Did you hold your boy back from Kindergarten for a year? - Page 7

[Jenifer76]

We held our DD back from kindergarten. She is a young 5 (November birthday, 8 weeks premature) and we could tell from her pre-K "performance" that she was not ready.

[Jenns_3_babies]

Just wanted to update...I had kept my DD in preschool one more year instead of going to K. Her birthday is Aug 14th, and the cutoff is Sept 1st here. She's doing very well, and am very glad I did. I don't know if she's the oldest in her class, and really don't care. Doesn't make a difference if she turned 5 on Aug 14th while the kid beside her turned 5 on Sept 3rd, after the deadline. She's now 6...

as for my middle child, who will be 5 this Aug 29th, and was born a month early...he's been more than ready for K. He went to preschool last year with his older sister. He was the youngest in his class, yet by mid school year would sit down and write his name on his own. I didn't put him in preschool this year. Instead we do stuff at home. He knows what they would've been teaching (again)

So...it does depend upon the individual child and what's best. My oldest, a daughter, started K a year later. My middle child will start K the same week he turns 5. They are 24 months apart, yet will be a grade apart in school, and we are fine with it

[mamadebug]

We held our son out of kindergarten this year, but did move him from a play based preschool to a Montessori school. As a former public school kindergarten teacher, I am so glad he isn't in kindergarten this year. It was also clear that he had out grown his play based preschool. Public kindergarten, at least where we are, has become what first grade used to be. I talked to a lot of people before making the decision to not send him to kindergarten. It was interesting to me to learn that in our area, many, many people wait an extra year before sending their kids onto kinder. As our pediatrician told me, "By waiting a year, he will end up being with his peers".

[Rose-Roget]

Haven't read all the responses yet. We're in the same boat. Ds is in a Montessori. We enrolled him as a Kindergartener this year, with the thought that he might very well do a 2nd year of kdg. His academics are strong, but he's on the immature side anyway and he had a very rough year (becoming a brother, changing schools). In the end, we have settled on moving him up to 1st grade, regardless of whether he's in a Montessori setting or not. If he's bored academically, then he'll act out I'm sure. Also, with peer and older models, he's likely to emulate their behavior, rather than sinking to the level of the 3 year olds in the Montessori primary class. Lots of people have advised me differently, and we struggled with the decision for a long time - finally coming to a decision last week. I feel good about it...but time will tell!

You could always do a trial year of kindy and see how it goes. (If possible, you may want to try it at a different school, so there's not the stigma of being "held back.")