Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Kindergarten Readiness or Academic Redshirt?

It seems to pop up a lot this time of year-it is time to register your 4 or 5 (or 6!) year old for Kindergarten and you are unsure if your child is ready. How do you know? In this environment of "No child left behind" and designer preschools there are no clear cut answers, and no answer is ok for every child or every family. Each state has it's own rules, cut off dates and requirements but one thing is clear. Not every child is ready to enter Kindergarten when the state says he/she is.

Last spring I addressed these issues and more in my Kindergarten series-6 blog posts about my observations of K-readiness, promotion to First grade, and every thing in between. (I will say here that I am not a teacher. This series is written from my perspective as a parent only, in a relatively economically stable neighborhood. Socio-economic, family, maturity, and a host of other factors can-and do- change the realities for children in our society, in our neighborhoods. Please read these with that in mind.)

Part One-Introduction
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six-Where I wrap it up and answer some questions.

I was also alerted to another article that you might find interesting written by Julie Blair, and published on burbmom.net. Thanks, Holly!

So, I know that it is a big assignment, but if you have a child going into Kindergarten (in my not so humble opinion-here anyway,) I urge you to read these posts, including the comments. There is a lot of information and things to consider before you walk your child up those steps for the first time.

Be sure to leave your two cents also. I have a lot of new readers and I'd love to hear about your experiences as well!

Headless Mom

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are right....so much hype!

I was frustrated when it was time to consider Kindergarten. I felt both of them could have started earlier than they did but our school district would have a parent believe it was the same thing as sticking our kids in a closet and randomly poking them with a saber while playing heavy metal music at unbearable volumes. It is also expensive to go through the testing.

Needless to say, I just let them enroll when their birthday met the requirements. Either way, I think that people need to choose wisely and I don't think that we should all feel like turds if we feel our child is ready earlier or not quite ready yet.

I just don't understand why it can't be a simpler process.