Repeat K or start 1st Grade?

[MammaG]

This is a new question for me. Last year, we began to do some (very loosely structured) Kindy work at home with my 5yo son. I was really only going by the requirements for the local school system. He's done really well, very curious, staring to read, fascinated by numbers. I don't push him but I follow his lead. We also had a fractured year because we had baby #3 in the middle of it.

Now we come to preparing for next year, 1st grade and our first accountable year as far as reporting to the district here. In doing some research about whether or not to get a curriculum for 1st, I revisited some Waldorf websites and resources that I'd bookmarked several years ago when first deciding to homeschool. I love most of the Waldorf style of teaching and we plan to incorporate lots of Waldorf ideas from now on (we were already doing lots of Waldorf-type stuff anyway...lots of festivals, daily rhythm, open-ended toys, etc).

SOOOOO. You may know that Waldorf very, very strongly recommends that a child be 7 for most of his first grade year. My guy turns six on 10 August. The local school cut-off date is 31 August. If he were going to a Waldorf school, he would definately be in K (well, at home for another year anyway) and if he were going to PS, he'd very definately be in 1st.

I had no idea this decision would be so hard! I've been living with it for a few weeks now and I'm no closer to making a firm choice. I'd like to have my mind made up by the end of the month so I can order supplies for next year.

Bear with me, I know this is long!

As I see it, here are the advantages to doing another year of K:
*He'll have another year to be a young child in dream-land
*He'll fit right in with a Waldorf curric if we ever go whole-hog Waldorf
*If he ever goes to PS, he'll be one of the oldest kids in the class...good place for boys socially and academically as I understand it (like he'll have his driver's liscence first, etc.!)

Advantages to starting 1st:
*He's very curious and I think he'd like and do well at 1st grade work
*If he ever ended up in PS, he'd avoid a 'did you get held back?' stigma
*He seems pretty bright and if he's anything like his Mamma, he'll be less likely to get bored if he's a bit youngr than his grade-mates.

All that said, I also sort of assume that my kids will test out of HS and go to a community college...I SO wish I'd done that instead of wasting those last two years in HS. I also realize that as a HSer I can sort of change my mind, right? I mean, I can call him a K and do 1st grade work in the privacy of my own home without making Waldorfers everywhere shocked and blue-in-the-face. I can call him a 1st and relax the year as I see fit, too. Right?

I just wanted to add for the sake of more info that we actually fall somewhere on a very strange spectrum somewhere between Waldorf and a very traditional education. I absolutely want my kids to learn Latin. I think they ought to be very well-versed in Classical literature, philosophy, thought. My oldest is also vey science-minded (checking out a new collection of rock samples under the microscope as I write). So, while I lean towards Waldorf as a guiding star for our basic rhythm and could see doing a Waldorf curric sometime, I don't think we'll ever be super dogmatic about it.

So. Thoughts? What would/did you do with your boy who is only just on the cut-off date? I'd love to hear from all kinds of HSers, Waldorf and non.

[MyLittleWonders]

We are non-Waldorf (actually, the complete opposite - Latin Centered Classical), but I have a son that is just a few days off from our state's cut-off. If we were a go-to-school family, we would have enrolled ds#2 in Kindergarten this year even though technically he turned 6 one week before the cut-off. (Our cut-off is the first week of December.) For homeschooling purposes, we are supposed to include our children on our private school affidavit when they are 6/1st grade age. So, for homeschooling purposes, ds#2 is registered as a 1st grader. We don't have to deal with testing or much of any oversight here, so putting him as a first grader does not mean he'll have to face testing before he would be ready.

That said, academically, he is just about on-grade level with 1st graders. (Like most kids, he's above 1st grade level in some areas and a bit below in others.) We do not plan on our children attending school, but if they ever did, we may bump him down a grade level if needed (not academically, but because of size/stature- he is small for his age). But, because we do not go by strict grade levels in our home (we advance in material as they are ready, not based on an arbitrary date or age), having him registered as a 1st grader with the state does not hinder or help him; it was a neutral decision. The biggest reason why we registered him as a 1st grader was because he was legally of age to be enrolled in school, and our state homeschooling groups discourage registering Kindergartner's because K is voluntary in our state.

So, a bit jumbled, but because of the way it would work in our state, registering my very young 1st grader as a 1st grader does not really impact any of us. He continues to work at his level at home. If your state requires yearly state testing, you may want to see how that would impact your ds - it would be advantageous for him to register this year as a K, giving him an extra year of growth and academic development before his first year of state testing. If state testing is not as issue for you, then go with what would be easiest for you (for us, that was registering ds#2 when he hit legal/mandatory school age).

[MammaG]

Oh, thank-you! You know, in all the worrying about DS's needs, I'd kind of forgotten about what this choice might mean in terms of reporting. As I remember, we need to start reporting at age 6. No required testing. I need to look at all that again. Maybe my answer lies there.

[caefi]

call him K, work at whatever level he's on.

[Savoir Faire]

I just say pick whichever grade you are comfortable with and then do the work he needs to do for his abilities. So if he is K in math but 4th grade in reading and he's 7....then he's a first grader.

Don't worry so much about the labels of the work he'll be doing...just whichever grade you feel comfortable with. Does that make sense??

[craft_media_hero]

Wow MamaG, we seem to have a bit in common here!

See my also long post on "how do you fit in the extras" that really turned into reflection of wanting academic balance, doing classical languages, wanting to preserve "real" life like emphasis on meals and nature, and then is/was my kid ready for 1st?

I don't have time to really jump in on this conversation, but I can relate and have you on my mind!

I'll post back later.

eta *my daughter's birthday is even August 12th. I'm totally torn with the Waldorf/classical thing and not pushing academics*

[LauraLoo]

If it were me, I'd go K and then allow for a lot of extras without any pressure of keeping up. If your ds goes beyond academically, great! If not, then you won't have to sweat it for a second. Give yourself the gift of time.

[One_Girl]

I think you should follow his lead. If he is ready for 1st grade material then I think you should go with that no matter what grade you say he is in so you can meet his interests and abilities rather than an arbitrary age limit. I think it is important to focus on what kids can do rather than what they should or should not be able to do. First grade material is really not all that complicated and there is still plenty of room for fun and free time.

[mom2ponygirl]

Originally Posted by LauraLoo

If it were me, I'd go K and then allow for a lot of extras without any pressure of keeping up. If your ds goes beyond academically, great! If not, then you won't have to sweat it for a second. Give yourself the gift of time.

If you keep him in K and a few years down the road you find that he is uniformly working ahead of his grade, socially better with older rather than younger kids, you can always skip a grade.

We did make the choice to skip our dd a grade on her paperwork. Her b-day was 10 days past the cut-off but she would've been academically advanced for the next grade as well. She was socially more comfortable being one of the younger than the oldest in a group. We thought she might attend school and we wanted the record of her being in the higher grade so that she would be in with her friends if she went.

[EviesMom]

Does your paperwork have to list a grade per se? I would probably go with whatever you would use if he were in public just for paperwork's sake. If you would reasonably be doing K next year, that's probably better for paperwork, because if/when you test him (my state requires it at some point), he'll be taking a test level that he's well prepped for instead of one that might be slightly a reach. I don't think I actually have to list a grade level, just the standards I plan for us to achieve, which may or may not match a standard public school set.

However, I think that's completely different from what you do curriculum-wise. I would probably do a waldorf K curriculum and supplement and expand on it as you see fit with more activities around each topic, maybe a bit more challenge physically, etc.

I would also say not to worry about switching to a 1st grade curriculum. You can do that whenever you think he's ready, be it November or February or June. I have noticed that my 6 year old underwent a really sudden growth spurt and seemingly a mental conceptual one as well, a few months ago. Some of the activties in our K curriculum aren't challenging enough now, so we're upgrading them, and we jumped to 1st grade math materials in January.

[skueppers]

Around here, we don't get a choice -- homeschooled kids are registered for whatever grade they would be in if they were in public school. This seems perfectly reasonable to me, as there's no rule telling me what curriculum I need to use with my kids. The fact that my daughter is going to be registered as a Kindergartener next year won't prevent her from learning "first grade" skills.

[ChristaN]

To me, the only real choice you have to make is what grade to call him when you register with the district since you can always move around as his interests and abilities warrant at home. How flexible would the district be with you calling him a kindergartener and then, a few years down the line, "skipping" a grade if it seemed like that was where he was at home? It should only matter if you choose to move him to ps at some point or go the community college route sooner, like you mentioned.

You already mentioned looking into the testing requirements. Here, we have to start testing and sending in scores in 3rd grade. I'd be surprised if your state wants test scores from a first grader, if you call him that. If, let's say, they want test scores in around 3rd, like where I live, would you be comfortable with starting to test him in 2-3 yrs?

For a child whom you suspect will be academically somewhat ahead, I might just go with calling him a 1st grader so you have more options for moving him into cc sooner if needed unless grade skipping as a homeschooler is fairly easy to do in terms of your registration with the district.

[hippiemommaof4]

my oldest just turned 7 and we kept her in kindy again this year, my 4 yr old will be 5 aug 30th and makes teh cutoff for kindy here just barely by 2 days and we are not starting kindy with her until next year. I believe that it's fine to stay in kindy on paper its not a huge deal , even if you will be moving on to any course levels he needs when appropriate.

[SundayCrepes]

Here are a couple articles that discuss how children who start academics at later ages do better in the long run:

http://www.besthomeschooling.org/art...id_elkind.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/7234578.stm

[AAK]

It sounds like most people would go for K. I, am the opposite, I would register him as a first grader. Here is why: You will go at his pace at home anyways. Just because you register him as a first grader doesn't mean you need to go full throttle through the first grade curriculum. And, later (if you do send him to school) you will have flexibility in the grade decision then. The school rarely contests a parent who wants to "hold a child back" a grade. But, (as a parent of one gifted kid) the school doesn't like to advance students without a fight. So, I would register him as first--for the potential flexibility if you need it later on. But, I wouldn't use "grade level" terms with him. If he asks, just say that he could be in K or 1st at school right now. He will eventually know the grade level of his work -- since it is often plastered on the materials, but even that is easy to brush off. If you don't assign a grade level at home, then bringing him "down" a level (if you need to) won't have a stigma attached. And there are tons of kids whose parents choose to start them later, so the idea of the kids asking if he failed a grade is really a non-issue.

Amy