, as to your situation. As others have said, talk to your pre-k teacher. Look at what skills your kid is supposed to have before kindergarten and see if there's anything you can work on. Look at how your kid learns and attention span. What it comes down to is, will being one of the oldest in the class work best with your kid's personality, or will being one of the youngest and working harder for everything be the best prompt? There's no right or wrong answer, it's what will work best for your individual kid. We can give all the advice and examples in the world, but in the end none of us knows your kid. You do.
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I'm not an educator and I'm not sure that it was "developmentally inappropriate", but my child was expected to be reading at a level D and taking Accelerated Reader tests on comprehension at the end of Kindergarten as well as doing some creative writing stories (even if they had to phonetically do the spelling for their story). When I was in Kinder (35 years ago), we spent Kindergarten learning the letters and their sounds. And counting.
BeanCounter- Exactly! Back when I was a youngn' (30 years ago ;) Kindergarten was about 3 hours long and I remember lots of "circle time", singing songs, alphabet games, learning to tie my shoes, playing at various stations and show and tell.
My son's kindergarten will run 6.5 hours a day and they have actual desks in the classroom and a full schedule of math, language, reading etc - definitely closer to what I experienced in first and second grade.
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Hi all - we have a 4 yo girl that is enrolled half-time in Pre-K for $2k per year. She is eligible to start free Kindegarten in August. She turns 5 days before school starts - cutoff is Sept 1, her birthday is August 27.
Many parents around here hold their younger kids back for a variety of reasons, sports or feeling like their kids are not intellectually/emotionally ready.
If I read the K prerequisite knowledge requirements, my daughter meets them today, let alone in 7 months' time, I hope she can be starting to read more. Her Pre-K teacher does not think my daughter is ready, but I can't tell if it is because all her peers are 5+ and will be going on 6 for K. The teacher says that my daughter is one of the first kids to help another kid if he falls down and rsteshigh on social skills.I hate that other parents make this competitive and hold back kids with June and July birthdays.
We also work on writing/problem solving/tracing/etc worksheets with our daughter (no other parent I have spoken to does this) and build in counting, learning letters in everything we do throughout our day.
My husband and I were thinking about enrolling her in free K (it's a half day program) and if need be, hold her back and do second year of Kindegarten. I hate holding her back already, without giving her a chance to try it first. Plus, I don't want to spend more money on Pre-K.
BTW - our local public school is one of the best in the state. Enrollment is just a few weeks away for Aug 2017.
Anyone have similar experience? Thoughts? Thanks!
Oh boy. So. My son is 4.5 and will turn 5 in July. There is a massive discussion among my mom's group about this, particularly for moms of boys. Our group's birthdays are June through early August. One of my teacher friends says "always hold back boys".
I am not holding my son back. I've read the requirements, both academic and social. He's ready. Regardless, our school will have an assessment either during the summer or the first week of school. If he's NOT ready they would move him into TK (transitional kindergarten). After that, the school would make a recommendation on whether to do kinder again or move to first.
We are in a district with a great deal of English learners and poor kids. My older son was way ahead in kindergarten - he was a March baby when Dec 1 was the cutoff AND many of his classmates did not go to preschool, and also were learning English.
So. With all of that considered, my English speaking kindergartener with a big brother in 6th grade will do JUST FINE.
However, you just never know. Some parents want their kids to be bigger, and better, and the smartest in the class. Um...yeah, I don't know what to say about that. It can really make it even worse for teachers and the disparity. I have a friend who has taught in the poorest school in the district and a private school. Private school kids are 6 when they start kinder, and prior to the introduction of TK, the poorest kids started at 4.75.
Other friends are holding their kids back because they are autistic or are not EMOTIONALLY ready. That is totally valid. Some kids aren't academically ready - they don't know any letters yet (FYI, kinder today is like 1st was when I was a kid). That's a good reason.
But holding a kid back because they would be middle of the pack, but not super duper number one best? Meh.
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In my state, the rigor of the Kinder curriculum is BRUTAL. In the last few years, the expectations have ramped up to a developmentally inappropriate level for 5 year olds. But what do I know, It's not like I spent all my time in grad school studying childhood developmental psychology. Better to trust our state congress to know what is best (Grr. Sorry, got off on a tangent).
. One of the biggest reasons was that current expectations do seem to be developmentally inappropriate.
Well, I remember napping in kindergarten and learning to share.
We took a tour of our home school, and the principal was talking about the importance of reading in kindergarten.
Um...that's great? But my older son didn't read until the middle of first grade. Requiring 5 year olds to take reading tests seems a bit much. Some kids excel at reading (my son's best buddy was reading at a first grade level at age 4). But many kids will get discouraged.
I am not in early education or childhood development, so this is an honest question out of curiousity. What are some examples of the current expectations that are "developmentally inappropriate" for 5 year olds? Thanks.
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Both of my kids are among the youngest in their classes. Cut-off here is July 1st and my kids were born in mid-May and in June. We had them start right on time -- mostly because I didn't even know red-shirting was even a thing. Seriously?! If everyone is doing it, it's not much of an advantage, is it?
Anyway, I digress. My son (born in May) was always one of the biggest kids in his class despite being the youngest. Very athletic and very social. He's the golden boy. My daughter, born in June, has never been all that great academically, but I've never really attributed that to her age (but more her internal make-up ADD without hyperactivity).
Every kid is a little different.
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If you think you may end up having to repeat kindergarten, I would wait. I still remember the kid that got held back in K at my school and it's been 25 years. He faced a huge social stigma for "flunking" that followed him through his school career. Just something to consider.
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I have older kids who went to 'normal' kindergarten... then my 3rd went. IT's like 1st grade. They expect kids to sit and do papers, listen, memorize sight words (80+), and really learn to read. Recess is short, kids don't physically move enough. There is a reason your PreK teacher is telling you to wait. You are NOT holding your child back, you are gifting her an extra year of childhood. That's how you need to start looking at it.
You mention specifically mention the option to hold her and re-do if she really isn't ready, but please also consider that her self-esteem is as important as her maturity to handle the workload. Not being able to keep up makes kids feel stupid and get frustrated. Every kindergarten teacher I have spoken to have said that K is now 1st grade, and kids are suffering for it. They need to be moving more. It isn't about letters and knowledge, it's about the ability to sit and focus for long periods of time. This is what is not developmentally appropriate.
Thankfully my boys were over 5.5 when they went. If they had been summer birthdays, I would have held them back.
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Our 4 year old misses the cutoff by 3 days to start this fall. He is big for his age, so petitoning to go early is on our mind. So thank you all for the discussion, it is useful to hear the broad range of thinking.
Ours is normal for development besides his height/weight, so our default is to just let him be the oldest/tallest in his class. I skipped three years of high school, and it was the right thing for me, so I am hoping our kid won't end up un-challenged and bored like I was. We shall see.
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I can just picture in a few decades we'll have a bunch of 10 year olds in kindergarten. That would very entertaining to see.
One can find evidence to support both sides of the argument if red shirting is advantageous or not. One thing that is rarely disputed when it comes to academic success is the level parents involvement in their children's education and the child's household socioeconomic status. So that fact that you are on this site and are even thinking about red shirting gives your child a leg up on most kids.
The current research on the advantages of red shirting is also a poor sample due to the fact that most families that consciously red shirt are highly educated and in a stable financial position to afford the extra year in day care of have a SAHP*. So when evaluating if red shirting provides any measurable differences the researcher can't control of socioeconomic status and education level.
To those that point out the benefits when it comes to athletics, yes older children will more than likely have an advantage to younger children but size is not the only factor. Actual skill is equally if not more important than size and that is mostly a function of practice and coaching, which is highly correlated to the families ability to afford lessons, enrollment in leagues/clubs, travel teams ect.
My wife and I had a similar dilemma when deciding to homeschool or not. I was so focused on the pro's and cons I was going around in circles. Here we are living in a city with free public schools and we were thinking it still wasn't good enough for our kids. Compared to the schools I went to our neighborhood public schools are elite institutions. Eventually we decided to homeschool primarily because it was a better fit for our family and not because we thought it was significantly better academically. Kids turn out great or messed up either way.
https://msu.edu/~telder/2010-EER.pdf (https://msu.edu/~telder/2010-EER.pdf)
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So many truly great thoughts you all provided.
A funny thing happened yesterday, a neighborhood mom came up to me while I was picking up my daughter. She mentioned a local church nursery, she used to send her kids as well as her friends kids went there, that is Pre-K 5 yr Olds (need to be 5 before Oct 1). I wonder if it more advanced, more appropriate for her, mornings only (like K here).
I will update our decision. Have 2 weeks until registrations all begin. Right now, I am considering keeping her home another year. Or, not sending her early, as someone else said. My husband is not yet convinced, but we will get there.
I really appreciate all the great points. Truly.
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And also.....either way, you need to work with her on fine motor skills. PM me if you want some good resources or you can just google it. Loads you can do at home to help her in those areas...and my daughter is proof that it's a BIG deal to not get it fixed before you get to upper grades.
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Such a personal decision. I live in an area where most parents red-shirt. It's also the land of special snowflakes. Red-shirting just goes against everything I believe. SOMEONE has to be the youngest. Why not mine?
Kindergarten is definitely more rigorous now than years ago - but ours still was NOT a "sit in your desk all day" environment. They have 2-3 recesses a day and incorporate a TON of movement. So maybe it's worth taking a visit to your elementary school to see what kind of learning environment you will be dealing with...
I have two boys - summer birthdays..June and August with a mid-September cut off. They both went "on time" (it's on time if you meet the deadline) and I can't imagine either of them in the class below them, frankly. They are in 5th and 2nd grade now and doing extremely well both academically and socially. They are doing great but we do not need them to be the biggest, best, smartest, best athlete, etc. (Although, ironically, I think being younger has made them better athletes).
There are some kids in our school that will graduate high school at 19 since parents are now red-shirting April and May birthdays. I graduated college at 21....I just can't imagine.
Anyway, good luck with the decision.
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This is such a great discussion. Our son will turn 5 in March and is on an IEP with social delays. At his last IEP meeting, the principal asked if we would be delaying kindergarten. WHAT? We didn't even know this was "on the table" so to speak. We were initially leaning toward no, and then his teacher spoke up and stated she feels he is ready for a 5 day/ week, full time classroom environment (which was our thinking, as well). His OT for fine motor delays will continue as long as it is needed, and we will continue working with him at home. We are anxious to see how he does at the screenings, as he does not read at all yet, and has limited letter recognition. If our community offered a full time preschool option, we would seriously consider that, but it appears kindergarten is our only option. We are open to repeating kindergarten if necessary. As it stands now, our son does not appear to care who is in his class, or if others are moving quicker academically than he is. Obviously this may change in the future.
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My son's birthday is less than a month before the cut off, and unless he is VERY ready, I plan to redshirt him. I don't care if he's competitive with sports or even if it gives him a competitive edge academically. I'm not worried about how he will compare to others in his class or whether he's the youngest or oldest. I think the things expected of Kindergartners today are ridiculous and way too much for most 5 year olds to handle, especially most 5 year old boys. When I was in Kindergarten it was only a half day and included a nap, long recess, and plenty of free play time. There was some learning of letters and numbers, but most other structured activities were basically arts and crafts. Now it is a full day with no nap, short recess, little free play time, and they even assign homework. It's probably more academic than first grade was for me. I want my son to have another year just enjoying playing outside and not worrying about tests and homework. And he'll still only be 18 when he graduates high school.
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This is such a great discussion. Our son will turn 5 in March and is on an IEP with social delays. At his last IEP meeting, the principal asked if we would be delaying kindergarten. WHAT? We didn't even know this was "on the table" so to speak. We were initially leaning toward no, and then his teacher spoke up and stated she feels he is ready for a 5 day/ week, full time classroom environment (which was our thinking, as well). His OT for fine motor delays will continue as long as it is needed, and we will continue working with him at home. We are anxious to see how he does at the screenings, as he does not read at all yet, and has limited letter recognition. If our community offered a full time preschool option, we would seriously consider that, but it appears kindergarten is our only option. We are open to repeating kindergarten if necessary. As it stands now, our son does not appear to care who is in his class, or if others are moving quicker academically than he is. Obviously this may change in the future.
Generally with special needs kids, I've read it's better to send them. They are behind already. Waiting a year isn't going to magically make them catch up-to-date it just gives them an easy year in preschool rather than challenging then in K.
That said, our an kiddo had a Sept birthday. Technically our district has a Sept 30 cutoff so he could have started at 4.95. we decided that was inappropriate given that 90% of summer birthdays were red shirt and 100% of other Sept kids were.
He's a great student academically despite his many challenges with social skills, self regulation, executive function, etc. to the point that he qualifies to skip a grade in math.
Oops. Guess we should have sent him.
You really never know with these things until it's way to late! A gifted kid who never is challenged has bad outcomes, statistically. A kid who starts too early may always feel behind
At age 4, who the hell knows which one you'll get?
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This is such a great discussion. Our son will turn 5 in March and is on an IEP with social delays. At his last IEP meeting, the principal asked if we would be delaying kindergarten. WHAT? We didn't even know this was "on the table" so to speak. We were initially leaning toward no, and then his teacher spoke up and stated she feels he is ready for a 5 day/ week, full time classroom environment (which was our thinking, as well). His OT for fine motor delays will continue as long as it is needed, and we will continue working with him at home. We are anxious to see how he does at the screenings, as he does not read at all yet, and has limited letter recognition. If our community offered a full time preschool option, we would seriously consider that, but it appears kindergarten is our only option. We are open to repeating kindergarten if necessary. As it stands now, our son does not appear to care who is in his class, or if others are moving quicker academically than he is. Obviously this may change in the future.
Generally with special needs kids, I've read it's better to send them. They are behind already. Waiting a year isn't going to magically make them catch up-to-date it just gives them an easy year in preschool rather than challenging then in K.
That said, our an kiddo had a Sept birthday. Technically our district has a Sept 30 cutoff so he could have started at 4.95. we decided that was inappropriate given that 90% of summer birthdays were red shirt and 100% of other Sept kids were.
He's a great student academically despite his many challenges with social skills, self regulation, executive function, etc. to the point that he qualifies to skip a grade in math.
Oops. Guess we should have sent him.
You really never know with these things until it's way to late! A gifted kid who never is challenged has bad outcomes, statistically. A kid who starts too early may always feel behind
At age 4, who the hell knows which one you'll get?
if they are really gifted they should be tested and put in the gifted programs ... i was it was great for challenging and free thinking. helped me a ton.
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This is such a great discussion. Our son will turn 5 in March and is on an IEP with social delays. At his last IEP meeting, the principal asked if we would be delaying kindergarten. WHAT? We didn't even know this was "on the table" so to speak. We were initially leaning toward no, and then his teacher spoke up and stated she feels he is ready for a 5 day/ week, full time classroom environment (which was our thinking, as well). His OT for fine motor delays will continue as long as it is needed, and we will continue working with him at home. We are anxious to see how he does at the screenings, as he does not read at all yet, and has limited letter recognition. If our community offered a full time preschool option, we would seriously consider that, but it appears kindergarten is our only option. We are open to repeating kindergarten if necessary. As it stands now, our son does not appear to care who is in his class, or if others are moving quicker academically than he is. Obviously this may change in the future.
Generally with special needs kids, I've read it's better to send them. They are behind already. Waiting a year isn't going to magically make them catch up-to-date it just gives them an easy year in preschool rather than challenging then in K.
That said, our an kiddo had a Sept birthday. Technically our district has a Sept 30 cutoff so he could have started at 4.95. we decided that was inappropriate given that 90% of summer birthdays were red shirt and 100% of other Sept kids were.
He's a great student academically despite his many challenges with social skills, self regulation, executive function, etc. to the point that he qualifies to skip a grade in math.
Oops. Guess we should have sent him.
You really never know with these things until it's way to late! A gifted kid who never is challenged has bad outcomes, statistically. A kid who starts too early may always feel behind
At age 4, who the hell knows which one you'll get?
if they are really gifted they should be tested and put in the gifted programs ... i was it was great for challenging and free thinking. helped me a ton.
Our experience has been that they can't really test and determine "giftedness" until around 2nd grade. Not sure if this is right or true everywhere.
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Our school doesn't test for gifted program until 3rd grade. The gifted teacher does do some "pull out" for academically advanced kids in the younger grades. In speaking with her - it's difficult when parents of red-shirted kids are demanding pull-out when their kids technically should be in the grade above. She only has a certain amount of time during the day. Teachers also differentiate...but in the younger grades its difficult with 22-26 kids at extremely varying abilities to challenge them all.
I agree that bored 6-8 year olds is NOT a good thing.
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Generally with special needs kids, I've read it's better to send them. They are behind already. Waiting a year isn't going to magically make them catch up-to-date it just gives them an easy year in preschool rather than challenging then in K.
I had not heard this, but it makes a lot of sense.
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Our school doesn't test for gifted program until 3rd grade. The gifted teacher does do some "pull out" for academically advanced kids in the younger grades. In speaking with her - it's difficult when parents of red-shirted kids are demanding pull-out when their kids technically should be in the grade above. She only has a certain amount of time during the day. Teachers also differentiate...but in the younger grades its difficult with 22-26 kids at extremely varying abilities to challenge them all.
I agree that bored 6-8 year olds is NOT a good thing.
In my son's school so far what I've seen in 1st and 2nd grade is that they group them for nearly all of their work by ability. Which is great, because it gives more challenging work to the kids that are showing more advancement in a subject. They try very hard to not let the kids know which bucket they fall in (advanced, on target, delayed-which still seems advanced by my book) but the kids still figure it out. And this is where I go back to it being a good thing to wait and let your kid be a bit more advanced. Some kids don't care, but mine is very sensitive to where ranks in the class. If he was consistently in the delayed group he would label himself "dumb" and nothing we said or did would talk him out of it. That's not something I want to deal with.
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Such a personal decision. I live in an area where most parents red-shirt. It's also the land of special snowflakes. Red-shirting just goes against everything I believe. SOMEONE has to be the youngest. Why not mine?
Kindergarten is definitely more rigorous now than years ago - but ours still was NOT a "sit in your desk all day" environment. They have 2-3 recesses a day and incorporate a TON of movement. So maybe it's worth taking a visit to your elementary school to see what kind of learning environment you will be dealing with...
I have two boys - summer birthdays..June and August with a mid-September cut off. They both went "on time" (it's on time if you meet the deadline) and I can't imagine either of them in the class below them, frankly. They are in 5th and 2nd grade now and doing extremely well both academically and socially. They are doing great but we do not need them to be the biggest, best, smartest, best athlete, etc. (Although, ironically, I think being younger has made them better athletes).
There are some kids in our school that will graduate high school at 19 since parents are now red-shirting April and May birthdays. I graduated college at 21....I just can't imagine.
Anyway, good luck with the decision.
Yes, I didn't realize it until late last year. My son started playing sports about 1.5 years ago, and his first 2 seasons had a kid on his team that we knew when they were babies, but lost touch with.
My son is small for his age (15th percentile), the other kid is pretty big for his age (almost a head taller, 95th percentile). Other kid one month younger, so March/April birthdays. Cutoff was December 2 for kindergarten.
I was chatting with the mom about the 4th grade "big project" (even though they are in different schools, all 4th graders do the same project) and she said "he's in 4th? My son's in 3rd." So. Wow. He's a full 1 year and 8 months older than some other kids in his class. He started kindergarten at 6.5.
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This is such a great discussion. Our son will turn 5 in March and is on an IEP with social delays. At his last IEP meeting, the principal asked if we would be delaying kindergarten. WHAT? We didn't even know this was "on the table" so to speak. We were initially leaning toward no, and then his teacher spoke up and stated she feels he is ready for a 5 day/ week, full time classroom environment (which was our thinking, as well). His OT for fine motor delays will continue as long as it is needed, and we will continue working with him at home. We are anxious to see how he does at the screenings, as he does not read at all yet, and has limited letter recognition. If our community offered a full time preschool option, we would seriously consider that, but it appears kindergarten is our only option. We are open to repeating kindergarten if necessary. As it stands now, our son does not appear to care who is in his class, or if others are moving quicker academically than he is. Obviously this may change in the future.
Generally with special needs kids, I've read it's better to send them. They are behind already. Waiting a year isn't going to magically make them catch up-to-date it just gives them an easy year in preschool rather than challenging then in K.
That said, our an kiddo had a Sept birthday. Technically our district has a Sept 30 cutoff so he could have started at 4.95. we decided that was inappropriate given that 90% of summer birthdays were red shirt and 100% of other Sept kids were.
He's a great student academically despite his many challenges with social skills, self regulation, executive function, etc. to the point that he qualifies to skip a grade in math.
Oops. Guess we should have sent him.
You really never know with these things until it's way to late! A gifted kid who never is challenged has bad outcomes, statistically. A kid who starts too early may always feel behind
At age 4, who the hell knows which one you'll get?
if they are really gifted they should be tested and put in the gifted programs ... i was it was great for challenging and free thinking. helped me a ton.
Our experience has been that they can't really test and determine "giftedness" until around 2nd grade. Not sure if this is right or true everywhere.
That's when they test here.
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One thing to keep in mind about research studies that show benefits to red-shirting is that most of the them were done several decades ago when red-shirting was much less common. A red-shirted child two decades ago might have been one of only a handful of kids in the class who were held back so they accrued benefits from being quite a bit older in comparison to most their classmates. Now that red-shirting is so common, the comparative benefits are no longer there because a large portion of the class has also been held back. That's not necessarily a reason to not red-shirt, but it is reason to assume that the benefits described by Gladwell and others don't apply now that it has become completely commonplace for children to be held back.
Also note that red-shirting and the increase in expectations for kindergarten go hand-in-hand. As the age of children in K has increased, so have the standards, such that now we have mostly 6-year-olds in K doing the same work as 6-year-olds were doing in grade 1 several decades ago. So in a sense, school districts have sort of adapted to red-shirting by providing grade 1 curricula during the K years, without changing much else.
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I'd listen to the teacher to see why she thinks your daughter isn't ready.
We will be in the same boat in another year. Our youngest is a late June boy so we are debating on Jr. Kindy or moving him straight to Kindy. He is not advanced like his older brother and he is very small compared to other kids his age. Since we don't do pre-K, it might be a good idea to hold him back. We figure we will take him to the K screening and see what the district thinks. He's a very shy kid too so I am wondering how he will even participate during the screening.
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Have to chime in. We have a daughter who did 2 years of pre-school and then entered K. The K teacher wanted to hold her back. In all fairness, our daughter was adopted internationally, so we were dealing with everything being new and language on top of it. Plus, she's very petite--still is. I ended up not agreeing to hold our daughter back. My feeling is that if we have to do two years for every grade level, she won't graduate til she's in her 20s. There's plenty of research out there about holding kids back. The dropout rate is higher for one, plus the child would always have been looking at "their" class noting that they should have graduated with "their" class, so I would be very careful about thinking about holding a child back, even in K.
And agree with others regarding K is the new 1st grade, etc. We try and teach these kids to be rocket scientists at age 5. It's somewhat disturbing.
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Have to chime in. We have a daughter who did 2 years of pre-school and then entered K. The K teacher wanted to hold her back. In all fairness, our daughter was adopted internationally, so we were dealing with everything being new and language on top of it. Plus, she's very petite--still is. I ended up not agreeing to hold our daughter back. My feeling is that if we have to do two years for every grade level, she won't graduate til she's in her 20s. There's plenty of research out there about holding kids back. The dropout rate is higher for one, plus the child would always have been looking at "their" class noting that they should have graduated with "their" class, so I would be very careful about thinking about holding a child back, even in K.
And agree with others regarding K is the new 1st grade, etc. We try and teach these kids to be rocket scientists at age 5. It's somewhat disturbing.
The problem with this research is that it isn't (and can't realistically) be properly controlled to determine efficacy like other educational interventions can. Students who are retained are not a random selection of students, they are students who have had difficulty with school in one shape or another, so it makes sense that those students who continue to have problems an drop out at higher rates than average.
It's kind of the reverse problem someone mentioned upthread where the benefits of 'redshirting' (a term I personally find stupid) are masked by the fact that the parents doing it are upper middle class families of means that can support and additional year of childcare and enrichment anyways.
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In my state, the rigor of the Kinder curriculum is BRUTAL. In the last few years, the expectations have ramped up to a developmentally inappropriate level for 5 year olds. But what do I know, It's not like I spent all my time in grad school studying childhood developmental psychology. Better to trust our state congress to know what is best (Grr. Sorry, got off on a tangent).
. One of the biggest reasons was that current expectations do seem to be developmentally inappropriate.
I am not in early education or childhood development, so this is an honest question out of curiousity. What are some examples of the current expectations that are "developmentally inappropriate" for 5 year olds? Thanks.
Meant to come back and follow-up on this. Sorry about the lag.
In my state, here are some of the things that are out of line with average development in Kinder:
1 15 minute recess/movement break per day (too little)
1 40 minute PE class 2x per week (too little)
homework (useless at pretty much any grade, but super absurd for 5 YOs)
hours of independent/check-in desk work per day
inferencing/making predictions in reading (how about we focus on learning to read in the first place)
writing other than practicing the alphabet, spelling words, and your name (Kinder has students writing out grammatically correct sentences to explain their reasoning for solving a real world one-step math problem when most kids are just trying to stay in the lines)
There are many others I am sure but I would need to dig in. All I know is that out state adopted a new curriculum 5 years ago where there was a big push to add to the HS curriculum and expectations. When they did that, they had to push things down to lower grades and so the shit ran downhill. I also know that the number of behavioral referrals we have gotten from Kindergarten have noticeably risen starting 5 years ago.
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at the end of the day its a very small amount of money for one extra prekindergarten year if it gets them at the top of their class and lots of scholarships.
These are my thoughts, though i don't see my kid enrolling in baseball.
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Leonard Sax has written some great books that cover this topic such as Boys Adrift.
Like many Gen Xers, I grew up where the school cut-off date was Jan. 1. So if you had a Sept. 1-Dec. 31 birthday, you entered kindergarten at 4 and graduated high school at 17.
For sports fan reference purposes, I was born the same week as Brett Favre in 10/69 and a month before Ken Griffey Jr. All of us graduated high school 4-5 months shy of 18. Favre and Griffey turned out just fine from a sports standpoint, something I point out to parents who redshirt for sports reasons. Favre was a 17-year-old starting college QB at Southern Miss. Griffey Jr. was starting for the Seattle Mariners at 19. Yes, they had noteworthy sports fathers, but the point is for generations we did just fine without redshirting, to say nothing of Jan.1 school cutoff dates. Both my parents, one of my sisters, and I were born in the Sept. 1-Dec. 31 window all graduated high school at 17.
Things like this don't happen anymore because of the shift to Sept. 1 school cutoff dates, let alone parents who take it a step further by redshirting.
We have friends whose twin sons were born in December, thus already a year "older" in school than they would have been a generation ago. Sports-obsessed Dad held them back a year. So they turned 19 in December of their senior year of high school. Not surprisingly, they were good at the sport that sports-obsessed Dad pushed them into. Unfortunately, Dad didn't stress academics. So kids needed a year of prep school after high school. Last month they turned 21. They are freshmen in college. They will be 24.5 when they graduate.
I'm not sure how this is progress or an argument for redshirting.
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Leonard Sax has written some great books that cover this topic such as Boys Adrift.
Like many Gen Xers, I grew up where the school cut-off date was Jan. 1. So if you had a Sept. 1-Dec. 31 birthday, you entered kindergarten at 4 and graduated high school at 17.
For sports fan reference purposes, I was born the same week as Brett Favre in 10/69 and a month before Ken Griffey Jr. All of us graduated high school 4-5 months shy of 18. Favre and Griffey turned out just fine from a sports standpoint, something I point out to parents who redshirt for sports reasons. Favre was a 17-year-old starting college QB at Southern Miss. Griffey Jr. was starting for the Seattle Mariners at 19. Yes, they had noteworthy sports fathers, but the point is for generations we did just fine without redshirting, to say nothing of Jan.1 school cutoff dates. Both my parents, one of my sisters, and I were born in the Sept. 1-Dec. 31 window all graduated high school at 17.
Things like this don't happen anymore because of the shift to Sept. 1 school cutoff dates, let alone parents who take it a step further by redshirting.
We have friends whose twin sons were born in December, thus already a year "older" in school than they would have been a generation ago. Sports-obsessed Dad held them back a year. So they turned 19 in December of their senior year of high school. Not surprisingly, they were good at the sport that sports-obsessed Dad pushed them into. Unfortunately, Dad didn't stress academics. So kids needed a year of prep school after high school. Last month they turned 21. They are freshmen in college. They will be 24.5 when they graduate.
I'm not sure how this is progress or an argument for redshirting.
I don't know, what you are describing is a much more exaggerated version of redshirting. My oldest is a December birthday, he did not make the Aug 30th cutoff so he started Kinder at 5 and turned six that Dec of his Kinder year. He will turn 18 the dec of his senior year.
My youngest is a Sept birthday, we actually could start him this fall when he turns five in September but have decided to wait and do a year of pre-k. He will then turn six a few weeks after Kinder starts in 2018. This will mean that he will be 18 for nearly all of his senior year of high school (not 19 like your suggesting).
Most parents I know who are thinking of "red-shirting" have children in the May-Sept time frame where they would have a child that if started "on time", their child won't turn six until late into their Kinder year. And subsequently, if started wouldn't turn 18 until late into their senior year of fall of their freshman year of college.
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Leonard Sax has written some great books that cover this topic such as Boys Adrift.
Like many Gen Xers, I grew up where the school cut-off date was Jan. 1. So if you had a Sept. 1-Dec. 31 birthday, you entered kindergarten at 4 and graduated high school at 17.
For sports fan reference purposes, I was born the same week as Brett Favre in 10/69 and a month before Ken Griffey Jr. All of us graduated high school 4-5 months shy of 18. Favre and Griffey turned out just fine from a sports standpoint, something I point out to parents who redshirt for sports reasons. Favre was a 17-year-old starting college QB at Southern Miss. Griffey Jr. was starting for the Seattle Mariners at 19. Yes, they had noteworthy sports fathers, but the point is for generations we did just fine without redshirting, to say nothing of Jan.1 school cutoff dates. Both my parents, one of my sisters, and I were born in the Sept. 1-Dec. 31 window all graduated high school at 17.
Things like this don't happen anymore because of the shift to Sept. 1 school cutoff dates, let alone parents who take it a step further by redshirting.
We have friends whose twin sons were born in December, thus already a year "older" in school than they would have been a generation ago. Sports-obsessed Dad held them back a year. So they turned 19 in December of their senior year of high school. Not surprisingly, they were good at the sport that sports-obsessed Dad pushed them into. Unfortunately, Dad didn't stress academics. So kids needed a year of prep school after high school. Last month they turned 21. They are freshmen in college. They will be 24.5 when they graduate.
I'm not sure how this is progress or an argument for redshirting.
on the sports note the pre highschool rec leagues are age based cut offs and were at the time those 2 went thru. its not surprising based on those birthdates that farve and griffy did well b/c they were always older than the other kids their age in the beginning rec leagues which is what most of the research is based on which lead them to look better than the others ...
there has been lots of research done on this by gladwell from the sports side and i dont think that what you're saying negates the value of the research if anything it proves it
football - fall - october bday is likely after the september/august cut off so he was older
Griffey being born in the fall was still towards the upper age group in early rec leagues.
and as you said your 2 examples both have sports fathers.
But even then just pointing out to random outliers doesnt justify the entire premise that red shirting isnt helpful.
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Leonard Sax has written some great books that cover this topic such as Boys Adrift.
Like many Gen Xers, I grew up where the school cut-off date was Jan. 1. So if you had a Sept. 1-Dec. 31 birthday, you entered kindergarten at 4 and graduated high school at 17.
For sports fan reference purposes, I was born the same week as Brett Favre in 10/69 and a month before Ken Griffey Jr. All of us graduated high school 4-5 months shy of 18. Favre and Griffey turned out just fine from a sports standpoint, something I point out to parents who redshirt for sports reasons. Favre was a 17-year-old starting college QB at Southern Miss. Griffey Jr. was starting for the Seattle Mariners at 19. Yes, they had noteworthy sports fathers, but the point is for generations we did just fine without redshirting, to say nothing of Jan.1 school cutoff dates. Both my parents, one of my sisters, and I were born in the Sept. 1-Dec. 31 window all graduated high school at 17.
Things like this don't happen anymore because of the shift to Sept. 1 school cutoff dates, let alone parents who take it a step further by redshirting.
We have friends whose twin sons were born in December, thus already a year "older" in school than they would have been a generation ago. Sports-obsessed Dad held them back a year. So they turned 19 in December of their senior year of high school. Not surprisingly, they were good at the sport that sports-obsessed Dad pushed them into. Unfortunately, Dad didn't stress academics. So kids needed a year of prep school after high school. Last month they turned 21. They are freshmen in college. They will be 24.5 when they graduate.
I'm not sure how this is progress or an argument for redshirting.
I don't know, what you are describing is a much more exaggerated version of redshirting. My oldest is a December birthday, he did not make the Aug 30th cutoff so he started Kinder at 5 and turned six that Dec of his Kinder year. He will turn 18 the dec of his senior year.
My youngest is a Sept birthday, we actually could start him this fall when he turns five in September but have decided to wait and do a year of pre-k. He will then turn six a few weeks after Kinder starts in 2018. This will mean that he will be 18 for nearly all of his senior year of high school (not 19 like your suggesting).
Most parents I know who are thinking of "red-shirting" have children in the May-Sept time frame where they would have a child that if started "on time", their child won't turn six until late into their Kinder year. And subsequently, if started wouldn't turn 18 until late into their senior year of fall of their freshman year of college.
The problem is, in reality...redshirting birthdays are getting earlier and earlier. Used to be only summer birthday....but then MAY kids are the youngest. So May birthdays start redshirting. Then APRIL birthdays are the youngest - and April birthdays start redshirting. Summer redshirted kids aren't even considered "old" for their class anymore.
I think it's sad....that parents have so little faith in kids these days that they think they need some sort of manufactured advantage. It's not a good message to send...and I hate the trend, if you can't already tell.
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Leonard Sax has written some great books that cover this topic such as Boys Adrift.
Like many Gen Xers, I grew up where the school cut-off date was Jan. 1. So if you had a Sept. 1-Dec. 31 birthday, you entered kindergarten at 4 and graduated high school at 17.
For sports fan reference purposes, I was born the same week as Brett Favre in 10/69 and a month before Ken Griffey Jr. All of us graduated high school 4-5 months shy of 18. Favre and Griffey turned out just fine from a sports standpoint, something I point out to parents who redshirt for sports reasons. Favre was a 17-year-old starting college QB at Southern Miss. Griffey Jr. was starting for the Seattle Mariners at 19. Yes, they had noteworthy sports fathers, but the point is for generations we did just fine without redshirting, to say nothing of Jan.1 school cutoff dates. Both my parents, one of my sisters, and I were born in the Sept. 1-Dec. 31 window all graduated high school at 17.
Things like this don't happen anymore because of the shift to Sept. 1 school cutoff dates, let alone parents who take it a step further by redshirting.
We have friends whose twin sons were born in December, thus already a year "older" in school than they would have been a generation ago. Sports-obsessed Dad held them back a year. So they turned 19 in December of their senior year of high school. Not surprisingly, they were good at the sport that sports-obsessed Dad pushed them into. Unfortunately, Dad didn't stress academics. So kids needed a year of prep school after high school. Last month they turned 21. They are freshmen in college. They will be 24.5 when they graduate.
I'm not sure how this is progress or an argument for redshirting.
I don't know, what you are describing is a much more exaggerated version of redshirting. My oldest is a December birthday, he did not make the Aug 30th cutoff so he started Kinder at 5 and turned six that Dec of his Kinder year. He will turn 18 the dec of his senior year.
My youngest is a Sept birthday, we actually could start him this fall when he turns five in September but have decided to wait and do a year of pre-k. He will then turn six a few weeks after Kinder starts in 2018. This will mean that he will be 18 for nearly all of his senior year of high school (not 19 like your suggesting).
Most parents I know who are thinking of "red-shirting" have children in the May-Sept time frame where they would have a child that if started "on time", their child won't turn six until late into their Kinder year. And subsequently, if started wouldn't turn 18 until late into their senior year of fall of their freshman year of college.
The problem is, in reality...redshirting birthdays are getting earlier and earlier. Used to be only summer birthday....but then MAY kids are the youngest. So May birthdays start redshirting. Then APRIL birthdays are the youngest - and April birthdays start redshirting. Summer redshirted kids aren't even considered "old" for their class anymore.
I think it's sad....that parents have so little faith in kids these days that they think they need some sort of manufactured advantage. It's not a good message to send...and I hate the trend, if you can't already tell.
well the fact is its there and as some have stated schools are adjusting to it and kindergarten is fastly becoming first grade as when i was a child.
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My third grade son's preschool teacher suggested we hold him back for non-academic reasons. He was reading already, could listen and follow rules, played nice with others, etc. But he has a mid-June birthday and she pointed out that he will be smaller when he tries out for the football team, and he will be the last of his classmates to get his driver's license. My wife almost bought into it, but I thought it was completely absurd to wait on kindergarten if he was academically and emotionally ready. No regrets sending him on time.
My younger one has a late May birthday and is less academically advanced than his brother was. However, he is physically almost as big as his older brother (who is slightly above average height for his age). It will be interesting to see what the preschool teacher recommends. I'm going to keep an open mind because I see how much more difficult the K - 3 curriculum is now compared to my elementary school days.
As an aside, I think the competitive athletics angle is BS. Either your kids have talent or they don't. There are freshman starters on the varsity football team, and some seniors that were never more than third string, and others that would rather be in the marching band. Making a decision about their academics based on guessing whether they will want to play high school sports in 9 years seems ridiculous to me. If they love sports and aren't good enough to make a varsity school team, there are rec leagues they can join.
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As an aside, I think the competitive athletics angle is BS. Either your kids have talent or they don't. There are freshman starters on the varsity football team, and some seniors that were never more than third string, and others that would rather be in the marching band. Making a decision about their academics based on guessing whether they will want to play high school sports in 9 years seems ridiculous to me. If they love sports and aren't good enough to make a varsity school team, there are rec leagues they can join.
Agreed. How can anyone seriously considered holding an otherwise ready child back for this reason? If you are, you are way too invested in your own version of who your child will become.
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As an aside, I think the competitive athletics angle is BS. Either your kids have talent or they don't. There are freshman starters on the varsity football team, and some seniors that were never more than third string, and others that would rather be in the marching band. Making a decision about their academics based on guessing whether they will want to play high school sports in 9 years seems ridiculous to me. If they love sports and aren't good enough to make a varsity school team, there are rec leagues they can join.
Agreed. How can anyone seriously considered holding an otherwise ready child back for this reason? If you are, you are way too invested in your own version of who your child will become.
I knew a kid whose parents actually held him back in between 8th grade and freshman year to give him some advantage in basketball. It was awful because he was in GT and a straight A student and we'd all been in the same class together since second grade. Dude had to repeat 8th grade because his family thought he'd have a growth spurt or something. Turns out he's just a smaller guy, he's still 5'6".
People are weird about sports.
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Also note that red-shirting and the increase in expectations for kindergarten go hand-in-hand. As the age of children in K has increased, so have the standards, such that now we have mostly 6-year-olds in K doing the same work as 6-year-olds were doing in grade 1 several decades ago. So in a sense, school districts have sort of adapted to red-shirting by providing grade 1 curricula during the K years, without changing much else.
Really? Someone else noted this too but I thought it was the other way around.
In the last several years, I've noticed that the standards for kindergarten have gone up. At least locally, red-shirting has been a response to this.
Schools are failing -> push is for preschool -> push is for getting kids reading even earlier to make up for falling test scores (in other words, get schools to "fix" things that are broken at home) -> standards are higher -> change the birthdate to enter k from December to Sept -> introduce TK for the parents who now have to pay for more preschool -> parents start red-shirting so their kids keep their advantage.
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I was born Sept. 19 and started Kindergarten at 4.5 in the 80s. It was never a problem.
My first born was October and started at 5.5 and it was good for her. My second born, a boy, was August 26th and I figured we would hold him back when he was born but by 4 we knew he was ready. Even the teachers agreed and I asked their opinion. He is 11 and I am glad we started him at 4.5. It was full day but he was ready at 4.5. Our oldest had half day Kinder at 5.5 and it was perfect for her. Our third is end of July and we now home school so we started her at just turned 5. If she was going to school away from home we may have held her back due to emotional maturity. Even end of July makes these decisions very hard. Our fourth is born in March-yeah! haha
Good luck! I think it is up to the individual child.
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Reading all of this makes me slightly sick to my stomach when I think about what it will mean for my kid who is currently only 2.5. My husband and I have no first-hand knowledge of how preschool/K/1st grade works in this country so it is fascinating and kind of horrifying to hear all of this competition and academics being pushed on tiny little people. I really want to shelter her from that as much as possible, but I fear it might be hard since we don't know the lay of the land. I suppose we'll just have to be very attentive when we get to the stage and make decisions as we go. My hope is that we will be FIRE by the time she reaches 1st grade or so and will be able to be much more involved.
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I have a 6 yo and a 4 yo, so I have recent experience with kindergarten. I would go ahead and sign her up. Sounds to me like she'd be fine, and it's only 1/2 day. Kindergarten in my state is a full day, but there were usually 3 recesses and a rest time built into the day. There is also a kindergarten roundup where you can meetand talk to the teachers. If there's something like that available to you, that would be a great place to find out the very specific expectations of kindergarteners in your particular school. That would give you a much better idea whether or not it would benefit your daughter to wait another year. (Better than random internet people scattered in different school districts across the continent.)
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Our June birthday son is in kinder now. We sent him on time and are glad we did. He didn't even know the alphabet when he started and can read several sight words and sound out many more now. He loves it and is thriving. He would have been so bored in preschool for another year. He does not spend a ton of time sitting at a desk, and the class seems very developmentally appropriate for him. He gets two recesses per day, 2 PE classes, one dance class, and one garden class (in the outdoor classroom) per week. Much of the in class time is spent on the rug, moving to stations, learning letters and sounds with movement, and doing activities designed to get their energy out. Most afternoons are free play in the classroom. We were told by a private school to have him wait a year, but his preschool director said he was ready, so we sent him to public. Red shirting here must not be as common as elsewhere. There are several kids younger than he is in his class and nobody a full year older. There are a few July and August red shirts but also July and August on time kids. So, I guess the moral is, know your kid and the school she'll go to. The sports thing is not such a big deal to me. We plan to teach our kids that sports are for exercise, enjoyment, and stress relief, not something to plan your life around. Honestly, I'd prefer not spending all of our weekends at baseball tournaments.
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Question for those with kids currently in kinder or were there just recently... did they get assigned homework? If they did, did you make them do it? I feel like I would let my kid decide to do it or not at that age.. I can't believe homework at kindergarten is "normal", that's so terrible in my mind. And I was one of those kids that never missed a homework assignment... this seems nuts to me. I remember there being no grades in kinder, has that changed too? I would totally let my kid not do homework at that age even if it was assigned unless it would directly led to them being flunked or held back. But if that was the case I don't think I would have my kid go there....
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Question for those with kids currently in kinder or were there just recently... did they get assigned homework? If they did, did you make them do it? I feel like I would let my kid decide to do it or not at that age.. I can't believe homework at kindergarten is "normal", that's so terrible in my mind. And I was one of those kids that never missed a homework assignment... this seems nuts to me. I remember there being no grades in kinder, has that changed too? I would totally let my kid not do homework at that age even if it was assigned unless it would directly led to them being flunked or held back. But if that was the case I don't think I would have my kid go there....
wouldnt that set a bad example for a child though? giving them the option to do assigned work or not. they may apply this to future assignments in future grades.
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Question for those with kids currently in kinder or were there just recently... did they get assigned homework? If they did, did you make them do it? I feel like I would let my kid decide to do it or not at that age.. I can't believe homework at kindergarten is "normal", that's so terrible in my mind. And I was one of those kids that never missed a homework assignment... this seems nuts to me. I remember there being no grades in kinder, has that changed too? I would totally let my kid not do homework at that age even if it was assigned unless it would directly led to them being flunked or held back. But if that was the case I don't think I would have my kid go there....
In kindergarten last year, my child had homework - nothing extensive or time consuming. We completely agree that homework at that age is ridiculous and pretty terrible, but we did not offer it to her as an option. We had her do it as a matter of course after school, but there were days that it wasn't all finished and we didn't sweat it or even discuss it. I think that as counterproductive as homework may be, presenting it as optional from the start is probably worse in the long run. The teacher decides (theoretically) how to run the classroom and assign work, so I wouldn't tell my child that she can decide to follow some of the teacher's directions, but not others.
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I have recent experience with this and the after effects a few years later. My son's birthday is in June, well within the August cutoff for starting school. I was paying almost 10K a year in daycare so you better believe he was going to start school on time. If money were no object I would have considered red shirting him not because of academic reasons but maturity and focus. Our elementary school is top rated and has very high expectations. A big part of success in kindergarten seems to be getting with the program of listening, following directions, sitting still, waiting your turn, doing some work independently and appropriate behavior. Reading and math were the least of our concerns. My son struggled behavior wise and was just slightly behind in reading. He was actually reading full sentences, not just the level the school wanted him to be at by the end of the year. When the conversation came up at the end of the year I was thinking they might suggest holding him back based on the feedback of his struggles during the year. Both the teacher and Vice Principle were against it and I went along with their recommendation of moving him to first grade. First grade was a tough year but the school said he was moving onto second. Second grade was a tough year but again the school said he should still move on. This time I put my foot down and requested he be held back. In order for this to happen I had to have a board of seven(!) administrators hear my case and evidence for holding him back. They eventually agreed and we are currently in second grade v2. This year has been so much better!!! My son is very advanced in math but has the ability to help peers. His reading is on track and he feels good because he is not behind or the slowest. His size also played a part in my decision. He is barely 2nd percentile on growth chart so he was always MUCH smaller every person in his class. Now he is still the smallest boy but at least has two peers that are closer in size. I think the biggest thing is his confidence, attitude, behavior seem to be in line with his peers now. He just fits in better this year. Looking back I still would have put him in kindergarten but advocated strongly for holding him back that year. My gut told me that was right thing but got talked into moving him along.
Whatever you decide there are studies for and against it. I'd recommend gathering some information and just going with your gut. You know your child better than anyone else.
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I have recent experience with this and the after effects a few years later. My son's birthday is in June, well within the August cutoff for starting school. I was paying almost 10K a year in daycare so you better believe he was going to start school on time. If money were no object I would have considered red shirting him not because of academic reasons but maturity and focus. Our elementary school is top rated and has very high expectations. A big part of success in kindergarten seems to be getting with the program of listening, following directions, sitting still, waiting your turn, doing some work independently and appropriate behavior. Reading and math were the least of our concerns. My son struggled behavior wise and was just slightly behind in reading. He was actually reading full sentences, not just the level the school wanted him to be at by the end of the year. When the conversation came up at the end of the year I was thinking they might suggest holding him back based on the feedback of his struggles during the year. Both the teacher and Vice Principle were against it and I went along with their recommendation of moving him to first grade. First grade was a tough year but the school said he was moving onto second. Second grade was a tough year but again the school said he should still move on. This time I put my foot down and requested he be held back. In order for this to happen I had to have a board of seven(!) administrators hear my case and evidence for holding him back. They eventually agreed and we are currently in second grade v2. This year has been so much better!!! My son is very advanced in math but has the ability to help peers. His reading is on track and he feels good because he is not behind or the slowest. His size also played a part in my decision. He is barely 2nd percentile on growth chart so he was always MUCH smaller every person in his class. Now he is still the smallest boy but at least has two peers that are closer in size. I think the biggest thing is his confidence, attitude, behavior seem to be in line with his peers now. He just fits in better this year. Looking back I still would have put him in kindergarten but advocated strongly for holding him back that year. My gut told me that was right thing but got talked into moving him along.
Whatever you decide there are studies for and against it. I'd recommend gathering some information and just going with your gut. You know your child better than anyone else.
Wow. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. You story highlights exactly what I have been thinking and worried about for my Sept birthday guy. That part I bolded is critical and I'm not willing to take the risk to save even the ridiculous $14k daycare costs.
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well i guess this likely wont apply to our first child. aug. 1 is the cut off in our district and our child will likely be early sept late august if all goes well.
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I have recent experience with this and the after effects a few years later. My son's birthday is in June, well within the August cutoff for starting school. I was paying almost 10K a year in daycare so you better believe he was going to start school on time. If money were no object I would have considered red shirting him not because of academic reasons but maturity and focus. Our elementary school is top rated and has very high expectations. A big part of success in kindergarten seems to be getting with the program of listening, following directions, sitting still, waiting your turn, doing some work independently and appropriate behavior. Reading and math were the least of our concerns. My son struggled behavior wise and was just slightly behind in reading. He was actually reading full sentences, not just the level the school wanted him to be at by the end of the year. When the conversation came up at the end of the year I was thinking they might suggest holding him back based on the feedback of his struggles during the year. Both the teacher and Vice Principle were against it and I went along with their recommendation of moving him to first grade. First grade was a tough year but the school said he was moving onto second. Second grade was a tough year but again the school said he should still move on. This time I put my foot down and requested he be held back. In order for this to happen I had to have a board of seven(!) administrators hear my case and evidence for holding him back. They eventually agreed and we are currently in second grade v2. This year has been so much better!!! My son is very advanced in math but has the ability to help peers. His reading is on track and he feels good because he is not behind or the slowest. His size also played a part in my decision. He is barely 2nd percentile on growth chart so he was always MUCH smaller every person in his class. Now he is still the smallest boy but at least has two peers that are closer in size. I think the biggest thing is his confidence, attitude, behavior seem to be in line with his peers now. He just fits in better this year. Looking back I still would have put him in kindergarten but advocated strongly for holding him back that year. My gut told me that was right thing but got talked into moving him along.
Whatever you decide there are studies for and against it. I'd recommend gathering some information and just going with your gut. You know your child better than anyone else.
Wow. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. You story highlights exactly what I have been thinking and worried about for my Sept birthday guy. That part I bolded is critical and I'm not willing to take the risk to save even the ridiculous $14k daycare costs.
a agree. i still remember the kids that were held back. he's going to be around those kids in HS and kids can be mean.
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My son does not have homework but has had two creative projects to complete at home, both of which he's been excited about. Fwiw, we are in a large, urban district where some schools are underperforming and some are comperable to the best suburban districts in the State. We were lucky to get one of the best.
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Question for those with kids currently in kinder or were there just recently... did they get assigned homework? If they did, did you make them do it? I feel like I would let my kid decide to do it or not at that age.. I can't believe homework at kindergarten is "normal", that's so terrible in my mind. And I was one of those kids that never missed a homework assignment... this seems nuts to me. I remember there being no grades in kinder, has that changed too? I would totally let my kid not do homework at that age even if it was assigned unless it would directly led to them being flunked or held back. But if that was the case I don't think I would have my kid go there....
YES! Homework in Kindergarten was 20 minutes of reading a night at the start of the year and half of a math worksheet Mon- Thurs. At mid year it was bumped to 30 minutes of child reading a night (not parent reading). When the teacher felt like my son was "behind" in reading fluency there were extra practice worksheets sent home for homework. After my son and I both start hating school I talked with the teacher and she agreed to much less homework for my son. Most nights I read to him anywhere between 5-30 minutes, but sometimes we alternated both reading. We kept math worksheets to approximately 10 minutes.
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Question for those with kids currently in kinder or were there just recently... did they get assigned homework? If they did, did you make them do it? I feel like I would let my kid decide to do it or not at that age.. I can't believe homework at kindergarten is "normal", that's so terrible in my mind. And I was one of those kids that never missed a homework assignment... this seems nuts to me. I remember there being no grades in kinder, has that changed too? I would totally let my kid not do homework at that age even if it was assigned unless it would directly led to them being flunked or held back. But if that was the case I don't think I would have my kid go there....
Yes. Our Kinder kid got homework last year. Often times it was an art project where we had a week to return it. He did get worksheets on a regular basis in school though that he HATED. Mostly pages where he had to practice writing a letter. He just didn't care to write a J 40 times.
Our Kinder classroom sent one front/back page of homework each week (sent home on Monday, return on Friday). Essentially you were supposed to do a half page of information each evening. I remember a lot of "color all the triangles blue" and coloring dots to show a basic math equation. We had him complete the homework but often had him just do the entire week at once. By Christmas he could finish the entire thing in about 10 minutes.
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Question for those with kids currently in kinder or were there just recently... did they get assigned homework? If they did, did you make them do it? I feel like I would let my kid decide to do it or not at that age.. I can't believe homework at kindergarten is "normal", that's so terrible in my mind. And I was one of those kids that never missed a homework assignment... this seems nuts to me. I remember there being no grades in kinder, has that changed too? I would totally let my kid not do homework at that age even if it was assigned unless it would directly led to them being flunked or held back. But if that was the case I don't think I would have my kid go there....
Last year in kindergarten, my son had 5 minute homework assignments to do Mon-Thur nights. They were all on a single sheet with the option to do all at once for some candy from the teacher. My son loved getting his homework done all at once, and it usually only took 10 minutes for the week's work. I think it was more to get used to doing some homework every night than anything else. It was a pain, but if he was eligible to get the candy, he was all for doing it. It was a struggle the times he couldn't get the Smartypants award smarties because he missed school or something.
This year, in 1st grade, my son gets some sheets of HW every Friday, but they are not required to be turned in. We skipped doing them the first half of the year, but he's doing them now. His current teacher seems more laissez-faire about the whole thing.
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Question for those with kids currently in kinder or were there just recently... did they get assigned homework? If they did, did you make them do it? I feel like I would let my kid decide to do it or not at that age.. I can't believe homework at kindergarten is "normal", that's so terrible in my mind. And I was one of those kids that never missed a homework assignment... this seems nuts to me. I remember there being no grades in kinder, has that changed too? I would totally let my kid not do homework at that age even if it was assigned unless it would directly led to them being flunked or held back. But if that was the case I don't think I would have my kid go there....
No homework in Kindergarten for us...and our elementary school as a whole is moving away from homework. This year, my 2nd grader has ZERO homework and my 5th grader has a maximum of 20 minutes a night...and many nights it is none at all.
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wow, seems like its all over the place. When the time gets closer I will have to make sure I know what to expect from the kinder options around here. I can see the concern over not enforcing assigned work from a teacher but I also hope to raise children that will not be sheep and won't sit by while wrong things are happening. I doubt kinder homework would be part of that lesson but depending on the circumstances I would definitely fight by my kid to change the rules, not just follow them, if I thought/knew they were a detriment to my child and others. But that's me thinking of "what if", we will see what I will actually do in the situation in a couple years! Red-shirting probably won't be a thing for me to worry about. My first has a June birthday with Jan 1 cutoff. And my first is a girl in the 99th percentile for height right now so only legitimate academic/emotional concerns would make me question her going to kinder on time.
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well i guess this likely wont apply to our first child. aug. 1 is the cut off in our district and our child will likely be early sept late august if all goes well.
This is basically the boat we were in with our son too. But if your district is like ours they basically let parents choose if the child passes evaluations and turn 5 within a few weeks of the cut off. Our son couldn't read but knew and could write all his letters, numbers, etc and his pre-k teachers were urging us to start him.
Our kid was academically fine but is a super active child and tends to get overly emotional if made to sit still too long. Knowing that pre-k in our district is super academic with not a lot of movement time basically made the decision for us. I agree with those who say it is a child by child decision.
And in 5.5 years educational trends could change again and you might not even have to worry about it at all:) Congrats BTW.
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Wow - This thread has blown up! Let me offer up some advice from both sides of the coin - both from personal experience and what I've done with my daughter. I will admit that I haven't read the entire thread.
My birthday is August 30th. I was put into school when I was 4, turning 5. My teachers told my parents that I was ready. And I was intellectually ready and did fine until I hit middle school. Holy cow was it rough. I was a year behind everyone. The kids that got held back a grade were two years older than me, and there was more than a few. I was the last one to do everything. But the worst of all was that I was the LAST kid to hit puberty. I was picked on even by the dorks. It was brutally miserable. I had a hard time making friends, keeping friends, and fitting in. I look back on those years as some of the worst in my life. I also acted out a lot at home. I know this is many peoples experience in middle school, but I truly feel that my experience was worse than most.
Fast forward a few years, my daughter was born August 29th (she just HAD to have her own birthday). This year she entered kindergarten when she was 5, turning 6. I was adamant that she not go to school earlier even though her pre-school was pretty insistent - I refused. My daughter is very smart, well ahead of many of her peers intellectually, but she lacked social skills, especially as an only child. Those social skills are so incredibly important. In that 'hold-back' year she learned enough of those social skills to really excel. She leads the pack. She has confidence. She is bold, friendly, and genuinely happy. To date, it has been the second best decision I have made with respect to my daughter. Time will tell how puberty and the middle school years will treat her, but I'm guessing, they will be much better than mine ever were.
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Kinder homework- they'd send home two books at reading level, to read at home. They'd sometimes send home worksheets but the teacher said they were optional- some parents clearly asked for them. We tossed them.
Holding back has a lot of documented research that it is ineffective EXCEPT for repeating K. After K the social consequence is high, and if being in the grade once didn't teach you, doing it the same a second time is not likely too. The student needs different intervention than repeating what doesn't work.
People go on and on about how they just pass kids these days and In My Day you would've just failed! But actual data is behind these changes. Kids are more successful if they proceed to the next grade but get extra help.
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Hi all- thanks for your experiences and thoughts.
I called the elementary school and she said I should go ahead and enroll her anyway. Throughout the next months, there will be evaulations, parents' overview and I can always speak to a school counselor or psychologist. I think all of this, plus knowing where my daughter is at in August, not simply evaulation in November. School said we can have her drop out at anytime, no problem.
Also, we will just have her do 1/2 day program to keep option 'low' at $2k if we hold her back. I am 25/75 (25% sending her, 75% sure we will hold her back) at this point and glad to just have our options open so we can make decision in August and not today.
I totally agree with everyone on how this redshirting business exacerbates the issue. Yes we are upper middle class (in terms of net worth yet do not keep up with Jonese) and I am a SAHM (we are almost FI in about 2 years).
This process has made us think about what we want for our kids. I don't want them to be the best in things, just find something they love. We want her to be creative, self sufficient, minimalist, passionate. I don't care about sports. I really want her to be happy and confident. I am sure I am forgetting stuff but if those are our general goals, it makes most sense to set her align with her peers (which is the norm here, in my district and not send her 'early'). Besides, gives her an extra year to work for college savings, right??? LOL
Thank you everyone.
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Nottolate, it sounds like you all are talking to the right people in your district, and really thinking about your options and making the best decision you can. That's really all we can do as parents. Good luck!
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Sounds like a good plan!
I will say this....for a very selfish reason I'm kicking myself for not waiting a year. She's going to graduate at 17, which when she was 5 I thought would be super cool. Now that she's almost 9 and our time with her is half over, I wish I could have another year with her in high school until she's 18. Kind of silly, but my heart is already hurting that she could go off to school a year earlier than she otherwise would have if I had held her back.
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I was one of the youngest kids in my grade. Hell I was still 17 on the first day of college. School was always easy for me. I can't even imagine how frustrating it would have been if my parents had delayed me a year. Could very well have been the difference between excelling easily, and being so turned off by how uninteresting everything was that I didn't care and didn't excel. I've seen that happen to smart kids.
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Sigh.
I just don't get the redshirting arguments on any level.
There was a small Indian kid in my grade in high school. He actually skipped a grade. He was rail thin and socially awkward and graduated at 16. He then lived next to me in our dorm freshman year of college.
He has multiple physics degrees. He hit it big during the first tech boom in San Francisco and then became one of Google's first employees. He's still there. I'm guessing he's worth nine figures. Seems to be enjoying life.
I'm guessing his parents don't have any regrets.
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Both me and my spouse started and finished school early (by 1 or 2 years vs. starndard) and we are very grateful for that as grownups. If you have an average or above average child (I guess everybody think their child is above average LOL), then she/he will likely do just fine starting earlier. Confidence is built in many ways, the fact that I was the youngest in class all those year and did well really helped me in the confidence department. Sports are very important, but being fast and strong is only part of the equation, our big brains are what set us apart from the apes, and the older you are, the 1-2 year age gap become less of an issue.
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Homework: Our school district does the daily agenda book thing, and we have to initial our child's book to show that we saw what they did. In kindergarten, they got like one worksheet a week to do related to learning how to read / write. There was also a reading log to fill out and you had to vouch that your kid was reading with / to you at home. Sadly, the teacher said it's necessary otherwise some parents wouldn't help the kids learn to read at all. She said you'd be surprised by how many parents skip conference day, too.
In 1st and 2nd grade, we got a homework packet on a Monday that was due the following monday with 5 or 6 things to do. I liked that because you could work around your schedule (baseball practice, Cub Scouts, etc.). Some of it was mandatory work online that required them to log into an educational website that would track their progress, and those were more game like than anything.
Third grade, he gets an assignment almost every night. We're told that it should take no more than 20 minutes, and if they don't finish it in that timeframe, just write a note to say so -- it's not intended to be torture. We've made our son sit there for longer to finish it if he's not focusing on the work, and partially to learn that you don't just get to slack off on assignments because you don't feel like doing them.
Redshirt: I have an August birthday and my sister has a September birthday, and IIRC the district had an October 1 cutoff at the time. We were obviously among the youngest few in our respective classes and both did fine academically and socially going to K on time. The only time I ran into a headache because of my age was when I was entering college, and I had to wait until the day I turned 18 and took a day off of work to sign up for Selective Service at the post office and fax proof to my university, which was legally required before they could process my financial aid for the semester that started a week later. Someone is always going to be the oldest / youngest / tallest / shortest, and you have no way of knowing how it will all work out 13 years from now, so I don't see any reason to delay enrollment for a child that is deemed ready by the professionals.
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I agree with Secret Agent Mom. Kindergarten is no longer kindergarten. It's 1st grade at the least. Both of my boys (August and September birthdays) started late. They could have been the youngest, but I chose to start them at age 6 (or about to turn 6 for the one with a Sept birthday).
Best decision ever. My oldest could already read chapter books when he started kindergarten, and people thought I was crazy for not starting him a year earlier. He was not ready. He needed another year to be a kid and play. My youngest was pretty much the same, but was even a little less mature when he started kindergarten. Recess is only 20 minutes at their elementary school and that is pretty standard. PE is not every day, it's rotated with Music and Art. They are required to sit still for FAR too long in both kindergarden and the subsequent grades. My youngest (2nd grader) still struggles and he's almost a full year older than many of his peers.
And even though my older son did struggle a bit with boredom at school, he is far more mature than a lot of his peers, which I'm thankful for and his teachers simply allowed him to read more. He didn't get caught up in all the stupid stuff that his younger classmates were doing. I think that is really important now that he is in middle school. There is a lot more crap that a kid has to deal with in the middle and high school years that having that extra year in age can be really beneficial.
I was actually talking to my youngest's 2nd grade teacher about her own daughter, who will be in kindergarten next year. She will be 6 in July. We were talking about how we wish more parents would wait. We see (I volunteer a lot) SO many kids who are not ready for the pressures (not just in kindergarten, but all through elementary school) and 'rigor' (I hate that word, but it's true) because they start so young. My kids had homework in kindergarten for goodness sake! I know not all schools do that, but ours does. You would think being there for 7 hours is enough, but no, we have homework too!!
I am not saying this is the case for every kid. But it is for many. You can always seek extra work/projects/etc if your child is bored. But, it's a lot harder for a kid who is that young to sit still and listen and do work for 7 hours. That is a LONG time for anybody.
Good luck with your decision. I know it's a hard one for many!
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Question for those with kids currently in kinder or were there just recently... did they get assigned homework? If they did, did you make them do it? I feel like I would let my kid decide to do it or not at that age.. I can't believe homework at kindergarten is "normal", that's so terrible in my mind. And I was one of those kids that never missed a homework assignment... this seems nuts to me. I remember there being no grades in kinder, has that changed too? I would totally let my kid not do homework at that age even if it was assigned unless it would directly led to them being flunked or held back. But if that was the case I don't think I would have my kid go there....
Our school gives monthly homework for kindergarten.
On the order of 5-10 pages a month.
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Also, I wanted to comment that nobody I know who has started their kids at age 6 are doing it to gain any sort of 'advantage'. I am sure there are people who do that, but I don't think it's the norm at all.
I think most do it because most of what they do in elementary schools (not just kindergarten) is so developmentally inappropriate these days, mostly as a result of the over testing. I recall testing kindergartners over sight words out in the hallway and now 3rd graders are expected to know how to type standardized test essays. It's just all so ridiculous.
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Our kindergarten has homework - 5 pages for the week. It's fine, unless your kids has fine motor issues and anxiety. Then it's AWFUL. My son would be fine with that much homework now, and he just turned 5 this month. But my daughter....no. It was rough.
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My son was born Dec. 14. Dec 31 is the cutoff for school, and he's supposed to head into Jr. Kindergarten this September at three years and nine months old. He's not a stupid child and but was several months late for most of his milestones (crawling, walking, talking). He does seem to get concepts after explanation reasonably well. He's also physically smaller than most other kids his age.
My wife and I are unsure if holding him back for a year makes sense or not . . . we tend to think that it would make sense in his case. If we don't he'll be almost a year behind all the other kids in his class developmentally, and my wife and I are both concerned that this will disadvantage him. Early education problems can snowball into much bigger issues socially and confidence-wise.
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I think most do it because most of what they do in elementary schools (not just kindergarten) is so developmentally inappropriate these days, mostly as a result of the over testing. I recall testing kindergartners over sight words out in the hallway and now 3rd graders are expected to know how to type standardized test essays. It's just all so ridiculous.
I am not a professional educator, but I agree 100%. My third grader is learning the formal definitions to things (like commutative property, associative property) that I didn't learn until junior high when I had to do "proofs" of them in geometry class, then is expected to answer multiple part word problems that contain those phrases. At least once a week I have to google the answer to a math problem on his homework. And answering a "math" problem now involves writing a paragraph about your thought process and explaining how to solve it multiple ways, then drawing a picture / graph to explain what you just wrote, and only then may you just do the actual math problem itself, which is just absurd. Even the teacher admits it's overkill for their age, but she's forced to teach to the standardized tests. The irony of it all is that they get to use the calculator on their school-issued Chromebooks once they start 5th grade.
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I think most do it because most of what they do in elementary schools (not just kindergarten) is so developmentally inappropriate these days, mostly as a result of the over testing. I recall testing kindergartners over sight words out in the hallway and now 3rd graders are expected to know how to type standardized test essays. It's just all so ridiculous.
I am not a professional educator, but I agree 100%. My third grader is learning the formal definitions to things (like commutative property, associative property) that I didn't learn until junior high when I had to do "proofs" of them in geometry class, then is expected to answer multiple part word problems that contain those phrases. At least once a week I have to google the answer to a math problem on his homework. And answering a "math" problem now involves writing a paragraph about your thought process and explaining how to solve it multiple ways, then drawing a picture / graph to explain what you just wrote, and only then may you just do the actual math problem itself, which is just absurd. Even the teacher admits it's overkill for their age, but she's forced to teach to the standardized tests. The irony of it all is that they get to use the calculator on their school-issued Chromebooks once they start 5th grade.
It's not ironic that they get to use a calculator after demonstrating how they understand the thought process behind solving math problems multiple ways. I agree with some of what you said, but certainly not this.
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Sounds like a good plan!
I will say this....for a very selfish reason I'm kicking myself for not waiting a year. She's going to graduate at 17, which when she was 5 I thought would be super cool. Now that she's almost 9 and our time with her is half over, I wish I could have another year with her in high school until she's 18. Kind of silly, but my heart is already hurting that she could go off to school a year earlier than she otherwise would have if I had held her back.
I agree with this, its not the same after people leave the nest. Its ironic that on a forum devoted to working 20 years before FIRE that we forget that children are already practically FIRE. No job, no responsibilities and days full of play. Then we toss them in school so they can get jobs and retire early themselves.
Effectively, is it better to have one more year at home or one more in retirement?
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It's not ironic that they get to use a calculator after demonstrating how they understand the thought process behind solving math problems multiple ways. I agree with some of what you said, but certainly not this.
The irony is that in a year and a half, nobody will care if these same elementary school children know that the commutative property even exists. 9 X 6 = 54, 6 X 9 = 54, just punch both into the calculator and move on with life.
I guess I just disagree with the order they learn things in now. Drawing pictures and writing sentences to explain that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because of the commutative property of multiplication is premature at best when they haven't yet memorized that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because times tables are out of vogue. The only reason any third grader needs to know that 9 X 6 = 6 X 9 is an example of the commutative property of multiplication is to answer a standardized test question. It has been a while since I was in third grade, and maybe I learned it was called the commutative property that year, but I guarantee it wasn't until after many hours of flash cards and worksheets that made me memorize the basic truths of the times table.
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It's not ironic that they get to use a calculator after demonstrating how they understand the thought process behind solving math problems multiple ways. I agree with some of what you said, but certainly not this.
The irony is that in a year and a half, nobody will care if these same elementary school children know that the commutative property even exists. 9 X 6 = 54, 6 X 9 = 54, just punch both into the calculator and move on with life.
I guess I just disagree with the order they learn things in now. Drawing pictures and writing sentences to explain that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because of the commutative property of multiplication is premature at best when they haven't yet memorized that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because times tables are out of vogue. The only reason any third grader needs to know that 9 X 6 = 6 X 9 is an example of the commutative property of multiplication is to answer a standardized test question. It has been a while since I was in third grade, and maybe I learned it was called the commutative property that year, but I guarantee it wasn't until after many hours of flash cards and worksheets that made me memorize the basic truths of the times table.
Totally disagree.
30 years ago in a little Catholic school I was taught multiplication through the "drill 'em and kill 'em" method. We memorized all the facts, but didn't really understand it.
Last year my first grader was taught that multiplying was just an easy way of "adding sets" and division was just how you could split those groups up. This gave him the ability to solve the problems, albeit the long way. This year in second grade he is memorizing the multiplication tables. Now he has the ability to answer quickly but also CHECK his work. He has a much better understanding of math than I ever did, and he doesn't suffer from the very common "mathxiety".
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Nobody123....So True! That kind of math, where my son had to draw a picture and explain his answer (when he could solve the problem in his head) nearly killed us in 2nd grade. Tears every time he had math homework. It was awful. Then, after he finished 4th grade and I started homeschooling him for 5th, I really found out how hard it was for him to progress because he had not been made to simply memorize his multiplication facts. Harder concepts were very frustrating because he would get hung up on the easy/basic math facts (either addition, subtraction or multiplication) that he should have just known by then. We had to stop for a couple of weeks and just work on that daily until he could just rattle them off. Only then, could we move through more difficult math concepts easily and without him getting really frustrated. I know not everyone learns the same way, but the way they jump around so much and never sit with one concept in math and poo poo simple memorization (drill and kill) is really making it so much harder on learning, in my opinion. BUT, that's a soapbox for another day....sorry!!!
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It's not ironic that they get to use a calculator after demonstrating how they understand the thought process behind solving math problems multiple ways. I agree with some of what you said, but certainly not this.
The irony is that in a year and a half, nobody will care if these same elementary school children know that the commutative property even exists. 9 X 6 = 54, 6 X 9 = 54, just punch both into the calculator and move on with life.
I guess I just disagree with the order they learn things in now. Drawing pictures and writing sentences to explain that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because of the commutative property of multiplication is premature at best when they haven't yet memorized that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because times tables are out of vogue. The only reason any third grader needs to know that 9 X 6 = 6 X 9 is an example of the commutative property of multiplication is to answer a standardized test question. It has been a while since I was in third grade, and maybe I learned it was called the commutative property that year, but I guarantee it wasn't until after many hours of flash cards and worksheets that made me memorize the basic truths of the times table.
Totally disagree.
30 years ago in a little Catholic school I was taught multiplication through the "drill 'em and kill 'em" method. We memorized all the facts, but didn't really understand it.
Last year my first grader was taught that multiplying was just an easy way of "adding sets" and division was just how you could split those groups up. This gave him the ability to solve the problems, albeit the long way. This year in second grade he is memorizing the multiplication tables. Now he has the ability to answer quickly but also CHECK his work. He has a much better understanding of math than I ever did, and he doesn't suffer from the very common "mathxiety".
yep the way math is taught in school now is how my brain actually does it. Its likely why i was better and faster at math than everyone else b/c we were all taught the long division and multiplication. but i naturally break things down to their simplest form and put them back together which is more or less how these are taught now. A much simpler way to do it.
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Since we're talking about math, do schools now regularly screen for dyscalculia, like they do for dyslexia? I'd be interested in knowing if the phenomenon is gaining more attention, and early intervention.
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It's not ironic that they get to use a calculator after demonstrating how they understand the thought process behind solving math problems multiple ways. I agree with some of what you said, but certainly not this.
The irony is that in a year and a half, nobody will care if these same elementary school children know that the commutative property even exists. 9 X 6 = 54, 6 X 9 = 54, just punch both into the calculator and move on with life.
I guess I just disagree with the order they learn things in now. Drawing pictures and writing sentences to explain that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because of the commutative property of multiplication is premature at best when they haven't yet memorized that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because times tables are out of vogue. The only reason any third grader needs to know that 9 X 6 = 6 X 9 is an example of the commutative property of multiplication is to answer a standardized test question. It has been a while since I was in third grade, and maybe I learned it was called the commutative property that year, but I guarantee it wasn't until after many hours of flash cards and worksheets that made me memorize the basic truths of the times table.
Totally disagree.
30 years ago in a little Catholic school I was taught multiplication through the "drill 'em and kill 'em" method. We memorized all the facts, but didn't really understand it.
Last year my first grader was taught that multiplying was just an easy way of "adding sets" and division was just how you could split those groups up. This gave him the ability to solve the problems, albeit the long way. This year in second grade he is memorizing the multiplication tables. Now he has the ability to answer quickly but also CHECK his work. He has a much better understanding of math than I ever did, and he doesn't suffer from the very common "mathxiety".
yep the way math is taught in school now is how my brain actually does it. Its likely why i was better and faster at math than everyone else b/c we were all taught the long division and multiplication. but i naturally break things down to their simplest form and put them back together which is more or less how these are taught now. A much simpler way to do it.
Exactly. Everyone freaks out about "common core math" (although the common core and the new way math is taught are actually unrelated) but it's basically just like making change. How hard is that?
When I started really working (in college) with people who knew and understood higher math, I realized that they all do math this way (breaking problems down, flipping them around etc). I believe I was taught to just memorize it because I still had nuns as teachers and many of them didn't really understand math.
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It's not ironic that they get to use a calculator after demonstrating how they understand the thought process behind solving math problems multiple ways. I agree with some of what you said, but certainly not this.
The irony is that in a year and a half, nobody will care if these same elementary school children know that the commutative property even exists. 9 X 6 = 54, 6 X 9 = 54, just punch both into the calculator and move on with life.
I guess I just disagree with the order they learn things in now. Drawing pictures and writing sentences to explain that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because of the commutative property of multiplication is premature at best when they haven't yet memorized that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because times tables are out of vogue. The only reason any third grader needs to know that 9 X 6 = 6 X 9 is an example of the commutative property of multiplication is to answer a standardized test question. It has been a while since I was in third grade, and maybe I learned it was called the commutative property that year, but I guarantee it wasn't until after many hours of flash cards and worksheets that made me memorize the basic truths of the times table.
Totally disagree.
30 years ago in a little Catholic school I was taught multiplication through the "drill 'em and kill 'em" method. We memorized all the facts, but didn't really understand it.
Last year my first grader was taught that multiplying was just an easy way of "adding sets" and division was just how you could split those groups up. This gave him the ability to solve the problems, albeit the long way. This year in second grade he is memorizing the multiplication tables. Now he has the ability to answer quickly but also CHECK his work. He has a much better understanding of math than I ever did, and he doesn't suffer from the very common "mathxiety".
yep the way math is taught in school now is how my brain actually does it. Its likely why i was better and faster at math than everyone else b/c we were all taught the long division and multiplication. but i naturally break things down to their simplest form and put them back together which is more or less how these are taught now. A much simpler way to do it.
Exactly. Everyone freaks out about "common core math" (although the common core and the new way math is taught are actually unrelated) but it's basically just like making change. How hard is that?
When I started really working (in college) with people who knew and understood higher math, I realized that they all do math this way (breaking problems down, flipping them around etc). I believe I was taught to just memorize it because I still had nuns as teachers and many of them didn't really understand math.
Exactly (there is a lot of confusion out there about "common core"). I wish was taught math this way. I can tell, even at this early stage, that my first grader will soon be better at thinking about math problems than me. And I was great at math up until pre-calc, because I was good at the Catholic school memorization method.
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Nobody123....So True! That kind of math, where my son had to draw a picture and explain his answer (when he could solve the problem in his head) nearly killed us in 2nd grade. Tears every time he had math homework. It was awful. Then, after he finished 4th grade and I started homeschooling him for 5th, I really found out how hard it was for him to progress because he had not been made to simply memorize his multiplication facts. Harder concepts were very frustrating because he would get hung up on the easy/basic math facts (either addition, subtraction or multiplication) that he should have just known by then. We had to stop for a couple of weeks and just work on that daily until he could just rattle them off. Only then, could we move through more difficult math concepts easily and without him getting really frustrated. I know not everyone learns the same way, but the way they jump around so much and never sit with one concept in math and poo poo simple memorization (drill and kill) is really making it so much harder on learning, in my opinion. BUT, that's a soapbox for another day....sorry!!!
I think this is going to depend on the kid.
From what BeanCounter said above...
2nd grade was the onslaught of "common core" math, which is much like described above with properties, drawing pictures, etc. And I was confused by it. It took me a few days to figure it out, but once I did - I could do a lot more math in my head than ever before (and I'm an engineer, I don't suck at math!).
3rd grade came multiplication tables. So first, they learn the how and the why, and then they learn the tables.
My son has gone from "because I just know" on a math question, to how to actually explain it.
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It's not ironic that they get to use a calculator after demonstrating how they understand the thought process behind solving math problems multiple ways. I agree with some of what you said, but certainly not this.
The irony is that in a year and a half, nobody will care if these same elementary school children know that the commutative property even exists. 9 X 6 = 54, 6 X 9 = 54, just punch both into the calculator and move on with life.
I guess I just disagree with the order they learn things in now. Drawing pictures and writing sentences to explain that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because of the commutative property of multiplication is premature at best when they haven't yet memorized that 9 X 6 = 54 and 6 X 9 = 54 because times tables are out of vogue. The only reason any third grader needs to know that 9 X 6 = 6 X 9 is an example of the commutative property of multiplication is to answer a standardized test question. It has been a while since I was in third grade, and maybe I learned it was called the commutative property that year, but I guarantee it wasn't until after many hours of flash cards and worksheets that made me memorize the basic truths of the times table.
Totally disagree.
30 years ago in a little Catholic school I was taught multiplication through the "drill 'em and kill 'em" method. We memorized all the facts, but didn't really understand it.
Last year my first grader was taught that multiplying was just an easy way of "adding sets" and division was just how you could split those groups up. This gave him the ability to solve the problems, albeit the long way. This year in second grade he is memorizing the multiplication tables. Now he has the ability to answer quickly but also CHECK his work. He has a much better understanding of math than I ever did, and he doesn't suffer from the very common "mathxiety".
yep the way math is taught in school now is how my brain actually does it. Its likely why i was better and faster at math than everyone else b/c we were all taught the long division and multiplication. but i naturally break things down to their simplest form and put them back together which is more or less how these are taught now. A much simpler way to do it.
Exactly. Everyone freaks out about "common core math" (although the common core and the new way math is taught are actually unrelated) but it's basically just like making change. How hard is that?
When I started really working (in college) with people who knew and understood higher math, I realized that they all do math this way (breaking problems down, flipping them around etc). I believe I was taught to just memorize it because I still had nuns as teachers and many of them didn't really understand math.
Exactly (there is a lot of confusion out there about "common core"). I wish was taught math this way. I can tell, even at this early stage, that my first grader will soon be better at thinking about math problems than me. And I was great at math up until pre-calc, because I was good at the Catholic school memorization method.
I wish everyone thought this way. When I hear parents say "Why can't they just teach it the way they always did? I don't get this! They are trying to dumb down our kids", I feel like screaming "THE REASON YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE NEEDED TO CHANGE THE WAY WE TEACH MATH!!!!!"
sorry- end rant.
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I wish everyone thought this way. When I hear parents say "Why can't they just teach it the way they always did? I don't get this! They are trying to dumb down our kids", I feel like screaming "THE REASON YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE NEEDED TO CHANGE THE WAY WE TEACH MATH!!!!!"
sorry- end rant.
+1000
I'm an engineer, good at math and memorization. I work with a LOT of people who are from other countries, and they do SO MUCH MORE MATH in their heads, and understand it better, than I do.
I was doing great when my now 5th grader was in 2nd grade, but then I didn't keep it up. Luckily I have a second chance with kid #2.
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Math is one subject definitely taught better now than in the past (assuming the teachers understand how to approach the curriculum, which is not a given). The others are more arguable, especially when we get into things like mandating specific topics of study/books to read for English, Social Studies, etc., which doesn't apply to common core, but does pop up in various formats.
I'll also just mention that parents that are obsessed with their kids being ahead of the curve at all times frustrate me to no end. Your kid does not need to read at age 3, or 4, or even 6. They don't need to always be the youngest in their class with the best grades and most extracurriculars. Pushing them to do these things is more likely to cause harm than good. If they get there on their own, great, and I'm not saying you can't do extra reading lessons if they seem to enjoy them. But otherwise chill out and let your kids learn to love learning. That will serve them so much better in the long run.
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To clarify, I'm not advocating that teaching methodology for math (or any other subject) shouldn't evolve, or standards for the end product of the education system shouldn't be raised, or the way that I best learn and understand things is what will work for everyone. My concern is that rather than spending time reinforcing key concepts and facts, such as multiplication tables, that have a lifelong benefit, we are adding to the breadth of early elementary education in order to say we are covering more things that may not be as valuable in the long run. I would much rather my kids have a reflexive, confident answer of what 9 X 3 is than have 3 different ways of describing the problem and having to work an art project to completion before spouting out "27". Thirty years ago a teacher would have spent the time to ensure that the students could answer quickly and explain how they arrived at the answer, but now they are forced to move on so they can cover more things in the curriculum because a politician said so.
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To clarify, I'm not advocating that teaching methodology for math (or any other subject) shouldn't evolve, or standards for the end product of the education system shouldn't be raised, or the way that I best learn and understand things is what will work for everyone. My concern is that rather than spending time reinforcing key concepts and facts, such as multiplication tables, that have a lifelong benefit, we are adding to the breadth of early elementary education in order to say we are covering more things that may not be as valuable in the long run. I would much rather my kids have a reflexive, confident answer of what 9 X 3 is than have 3 different ways of describing the problem and having to work an art project to completion before spouting out "27". Thirty years ago a teacher would have spent the time to ensure that the students could answer quickly and explain how they arrived at the answer, but now they are forced to move on so they can cover more things in the curriculum because a politician said so.
To offer an anecdotal counterpoint, due to a pretty mediocre elementary school, I didn't memorize my multiplication tables until 6th grade, and yet I eventually aced calculus as a junior in high school back when it was pretty uncommon for juniors to be in calculus at all. While this may be because I am naturally good at math despite not being taught well as a gradeschooler, I would posit it's because I enjoyed math and thus pursued workbooks on my own time out of school (yes, I was a nerd). Those workbooks were not aimed at teaching me that 3x9 = 27, but they used puzzles that taught methodologies resembling the common core today. Thus I was "behind" in my concrete knowledge, but way ahead in my conceptual knowledge (the type of thing taught by common core), and thus I easily caught up with, and then surpassed, the majority of my peers. FWIW.
I have so many problems with our education system right now, but the math curriculum (when taught by a properly trained teacher, which is a huge caveat) is one thing I think we're doing much better.
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To clarify, I'm not advocating that teaching methodology for math (or any other subject) shouldn't evolve, or standards for the end product of the education system shouldn't be raised, or the way that I best learn and understand things is what will work for everyone. My concern is that rather than spending time reinforcing key concepts and facts, such as multiplication tables, that have a lifelong benefit, we are adding to the breadth of early elementary education in order to say we are covering more things that may not be as valuable in the long run. I would much rather my kids have a reflexive, confident answer of what 9 X 3 is than have 3 different ways of describing the problem and having to work an art project to completion before spouting out "27". Thirty years ago a teacher would have spent the time to ensure that the students could answer quickly and explain how they arrived at the answer, but now they are forced to move on so they can cover more things in the curriculum because a politician said so.
While I don't have much experience with the math currently being taught at the primary school level, my understanding, and limited experience, is that the students are able to quickly and accurately answer the 9x3 question. They are also able to quickly and accurately answer larger multiplication number than I ever learned through rote multiplication table study. While doing the work on paper may look like an 'art project', once learned the answers come at least as easily and quickly as the 'old' way.
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I actually am very thankful for the Common Core math (and I'm a conservative, so I don't feel the need to defend it).
Because of my daughter's various issues (gifted but with very slow processing/fine motor issues/anxiety) she can't very easily memorize math facts or get answers down on paper quickly (Mad Minute type worksheets...not good). Or even if she has it memorized, she still feels the need to double check everything, so it's slow going regardless.
With common core, they are trying to develop math sense. And it also happens to be the way I naturally do math, and it's why I can do it so quickly in my head.
Most people aren't going to learn what .15 of any number is....but you can figure out a 15% tip if you know .1 of the number - then take half of that and add it back to the .1. 120 x.1 is 12, half of that is 6, the tip is 12 + 6.
I've practiced this so many times in my head, that I can calculate a tip quite quickly. From what I've gathered this is similar to what they teaching students...ways to manipulate the math. But they have also, at least in our district, taught traditional ways as well. So the kids are given a bunch of strategies to use and they are free to pick which strategy works best for them, once they learn the various ones. YMMV.
Shoot, as I age, I just don't trust my memorized math facts any more. I use strategies all the time to make sure that memorized fact is still quite accurate.
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Interesting math discussion. One of my oldest friends, who has a degree in EE from MIT, has always done math the Common Core way. She has never learned her multiplication tables. She does not need them.
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Interesting math discussion. One of my oldest friends, who has a degree in EE from MIT, has always done math the Common Core way. She has never learned her multiplication tables. She does not need them.
My Uncle is an MIT grad (was admitted at age 16) and is the math department head for a state University. He says absolutely this is the way math should be taught. I trust that he knows what he is talking about.
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To clarify, I'm not advocating that teaching methodology for math (or any other subject) shouldn't evolve, or standards for the end product of the education system shouldn't be raised, or the way that I best learn and understand things is what will work for everyone. My concern is that rather than spending time reinforcing key concepts and facts, such as multiplication tables, that have a lifelong benefit, we are adding to the breadth of early elementary education in order to say we are covering more things that may not be as valuable in the long run. I would much rather my kids have a reflexive, confident answer of what 9 X 3 is than have 3 different ways of describing the problem and having to work an art project to completion before spouting out "27". Thirty years ago a teacher would have spent the time to ensure that the students could answer quickly and explain how they arrived at the answer, but now they are forced to move on so they can cover more things in the curriculum because a politician said so.
While I don't have much experience with the math currently being taught at the primary school level, my understanding, and limited experience, is that the students are able to quickly and accurately answer the 9x3 question. They are also able to quickly and accurately answer larger multiplication number than I ever learned through rote multiplication table study. While doing the work on paper may look like an 'art project', once learned the answers come at least as easily and quickly as the 'old' way.
This was my experience too. For a bit of time when I was helping with homework in 2nd grade, I could do way more higher level multiplication in my head. Alas, I lost the ability. My son can do that in his head, and I need paper (carry the two, etc.)
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My daughter is in Kindergarten this year. She has an April birthday and will be 6 soon.
She is one of the youngest kids in her class! There are kids who have been 7 since November, in her classroom. My daughter is doing fine and has yet to learn anything in school. She was reading before Kindergarten, which is typical here. I am glad to share with anyone what we have done since she was little. It is not anything taxing, we have always just been consistent.
On her first report card the only "negative" and I am not kidding....was the music teacher telling me she did not have "perfect pitch". Ok! I'm guessing it is because she can read music from choir/piano and also can read the words somehow the woman thought she'd be a choral virtuoso??? Luckily the church choir she sings in doesn't care!
The other day we had a playdate with a girl who is nearly a foot taller than her and also about 18 months older; my daughter had to help her read a couple words in the book she had chosen. So red-shirting is not always the key to success!
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On her first report card the only "negative" and I am not kidding....was the music teacher telling me she did not have "perfect pitch". Ok! I'm guessing it is because she can read music from choir/piano and also can read the words somehow the woman thought she'd be a choral virtuoso??? Luckily the church choir she sings in doesn't care!
Strange that she would assume anyone has perfect pitch.
Perfect pitch is very rare, and it's not always a good thing to have . . . if you have perfect pitch and you play a tune where the band has tuned down a couple percent (a pretty common occurance - although maybe less so now with the ubiquity of electronic tuners) the music sounds totally wrong to you.
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On her first report card the only "negative" and I am not kidding....was the music teacher telling me she did not have "perfect pitch". Ok! I'm guessing it is because she can read music from choir/piano and also can read the words somehow the woman thought she'd be a choral virtuoso??? Luckily the church choir she sings in doesn't care!
Strange that she would assume anyone has perfect pitch.
Perfect pitch is very rare, and it's not always a good thing to have . . . if you have perfect pitch and you play a tune where the band has tuned down a couple percent (a pretty common occurance - although maybe less so now with the ubiquity of electronic tuners) the music sounds totally wrong to you.
I agree- as a person with multiple music degrees I know very few people with actual perfect pitch (I certainly don't have it). Most performers I know also don't have it. If she can read music at at age 5 well enough to sing in a choir that is insanely impressive. It wasn't a skill I truly learned until my late teens.
From a purely curious parenting angle - what age did you start her on piano? We're contemplating starting our five year old but he still doesn't seem ready for it (to us (both professionally educated musicians)). Did it take her a while to get into it or did she just settle right in to reading music? Also, what method?
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School psychologist here--
My 2 cents as a parent--my son's birthday is early July. We sent him to kindergarten in August. He was more than ready; although somewhat behind socially. Never had any problems until a little glitch in high school. Did fine after that. His grades dropped a bit for about a year, but then he straightened out and graduated, went to college and is now career military. A second personal note--my dad, who was incredibly intelligent and worked with some of the first computers, talked about the fact that he "flunked" kindergarten. Back in his day, they could start kindergarten as soon as they turned 4 so his parents sent him to school in November after his 4th birthday. Since he was so young, he wasn't ready and they had him repeat kindergarten the next year. He talked about being stupid and flunking kindergarten even as an adult and throughout his entire life. It really messed with him even though he knew why he repeated was due to the weird November start date and having started basically on his 4th birthday.
Now my professional hat--I deal with this issue every year. My main job in the schools is to identify students at risk for learning problems or behavior problems. Research into retention (and redshirting is a form of retention, just not your typical retention) by the National Association of School Psychologists indicates that a single retention increases the likelihood of the child dropping out of school by 50%. If they are retained more than once (and I've seen upward of 3 retentions of a single student--don't get me started!) they are likely to drop out by 90%. If they are retained and then later found eligible for special education services (for instance have a diagnosis of a learning disability), they are 90% likely to drop out.
Also, there have been studies on stress levels on children where various stressful events are rated high to low. Grade retention is number TWO, behind only the death of a parent. So a student repeating kindergarten, or any grade, perceives the stress level just below that of having mom or dad die. There is also that stigma of seeing your friends in a higher grade. It especially shows up in high school when "your class" is graduating and you have another year left. I've actually seen kids drop out of school to avoid this issue.
I don't have the citation, but there was a study done several years ago that showed the NUMBER ONE reason a teacher recommends a student be retained is physical size--nothing to do with readiness or academics, just size. Based on the size, the teacher makes the inaccurate assumption that the child is "immature" and "needs an extra year."
I have personally seen this phenomenon in my schools. It's rather bizarre. When I start asking specific questions about the child and why the teacher thinks he/she should stay in the grade another year, the teacher starts talking about the child's maturity level. OK. So he acts silly and tells jokes. He gets straight As and has great support at home. So let's keep him in grade xx again since he annoys you.
Of course, every child is different. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence per se. As a general, global rule, these things apply. For an individual child, they may not. In over 20 years in the schools and of all the children I have seen retained for one reason or another, I think there have been two that truly benefited from the retention. I have only personally recommended that one child be retained in 20 years. That was due to significant illness and the fact that the child was absent so much he missed more than half of the school year. That child also had super supportive parents who were able to talk with the child about why this was going to happen and put it in a positive note. That particular child was actually relieved since he did not feel ready for the next grade.
Sorry for the soapbox. I fight this fight every year :-)
To the OP, if your daughter is having some fine motor difficulties, ask for an evaluation by the occupational therapist to see if she has a true delay and would require actual therapy.
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@spookytaffy - totally agree that retention should be much more rare than it is, but I wouldn't personally call "redshirting" kindergarten a form of retention, as none of the drawbacks you cite apply in that scenario. As far as the kid is concerned they are still in preschool, and then they are in kindergarten along with all of the other first timers. As you mentioned with your dad, the downsides to putting a kid in school too early could very possibly outweigh any positives (which are what, anyway? Bragging rights for the parents?).
That said, I wouldn't consider holding my child out of kindergarten if they were comfortably within the usual age cohort, but if they are on the bubble, I think either way can be fine. All said, there are many advantages to delaying and few, if any, drawbacks, so I would err towards that decision personally.
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Now my professional hat--I deal with this issue every year. My main job in the schools is to identify students at risk for learning problems or behavior problems. Research into retention (and redshirting is a form of retention, just not your typical retention) by the National Association of School Psychologists indicates that a single retention increases the likelihood of the child dropping out of school by 50%. If they are retained more than once (and I've seen upward of 3 retentions of a single student--don't get me started!) they are likely to drop out by 90%. If they are retained and then later found eligible for special education services (for instance have a diagnosis of a learning disability), they are 90% likely to drop out.
I'm almost positive that the studies from NASP I saw indicated that when reviewing cases of delayed starting Kinder for kids with 'bubble birthdays', they were no more likely to drop out than the general population, so they effects of retention on risk for dropping out weren't present in those cases (sidenote: I am with you that 'true' retention is horrible and often done haphazardly).
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Thanks psychstache for the clarification. I honestly hadn't looked at them lately; just went by the seat of my pants and not DATA! :-)
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On her first report card the only "negative" and I am not kidding....was the music teacher telling me she did not have "perfect pitch". Ok! I'm guessing it is because she can read music from choir/piano and also can read the words somehow the woman thought she'd be a choral virtuoso??? Luckily the church choir she sings in doesn't care!
Strange that she would assume anyone has perfect pitch.
Perfect pitch is very rare, and it's not always a good thing to have . . . if you have perfect pitch and you play a tune where the band has tuned down a couple percent (a pretty common occurance - although maybe less so now with the ubiquity of electronic tuners) the music sounds totally wrong to you.
I agree- as a person with multiple music degrees I know very few people with actual perfect pitch (I certainly don't have it). Most performers I know also don't have it. If she can read music at at age 5 well enough to sing in a choir that is insanely impressive. It wasn't a skill I truly learned until my late teens.
From a purely curious parenting angle - what age did you start her on piano? We're contemplating starting our five year old but he still doesn't seem ready for it (to us (both professionally educated musicians)). Did it take her a while to get into it or did she just settle right in to reading music? Also, what method?
Having talked with several friends who are private music teachers, not one of them recommends starting a kid before, at the very earliest, age 5. Most won't even take students younger than that, and the kid has to show a pretty big interest in the instrument for them to take even 5-yr-olds. 7 is more appropriate due to the fine motor development and attention span. Younger kids are more likely to drop an instrument as it's just a passing fancy for them, have to be coddled more and pushed to practice, etc.. Older kids usually want to stick with it if they realize that music is their thing.
Of course, a lot of this also depends on whether or not it's the parents pushing music education (yay in some ways, in others I think it's one more example of parental 'look at my kid, he/she is so much better than other kids') and if the kid actually has an interest in or talent for music. Yes, there are outlier kids who are musical geniuses by the age of 4 or whatever, but those are the exception and not the rule. And if your kid is like that, you'll know it because you won't be able to keep them away from music.
As a musician and parent, if my kid really wants to learn an instrument I'll let her start at age 7. Until then, exposure to music and working on fine motor skills is far more important. Having a musical atmosphere around and singing with her will help her develop the base skills and appreciation for music that will carry her forward.
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I have a 4.5 yr old boy (birthday in early May) who is not very advanced for his age in speech, writing or maturity. It's a tough call. I feel the same burden that whatever decision I make will follow him for the next 15 years of his life.
We have run the gambit in our family. My oldest boy is 10 (January birthday) and in 5th grade. He started Kinder on time, and we quickly figured out he was the only kid in class who could read chapter books and do higher level addition. So he was tested and skipped into 1st grade mid year. No regrets there, other than that 5th graders are teaching him some horrible social lessons (bad words, bad behavior etc).
My only daughter is 6 (birthday in April) and in her correct grade for her age, which is 1st grade. She cried when she realized she would not get to skip a grade like her older brother.
Then there's my youngest. It would feel completely horrible to have a held back, a regular and a skipped grade kid. It bothered me that my daughter took notice of the fact that she wasn't skipped and assumed it meant she wasn't smart. Not the message we want to send :-/
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We also work on writing/problem solving/tracing/etc worksheets with our daughter (no other parent I have spoken to does this) and build in counting, learning letters in everything we do throughout our day.
Guess I'm the first one to chime in with a totally different recommendation.
You are already homeschooling her (see the clipped quote above); why not just continue that at home for another year?
Seems like it would solve your dilemmas....for this year, at least! :)
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I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around this.
The redshirting seems likely to create an additional layer of redshirting, once the first layer becomes popular, which is going to quickly ruin the last shred of accommodation anyone gives teachers to get their jobs done. Well, Billy would be smarter and bigger and more ready at age 7, so he'd be some kind of ultra-kindergartener! Let's get him some completely ridiculous advantages instead of acknowledging that it doesn't matter whether you get your degree at age 22 or age 23, or are 4'11" or 4'10". Are we really prepared to advocate holding a child back a year from starting school so they won't feel short?
Kids get picked on in school for anything. It doesn't matter if their name is Moonbeam or they wear glasses or they farted once - they will get made fun of. The ones who know they are loved and who didn't start school with a source of crippling anxiety will usually move on. They will appear confident, and overcome it, and be admired, and create a self-perpetuating cycle. Focusing on building a core sense of worth (not by just saying "you're special and can do anything") is the greatest gift parents can give, not 2", and I hope the competition for college doesn't devolve into this arms race for crap we shouldn't be competing over. It hugely distracts from our need to pay better for competitive teaching, teach economic risk/reward and personal finance BEFORE paying college bills, and to have a much more collaborative expectation of parents and teachers (no, I'm not talking about bi-weekly progress reports and instant online availability for all tests and quizzes - guh).
This isn't our kids' anxiety; it's ours.
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I think this is a very kid by kid decision. My youngest boy is born the day before the cutoff. He'd either be the very youngest or the very oldest in his kindergarten class. As such we elected to wait a year. I have no regrets about doing this. Had we started ASAP he would have been emotionally immature and I don't think it would have gone as well.
As in Gladwell's Outliers for sports, older kids tend to do better in school. They show more aptitude, respond to the teaching better, and therefore are (frankly) given extra attention by teachers. It's like the oldest kid on the hockey team. They just perform better so get more of the coach's attention and are challenged more to be greater. Not that it should be that way, but that's human nature.
That's not to say a younger kid can't do great in school. Just the law of averages. And like I said, very kid-specific. Had my oldest been in the same boat I probably wouldn't have waited given the maturity level she had at the same age. And pushing the "red shirt" date back months and months is crazy. If it's ± 1 month or so, do what you think is best.
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I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around this.
The redshirting seems likely to create an additional layer of redshirting, once the first layer becomes popular, which is going to quickly ruin the last shred of accommodation anyone gives teachers to get their jobs done. Well, Billy would be smarter and bigger and more ready at age 7, so he'd be some kind of ultra-kindergartener! Let's get him some completely ridiculous advantages instead of acknowledging that it doesn't matter whether you get your degree at age 22 or age 23, or are 4'11" or 4'10". Are we really prepared to advocate holding a child back a year from starting school so they won't feel short?
Kids get picked on in school for anything. It doesn't matter if their name is Moonbeam or they wear glasses or they farted once - they will get made fun of. The ones who know they are loved and who didn't start school with a source of crippling anxiety will usually move on. They will appear confident, and overcome it, and be admired, and create a self-perpetuating cycle. Focusing on building a core sense of worth (not by just saying "you're special and can do anything") is the greatest gift parents can give, not 2", and I hope the competition for college doesn't devolve into this arms race for crap we shouldn't be competing over. It hugely distracts from our need to pay better for competitive teaching, teach economic risk/reward and personal finance BEFORE paying college bills, and to have a much more collaborative expectation of parents and teachers (no, I'm not talking about bi-weekly progress reports and instant online availability for all tests and quizzes - guh).
This isn't our kids' anxiety; it's ours.
+1. I think so much of this isn't about the kids, it's about parents trying to make themselves seem better through their kids. Ridiculous.
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On her first report card the only "negative" and I am not kidding....was the music teacher telling me she did not have "perfect pitch". Ok! I'm guessing it is because she can read music from choir/piano and also can read the words somehow the woman thought she'd be a choral virtuoso??? Luckily the church choir she sings in doesn't care!
Strange that she would assume anyone has perfect pitch.
Perfect pitch is very rare, and it's not always a good thing to have . . . if you have perfect pitch and you play a tune where the band has tuned down a couple percent (a pretty common occurance - although maybe less so now with the ubiquity of electronic tuners) the music sounds totally wrong to you.
I agree- as a person with multiple music degrees I know very few people with actual perfect pitch (I certainly don't have it). Most performers I know also don't have it. If she can read music at at age 5 well enough to sing in a choir that is insanely impressive. It wasn't a skill I truly learned until my late teens.
From a purely curious parenting angle - what age did you start her on piano? We're contemplating starting our five year old but he still doesn't seem ready for it (to us (both professionally educated musicians)). Did it take her a while to get into it or did she just settle right in to reading music? Also, what method?
Hi. Sorry, I did not see this earlier. Our piano teacher started her in her second year of preschool. She told us that typically she does not like to start children until the 2nd semester of Kindergarten at the earliest. At the time my daughter was very eager to learn. I told the piano teacher to come for a lesson, if she lasted 5 minutes...I would take a lesson the other 25 minutes (I can read music but never learned piano). The piano teacher thought this was a good option, because I could learn all and then teach my daughter. Only problem; my daughter's first piano lesson lasted 45 minutes and I have yet to have a single lesson. LOL!
As for method, no idea? If interested PM me and I will get the titles from her books. Its a series and she is on the 7th or 8th book now. There is music theory included, site reading, and then piano specific stuff. The books include activities to color, etc. Our piano teacher spent 20 years teaching preschool part time and teaching piano. It was within the last 3 years she went to piano full time. She is very good with my daughter. On days when my daughter has "ants in her pants"; she takes her lesson standing or sitting in a chair she sits at the dining table. The piano bench seems to be the biggest hurdle---the need to slide her bottom from one end to the other is very distracting?! LOL
She has had a couple of recitals. The first she played Old McDonald. It was fun.
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we "redshirted" our oldest, for a variety of reasons - (preschool recommendation by 1 of 2 teachers, speech, size and the looming first year of all-day K.) The pros: He was old, confident, tall & big in Middle school. The Cons: having to always explain why he's a year older than many classmates, somewhat bored at school. We could have gone either way, but the small boost in the TOUGH middle school years was worthwhile for him.
we sent kid #4 to school early. she was 4 for a full month (late sept bday). she was ready for school, 7 years later she is top of her class, smart as a whip, working hard. The pros: she's been challenged and done well. the cons: She's in MS now. she's smaller, socially and physically not as mature as peers, and that is hard on her.
In HS it will even out as we've seen with our other kids.
Kids seem to even out in both elementary & HS; but middle school is hard on kids no matter what. Kids' height, weight, clothing, hair, skin, athleticism, socialness, likeability, economics (and sometimes but not often academics) --- those are all part of the mix in Middle School. Even with all of the anti-bullying, diversity messages & "no place for hate" messages -- i still see it: the smaller boys get picked on, the bigger girls too; the socially awkward kids as well.
RIGHT NOW, in 6th grade, i often wish we had waited with #4; just because an older kid's mental maturity is more developed to handle the situations that i see everyday at her school (make up, body developing, texting pictures to boys, body image, Sports, etc. etc.).
In a few years i probably wont have those regrets because these things all change. We do our best and our hardest to support her at home as she keeps growing and maturing. Very excited about the trampoline we just ordered to get her off her phone, and outside!
** and i do have to say, a smart kid will be a smart kid independent of starting early or late; it will not make a difference with scholarships later on.
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I think it depends a lot on your child. I have a son currently in 6th grade who is really struggling academically and socially, born in late July and started at 5. I really wish I had listened to the teacher before kindergarten who suggested (though very briefly) that we have him wait a year. At the time, we knew he had problems (the meeting with the suggestion was related to disabilities we didn't understand that he had then) but figured he would grow out of them and kindergarten would solve them. Now it is really too late because he is doing just a little too well for the school to be on board with holding him back and my husband wouldn't allow it because he thinks there would be a stigma now. Starting him a year later would have helped a lot.
On the flip side, when I was a teenager, my dad told me that if my older brother (1 year older with a learning disability that wasn't diagnosed until school had started) and I could have traded places and had me start at 4 and him start at 6, we both would have done better. I was reading and writing well before kindergarten so probably would have done fine.
Part of the challenge with these decisions is that you often don't know the extent of academic and social problems until they are already in kindergarten, yet once they are, it is hard to change and hold them back.
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I think it depends a lot on your child. I have a son currently in 6th grade who is really struggling academically and socially, born in late July and started at 5. I really wish I had listened to the teacher before kindergarten who suggested (though very briefly) that we have him wait a year. At the time, we knew he had problems (the meeting with the suggestion was related to disabilities we didn't understand that he had then) but figured he would grow out of them and kindergarten would solve them. Now it is really too late because he is doing just a little too well for the school to be on board with holding him back and my husband wouldn't allow it because he thinks there would be a stigma now. Starting him a year later would have helped a lot.
On the flip side, when I was a teenager, my dad told me that if my older brother (1 year older with a learning disability that wasn't diagnosed until school had started) and I could have traded places and had me start at 4 and him start at 6, we both would have done better. I was reading and writing well before kindergarten so probably would have done fine.
Part of the challenge with these decisions is that you often don't know the extent of academic and social problems until they are already in kindergarten, yet once they are, it is hard to change and hold them back.
I was in a similar situation to you (my kindergarten teacher suggested I skip a grade and my parents decided against it), and while I used to be mildly annoyed that I was "denied" a chance to gain a year on my life, so to speak, I have since changed my mind. I think even with smart kids (maybe not genuine prodigy/genius level, which have their own host of problems), I would personally err on the side of starting them late, assuming they are on the bubble age-wise. It's too hard to predict whether maturity will catch up with intellect, for example, or a whole host of other things that could derail a child that was advanced on the early side. As long as parents/teachers are thoughtful of the needs of a gifted child who might need some extra engagement because many grade-level exercises are too easy, I don't think there is any problem "holding back" that child for the long-term greater good. At worst, they will be just as successful as they otherwise would have been and at best, you have avoided negatively affecting their progress.
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I think it depends a lot on your child. I have a son currently in 6th grade who is really struggling academically and socially, born in late July and started at 5. I really wish I had listened to the teacher before kindergarten who suggested (though very briefly) that we have him wait a year. At the time, we knew he had problems (the meeting with the suggestion was related to disabilities we didn't understand that he had then) but figured he would grow out of them and kindergarten would solve them. Now it is really too late because he is doing just a little too well for the school to be on board with holding him back and my husband wouldn't allow it because he thinks there would be a stigma now. Starting him a year later would have helped a lot.
On the flip side, when I was a teenager, my dad told me that if my older brother (1 year older with a learning disability that wasn't diagnosed until school had started) and I could have traded places and had me start at 4 and him start at 6, we both would have done better. I was reading and writing well before kindergarten so probably would have done fine.
Part of the challenge with these decisions is that you often don't know the extent of academic and social problems until they are already in kindergarten, yet once they are, it is hard to change and hold them back.
I was in a similar situation to you (my kindergarten teacher suggested I skip a grade and my parents decided against it), and while I used to be mildly annoyed that I was "denied" a chance to gain a year on my life, so to speak, I have since changed my mind. I think even with smart kids (maybe not genuine prodigy/genius level, which have their own host of problems), I would personally err on the side of starting them late, assuming they are on the bubble age-wise. It's too hard to predict whether maturity will catch up with intellect, for example, or a whole host of other things that could derail a child that was advanced on the early side. As long as parents/teachers are thoughtful of the needs of a gifted child who might need some extra engagement because many grade-level exercises are too easy, I don't think there is any problem "holding back" that child for the long-term greater good. At worst, they will be just as successful as they otherwise would have been and at best, you have avoided negatively affecting their progress.
There are just so many factors, and it's really hard to know isn't it?
My son is a July birthday (cutoff Sep 1) and he's starting kinder this year.
Many of my friends with boys and birthdays July/Aug are conflicted, and I'd say about half (mostly the SAHM half) are considering holding them back. And probably 1/3 will.
I had a convo with a friend at a party (her son, late Aug) and she asked me if I would hold back. I said no. But honestly, academically and socially, my almost-5 year old is just fine. Then again, he has a brother who is 6 years older.
My older kid had 2 years of preschool (and daycare before that). He was bored in kindergarten. He was ahead of at least 2/3 of the kids, many of whom were English learners with no preschool. This is the same demographic that kid #2 is going to be in school with. There is no point holding him back, even though he's young and small. Mentally, emotionally ready.
However, I did tell my friend that my OTHER friend (the teacher) says "always hold back boys". HER boys are the oldest in my older son's class. And they are big (taller than me, though that's not hard). If someone is on the fence, I don't really see a disadvantage to holding them back.
My older kid had a girl in his 1st grade class who skipped kindergarten. After a week of kinder, they moved her into first.
My older kid has a classmate with a younger brother - late Aug birthday. Started kinder and our school said he was not ready. (He's a boy, he's young, his mom is a single parent, no preschool). So they moved him into TK (transitional kinder). If by some reason, my school wants to put my younger son in TK, I would consider it.
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Not sure what the friend meant, but the "hold back boys" advice does has some basis to it. Late-maturation males are by far the most likely to have social issues at the primary and secondary school level. This could be modeled by bumping them up to a class where they are behind the curve maturation wise. I rarely use "always" in my own advice, but there may be a kernel of truth to this.
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If your girl seems ready, start her on time. At the risk of being stereotypical, kindergarten is set up for girls to succeed over boys. Boys tend to lag in maturity at that age (and arguably into manhood :P). More important than actual skills is whether she can sit still for 20 minutes at a time and concentrate on an activity for a short period. Most kids catch up by 2nd-3rd grade in reading anyway so none of that stuff really matters.
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I think the primary consideration should be how you think your daughter would handle it. If she's doing fine in a large group of older kids now, then she's probably ready. But imagine her in that more structured, demanding environment- how do you think she will feel/ react? Make your decision based on that.
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Not sure what the friend meant, but the "hold back boys" advice does has some basis to it. Late-maturation males are by far the most likely to have social issues at the primary and secondary school level. This could be modeled by bumping them up to a class where they are behind the curve maturation wise. I rarely use "always" in my own advice, but there may be a kernel of truth to this.
Her experience as a teacher is that boys mature more slowly and perhaps aren't "ready" for school at the same pace as girls, particularly emotionally. (But also in the expectation in some places to "sit still").
Now, for her, it was a moot point. Her kids have a late Dec birthday when the cutoff was early Dec. But if they had been born Nov 30, she would have held them back.
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If your girl seems ready, start her on time. At the risk of being stereotypical, kindergarten is set up for girls to succeed over boys. Boys tend to lag in maturity at that age (and arguably into manhood :P). More important than actual skills is whether she can sit still for 20 minutes at a time and concentrate on an activity for a short period. Most kids catch up by 2nd-3rd grade in reading anyway so none of that stuff really matters.
Interesting thoughts. Could this be remedied by making adjustments to the activities and expectations of kindergarten so that boys could succeed as well?
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In a perfect world, each child would find suitable challenge in the classroom everyday. They would be working "at the edge of their ability" across multiple subjects, enjoying hard-won successes and learning to re-double their effort when they've failed to master a new skill. The inherent reward of hard work and the feeling of progress keep students engaged. In the real world, classrooms, by definition, have mixed-abilities, and if the students are in a traditional classroom, the teacher is pitching the lessons to the students in the middle. For a bright kid, the pacing or level of material can be mind-numbing. For a really bright kid, the pacing, the level of material, and the "spiraling" repetition in the elementary school years can be absolutely torturous. It is not at all unusual to have a bright kid "call it in" during the first 7-8 years of school, never having to exert themselves much or spend much time on "homework". And then they get clobbered by the demands of high school...they've never learned the skills and mindset needed to get through challenging classes.
So. back to Kindergarten. The problem when you're making these decisions to send or not to send is you don't know what kind of kid you have. You might have an idea, but maybe not. Typically, you can't get perspective on your own child and kids are still changing a lot at 4 and 5 years old. As a parent you typically don't have any yardsticks to help you make these decisions, unless you've had some educational testing done, either identifying IQ/achievement strengths and weaknesses or identifying specific issues your child might have (e.g., dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADD, ADHD, etc).
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I red-shirted my august baby. Kindergarten is way more demanding than when I was a kid. They expect kids to know all their letters, sounds, and know how to write before kindergarten. My oldest was labeled as behind because she wasn't reading in the first month of school. She had to read to a D level by the end, know all her addition and subtraction up to 20, and write full sentences with proper capitalization, punctuation and grammar. Plus it was 7 hour days, 5 days a week, with ONE 20 minute recess and an HOUR of homework every night. The workload is insane for a 5 year old.
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I red-shirted my august baby. Kindergarten is way more demanding than when I was a kid. They expect kids to know all their letters, sounds, and know how to write before kindergarten. My oldest was labeled as behind because she wasn't reading in the first month of school. She had to read to a D level by the end, know all her addition and subtraction up to 20, and write full sentences with proper capitalization, punctuation and grammar. Plus it was 7 hour days, 5 days a week, with ONE 20 minute recess and an HOUR of homework every night. The workload is insane for a 5 year old.
An hour of homework for kindergarten? Punctuation...?
At a public school?
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I red-shirted my august baby. Kindergarten is way more demanding than when I was a kid. They expect kids to know all their letters, sounds, and know how to write before kindergarten. My oldest was labeled as behind because she wasn't reading in the first month of school. She had to read to a D level by the end, know all her addition and subtraction up to 20, and write full sentences with proper capitalization, punctuation and grammar. Plus it was 7 hour days, 5 days a week, with ONE 20 minute recess and an HOUR of homework every night. The workload is insane for a 5 year old.
An hour of homework for kindergarten? Punctuation...?
At a public school?
That's insane. My daughter's 8-hr/day kindergarten had a level D end goal too (I think that's standard for public kindergarten in the US) but very few kids could read coming in, much less write well. The levels of skill differed quite a bit. And certainly not an hour of homework per night. It was one 5-8 page packet per week. No grammar at all. Just a bit even now in first grade.
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I red-shirted my august baby. Kindergarten is way more demanding than when I was a kid. They expect kids to know all their letters, sounds, and know how to write before kindergarten. My oldest was labeled as behind because she wasn't reading in the first month of school. She had to read to a D level by the end, know all her addition and subtraction up to 20, and write full sentences with proper capitalization, punctuation and grammar. Plus it was 7 hour days, 5 days a week, with ONE 20 minute recess and an HOUR of homework every night. The workload is insane for a 5 year old.
An hour of homework for kindergarten? Punctuation...?
At a public school?
This sounds right to me. We live in a good public school district and our children's daycare sends homework home every week to prepare the kids for kindergarten. My Pre-Ker has a monthly "STEM" projects due every month and occasional worksheets and my 3 year old has a 5 page packet every week. We usually do not partake of any "homework" unless my 5 year old gets particularly excited about one of the assignments and we never turn in packets for the 3 year old because I think it is insane.
When I gave pushback on math facts in the pre-k class recently I was told that this is now standard prep for Kindergarten in our district.
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Quote from: golden1 on March 06, 2017, 11:36:37 AM
If your girl seems ready, start her on time. At the risk of being stereotypical, kindergarten is set up for girls to succeed over boys. Boys tend to lag in maturity at that age (and arguably into manhood :P). More important than actual skills is whether she can sit still for 20 minutes at a time and concentrate on an activity for a short period. Most kids catch up by 2nd-3rd grade in reading anyway so none of that stuff really matters.
Interesting thoughts. Could this be remedied by making adjustments to the activities and expectations of kindergarten so that boys could succeed as well?
Yes, I think more movement needs to be integrated into younger grades (all grades really). Kindergarten is not what it was when I went - it is really more like first grade used to be. Kids are expected at our school to be able to sit still and pay attention for 20 minutes, which not all 5 year olds are equipped to do. They also expect that most kids have been to preschool, know their letters and numbers and can write them. Recess has been cut down, and not only that (and this was my pet peeve) they tend to revoke it as a punishment. Okay, let's take a crazy 5 year old who has no self control and is bouncing off the walls and get rid of his/her only outlet for physical movement....
I volunteered in both my kids (a girl and a boy) Kindergarten classes. In both cases, the majority of the boys were easily distracted, many of them fidgeting, talking, and rolling on the floor during circle time (including my son). The majority of the girls sat quietly during lessons and were able to more easily move from task to task. I noticed the boys had more negative reinforcement and the girls more positive reinforcement. On the flip side, the boys tended to get more attention overall, both positive and negative, while the girls tended to fade a bit more into the background because they didn't cause trouble. It was an interesting experience.
I have seen some school districts where they divide Kindergarten into sub-groups in order to give some of the kids a chance to catch up maturity wise. They do an eval during the first few weeks and divide into two classes. Maybe this is an option, but my guess is that parents would try to override the school district if they don't get the answer they like.
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I red-shirted my august baby. Kindergarten is way more demanding than when I was a kid. They expect kids to know all their letters, sounds, and know how to write before kindergarten. My oldest was labeled as behind because she wasn't reading in the first month of school. She had to read to a D level by the end, know all her addition and subtraction up to 20, and write full sentences with proper capitalization, punctuation and grammar. Plus it was 7 hour days, 5 days a week, with ONE 20 minute recess and an HOUR of homework every night. The workload is insane for a 5 year old.
An hour of homework for kindergarten? Punctuation...?
At a public school?
Seems excessive. Our school gives "monthly" homework in kindergarten, which averages out to 5 minutes a day.
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I red-shirted my august baby. Kindergarten is way more demanding than when I was a kid. They expect kids to know all their letters, sounds, and know how to write before kindergarten. My oldest was labeled as behind because she wasn't reading in the first month of school. She had to read to a D level by the end, know all her addition and subtraction up to 20, and write full sentences with proper capitalization, punctuation and grammar. Plus it was 7 hour days, 5 days a week, with ONE 20 minute recess and an HOUR of homework every night. The workload is insane for a 5 year old.
An hour of homework for kindergarten? Punctuation...?
At a public school?
This sounds right to me. We live in a good public school district and our children's daycare sends homework home every week to prepare the kids for kindergarten. My Pre-Ker has a monthly "STEM" projects due every month and occasional worksheets and my 3 year old has a 5 page packet every week. We usually do not partake of any "homework" unless my 5 year old gets particularly excited about one of the assignments and we never turn in packets for the 3 year old because I think it is insane.
When I gave pushback on math facts in the pre-k class recently I was told that this is now standard prep for Kindergarten in our district.
We had a packet in kindergarten every week, and yes, it was only 5-8 pages. Here's what people with typical children don't get - that packet takes your child 5-10 minutes a night. For my daughter who has a GAI in the top 99.6% but a processing speed in the bottom 20%, that same packet could take an hour a night. Especially after a full day of kindergarten where now she's exhausted and melting down because she kept it together all day. This is where the red-shirting comes in - if we had delayed her entry into kindergarten her stamina for that sort of work and her improvement in fine motor skills would have made it much easier for her to complete the homework. We didn't, and I regret it. She's actually doing great this year; but she has way less homework this year than she did in kindergarten. So strange!
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Quote from: golden1 on March 06, 2017, 11:36:37 AM
If your girl seems ready, start her on time. At the risk of being stereotypical, kindergarten is set up for girls to succeed over boys. Boys tend to lag in maturity at that age (and arguably into manhood :P). More important than actual skills is whether she can sit still for 20 minutes at a time and concentrate on an activity for a short period. Most kids catch up by 2nd-3rd grade in reading anyway so none of that stuff really matters.
Interesting thoughts. Could this be remedied by making adjustments to the activities and expectations of kindergarten so that boys could succeed as well?
Yes, I think more movement needs to be integrated into younger grades (all grades really). Kindergarten is not what it was when I went - it is really more like first grade used to be. Kids are expected at our school to be able to sit still and pay attention for 20 minutes, which not all 5 year olds are equipped to do. They also expect that most kids have been to preschool, know their letters and numbers and can write them. Recess has been cut down, and not only that (and this was my pet peeve) they tend to revoke it as a punishment. Okay, let's take a crazy 5 year old who has no self control and is bouncing off the walls and get rid of his/her only outlet for physical movement....
I volunteered in both my kids (a girl and a boy) Kindergarten classes. In both cases, the majority of the boys were easily distracted, many of them fidgeting, talking, and rolling on the floor during circle time (including my son). The majority of the girls sat quietly during lessons and were able to more easily move from task to task. I noticed the boys had more negative reinforcement and the girls more positive reinforcement. On the flip side, the boys tended to get more attention overall, both positive and negative, while the girls tended to fade a bit more into the background because they didn't cause trouble. It was an interesting experience.
I have seen some school districts where they divide Kindergarten into sub-groups in order to give some of the kids a chance to catch up maturity wise. They do an eval during the first few weeks and divide into two classes. Maybe this is an option, but my guess is that parents would try to override the school district if they don't get the answer they like.
This is pretty much the pattern you see across the board in Kindergarten the last 5-10 years. The only time I've seen any significant break in the pattern is with super-elite Kinder teachers and male Kinder teachers, problem is the former is rare by definition and the latter is basically a unicorn.
There is some traction for more recess and the academic benefits that come with it. See:
http://www.today.com/parents/want-kids-listen-more-fidget-less-try-more-recess-school-t65536
Here's hoping the momentum keeps building.
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I red-shirted my august baby. Kindergarten is way more demanding than when I was a kid. They expect kids to know all their letters, sounds, and know how to write before kindergarten. My oldest was labeled as behind because she wasn't reading in the first month of school. She had to read to a D level by the end, know all her addition and subtraction up to 20, and write full sentences with proper capitalization, punctuation and grammar. Plus it was 7 hour days, 5 days a week, with ONE 20 minute recess and an HOUR of homework every night. The workload is insane for a 5 year old.
An hour of homework for kindergarten? Punctuation...?
At a public school?
This sounds right to me. We live in a good public school district and our children's daycare sends homework home every week to prepare the kids for kindergarten. My Pre-Ker has a monthly "STEM" projects due every month and occasional worksheets and my 3 year old has a 5 page packet every week. We usually do not partake of any "homework" unless my 5 year old gets particularly excited about one of the assignments and we never turn in packets for the 3 year old because I think it is insane.
When I gave pushback on math facts in the pre-k class recently I was told that this is now standard prep for Kindergarten in our district.
We had a packet in kindergarten every week, and yes, it was only 5-8 pages. Here's what people with typical children don't get - that packet takes your child 5-10 minutes a night. For my daughter who has a GAI in the top 99.6% but a processing speed in the bottom 20%, that same packet could take an hour a night. Especially after a full day of kindergarten where now she's exhausted and melting down because she kept it together all day. This is where the red-shirting comes in - if we had delayed her entry into kindergarten her stamina for that sort of work and her improvement in fine motor skills would have made it much easier for her to complete the homework. We didn't, and I regret it. She's actually doing great this year; but she has way less homework this year than she did in kindergarten. So strange!
Our daughter tests highly but was having serious difficulties with attention in the classroom and at home. Trying to get her through homework sheets is like slow death. And she regularly melts down after school. No one can tell me that homework is better use of my 6 year old's time than playing!
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Things are different now I'm sure, but my birthday is early November and I started school at four so I was nearly a year younger than many of my classmates and it was never a problem. Mom always said I was precocious, but I suspect she was biased.
Same here. My brother was two years older than I, and went through the same thing. Except after kindergarten, the teacher held him back. He just wasn't mature enough. And it made for a much healthier school experience for him.
The problem was that all of his siblings called him stupid for being held back, so if this is a possibility, please do it to your child before they go through the trauma. My family was exceptionally hard on each other. my brother ended up being the most normal of all of us.
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If you think you may end up having to repeat kindergarten, I would wait. I still remember the kid that got held back in K at my school and it's been 25 years. He faced a huge social stigma for "flunking" that followed him through his school career. Just something to consider.
THANK YOU!!
Having to repeat a year of elementary school is not the same as having to repeat other things in life... Having to "repeat" a year of college: hey, that sounds awesome. Having to "repeat" a trip to the grocery store because you forgot something... bummer. Having to repeat a year of kindergarten - oh hell no. This a seriously traumatizing event for a child to go through. It stays with them for life.
I urge you not to take that contingency lightly.
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Typically we had 2-3 worksheets, a assigned book they had to read, answer comprehension questions, and we had to read 20 minutes a night to them. It took about an hour.
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Hi all - OP here.
We opted to keep her on pace with the average of her peers (most will be going on 6) and not rush her into K. As of a couple weeks ago, her teacher felt like she is still not ready. It's the focus and her concentration part that I think it is. It's no biggie in the grand scheme of things. She will be going to a new Pre-K class (same school) with 3 other classmates who are also doing the same thing, so we are in similar company. We feel good about our decision.
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Thanks for the update! Sounds like you arrived at the decision in a thoughtful manner. Well done
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Hi all - OP here.
We opted to keep her on pace with the average of her peers (most will be going on 6) and not rush her into K. As of a couple weeks ago, her teacher felt like she is still not ready. It's the focus and her concentration part that I think it is. It's no biggie in the grand scheme of things. She will be going to a new Pre-K class (same school) with 3 other classmates who are also doing the same thing, so we are in similar company. We feel good about our decision.
Sounds like you made a great decision. We are doing the same. Like I said before, it's really not Kindergarten I worry about. It's first and second grade. If they can't maintain the focus needed for the academics it can cause problems and really mess with their self esteem. We decided it's not worth the risk.
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We're red-shirting, b/c our son seems average at verbal stuff, he'll be the first to drive in his class, and do better in sports. We missed enrollment by 9 days (Sept 9th birthday), but could have done private kindergarten last year to get him into first grade this year.
Friends of our did that - manipulated the system with private school to get their kid into subsequent grades "early" in public school. They have a super-gifted kid though (people in restaurants would stop them, introduce themselves as educators and specialists, and say - get that kid in school early). Their thought was they didn't want their son to be bored, and thus misbehave, and thus think he didn't like school/wasn't smart/hated learning. It worked well for him.
Our 5, now almost 6 year old, is flourishing in preschool. He's always at the top of rewards chart for good behaviour (with all the girls, LOL). He'll start kindergarten in summer school (they have a special summer school program that's focused on technology) and we feel really confident that he'll have a good experience b/c we waited.
I think it's important to know your kid and act accordingly. Sounds like you thought it through and made a good decision for your family!
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Glad you have a decision you feel good about. Our youngest is in kindergarten and was born the day before the cutoff. We didn't redshirt him only because we chose for other reasons to homeschool. He's doing great academically (passing all his end of kinder assessments) despite having started not knowing most of the preK material. But, I think he would be disaster if he were in the local school sitting at a desk 5-6 hours a day with only one 15-20 minute recess. Our older, super compliant kid who already knew most of the kindergarten material was near disaster for most of that year. It's just so much desk work. We plan to phase in more desk time as we go and do mock school to practice if we get to a place where public school becomes a viable option. I'm super glad we didn't try public kindergarten this year though.
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We plan to phase in more desk time as we go and do mock school to practice if we get to a place where public school becomes a viable option.
As a fellow homeschooling family, I'm scratching my head on why you would try to mock school at home?
Also what kind of end of kinder assessments are you giving him?