Redshirting isn't just for football players. One local mom looks at all of her options for her son, who is due to enter kindergarten in the fall. (Photo on flickr by woodleywonderworks)
by Rachael McMillan
Dilemma: your 5-year-old is in no way ready to participate in all-day kindergarten.
Option 1: Lie and use your brother’s address to get your child into half-day kindergarten in Mahomet. Probably not the most legally responsible thing to do.
Option 2: Delay kindergarten. Now, there’s a thought…
The McMillan family is flush in the middle of this situation. Our son, Jack, is pretty smart (as I type this, he and I are discussing the distinction between wild and domesticated animals). On the other hand, social adeptness just isn’t Jack’s thing. In addition, his fine motor skills could use some work.
We’ve only recently — as in this past semester — gotten him into the right preschool setting, and it has been HUGELY beneficial. In fact, we think he could use a bit more time there.
But he’s 5. And not a “young” 5, either; he’ll turn 6 in November.
So: keep him in preschool, or make the leap to kindergarten? Luckily, I’m surrounded by people with experience in this situation, and their input has been invaluable as our family grapples with the decision.
My friend Kelly, who has a background in education, decided (along with her husband) to delay kindergarten for both of her kids. Her advice? “If you are questioning sending your child to kindergarten, then you probably already have your answer.”
When her son was old enough to enter kindergarten, she felt that he could use some more time getting used to the routine of school before diving into all-day classes. Kelly points out that kindergarten is much more demanding now than it used to be: half days of mostly play with some light academics sprinkled in have given way to full days of reading, writing, and arithmetic with some play.
When is a child ready to tackle this kind of workload? For that information I consulted Sherri Bolen, who teaches with me at The Reading Group. She has taught kindergarten herself, and has screened many children for school-readiness.
Her advice is to make sure a child can handle the social aspects of all-day school before enrolling him or her in kindergarten. According to Sherri, some of the prerequisite social skills include being able to be separated from parents without getting too upset, being able to share with others and play in a group, being able to control oneself, and understanding discipline (cause=effect).
As a screener, she sometimes told parents that it might be in their child’s best interests to delay kindergarten. Of those who took her advice, she reports, “I have never had a parent tell me that it was the wrong decision to wait a year.”
Sherri’s decision to delay school for her own son dates to when she realized that he would have a summer birthday. As a kindergarten teacher, she found that students who were “new 5s” were often easy to spot — many stood out as having difficulty adapting to the routine. For her and her husband, giving their child every opportunity to succeed in school meant taking the possibility of kindergarten off the table until after his 6th birthday.
She doesn’t automatically advise that everyone makes the same decision her family made, and states, “Young fives can definitely be successful in kindergarten. It depends on the child and the support of the family.”
Here’s a biggie: what about the social fallout of sending an “older” child to kindergarten for the first time? To find out about this, I added my friends Marla and Kathy (third- and fourth-grade teachers, respectively) to the panel. There is agreement across the board on two things:
1. Hands down, it’s WAY better to delay school than it is to risk having a child be held back or be otherwise unsuccessful as a student.
2. It doesn’t really register with kids when one of their classmates is a year or so older. Or, if it does, it usually has a positive connotation (“Wish I was that old!”).
Still, in our case, we’re looking at having a child enter kindergarten and celebrate his 7th birthday just a few months later. Is it really OK to do that?
I guess we’ll find out. Our plan is to treat next year as custom half-day kindergarten. We’ll have Jack work on his academic skills at school and at home, and have him work on his social skills as a full-time preschooler. If, at the end of the year, he’s ready for it, we may start him in school as a first grader. If he isn’t…
The Oldest Kindergartner in the World? How bad would that be?
Rachael McMillan is an occasional contributor to chambanamoms.com. A former high school teacher who now is spending time at home with her two children, Jack and Kate, she is a freelance writer and reading tutor.
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At kindergarten orientation in Le Roy the teachers said there is full day and half day kindergarten here. A parent asked why there was a half day option and the principal said Illlinois law requires schools with full day kindergarten to offer half day. Maybe your school doesn’t publicize it, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask since you are thinking about going from half day preK to 1st grade. My son is the same age as yours and I know he would chafe at being in class with three year olds again next year.
The above comment is correct. Kindergarten is NOT mandated by Illinois law. So though schools do not publicize this option, you CAN send your son to public kindergarten 1/2 day. We did it. Good luck.
Fascinating, this 1/2 day option. @Siena: How did it go? Were the school and the teacher pretty cooperative? Did the kids ask a lot of questions about why your son left early (or came late) every day? This is definitely a topic worthy of further exploration…
@Rayne of Terror: Jack will be in a class with 4-6 year olds next year. Definitely he’s pushing it to be in the class, age-wise, but it’s not totally inappropriate. They say every child is different, and it’s certainly true. Your son may not be comfortable in a class with much younger kids, but I doubt it would even register with Jack. Having said that, we do want to encourage him to develop social maturity, and that may be difficult when he’s the oldest kid in class. Right now, however, all signs point to the fact that he’s just not kindergarten-ready.
LOVE this post. My oldest started all-day kindergarten in September after turning 6 in June. My twin boys will start in the fall, just after turning 6. I do think they’d benefit from another year of preschool, but then they would have already turned 7 before starting kindergarten…
My daughter was the oldest child in her kindergarten class — older than the kids who had repeated kindergarten. She mentioned the age difference several times, and seemed a bit uncomfortable about it once or twice. No one has teased her, and I think we made the right choice.
Our district allows parents to choose a half-day option, but only one child took advantage of it. I got the impression it was frowned upon by the teachers.
We considered sending our kids to kindergarten half days, then keeping them in kindergarten for the next year and sending them full days. However, friends who are teachers told us that this is looked down upon by the teachers, as well. Not sure why.
Anyway, thought I’d throw out what I’d learned in my years of considering this. I’m all for keeping kids out of all-day school until they are older — it is rigorous, exhausting, and comes with lots of homework in our district. That seems like a heavy burden for a 5 year old to bear.
The most important aspect of kindergarten readiness is social/emotional development. I personally don’t worry much about ‘academic’ readiness (although some schools will push that). You need to see if your child has the self-help skills (eating, toileting, asking for help, coping with his emotions) and the social skills (sharing, language, turn-taking, negotiation) to be successful in kindergarten. This is important since most classes have 25 kids and only 1 adult. Unfortunately, a lot of preschool programs do not necessarily support these values over academics either. If you choose to keep your child home or in preschool, be sure the program (or yourself) is fostering this type of development.
That being said, most kindergarten teachers are amazing and are prepared to help your child make the huge adjustment to elementary school. You can go 1/2 day (but know that most kindergartens have ‘light’ afternoons with lunch, rest, PE, music, and art). I also feel like it things really aren’t working, you can change them (switch to 1/2 day or remove them from kindergarten).
Its a tough choice. Our youngest will turn 5 the second week of kindergarten but I am confident he will do great (he is in a great preschool and going into a great kindergarten).
LOVE this post. My oldest started all-day kindergarten in September after turning 6 in June. My twin boys will start in the fall, just after turning 6. I do think they’d benefit from another year of preschool, but then they would have already turned 7 before starting kindergarten…
My daughter was the oldest child in her kindergarten class — older than the kids who had repeated kindergarten. She mentioned the age difference several times, and seemed a bit uncomfortable about it once or twice. No one has teased her, and I think we made the right choice.
Our district allows parents to choose a half-day option, but only one child took advantage of it. I got the impression it was frowned upon by the teachers.
We considered sending our kids to kindergarten half days, then keeping them in kindergarten for the next year and sending them full days. However, friends who are teachers told us that this is looked down upon by the teachers, as well. Not sure why.
Anyway, thought I’d throw out what I’d learned in my years of considering this. I’m all for keeping kids out of all-day school until they are older — it is rigorous, exhausting, and comes with lots of homework in our district. That seems like a heavy burden for a 5 year old to bear.
I’m having a bit of a problem with the “social readiness” thing. I am a mother of a son with Asperger Syndrome. My son will not have “social readiness” probably for the rest of his life. I don’t think kids need to be socially savvy to enter kindergarten. I think you would be suprised at how adaptable kids are when they are put in a new situation. They learn social cues and rules by being IN those situations. My son will be going to kindergarten in Mahomet this fall. I wish Mahomet had a full day option like everywhere else because that is one less schedule transition my son would have to make. It seems like the necessary skills everyone is talking about would exempt a lot of children from entering kindergarten, especially children with special needs. Food for thought.
Judy
Thanks for this article. My 5 year old red-shirted in California last year. He missed the cutoff date by one day but was not ready to enter kindergarten. Now that we’ve relocated to a state that does not have half day kindergarten but a full seven hour day we’re red-shirting again. I am going to home-school this year and if that goes fine he may start 1st grade or if not he’ll do a full day kindergarten. He turns six in December so when he starts kindergarten he will be turning seven a few months later. I love the quote of if you have doubts about your children being ready to start they probably are. My son has speech issues and has started stuttering. We’re still working on independent skills like wiping himself cleanly without assistance and getting his emotions in check. I’m working with him at home and feel a full day with academics would be too trying for such a free spirited kid. Thanks again, it’s often difficult to go against the “norm” and do what you think is best for your child.