Sending Young 5s to Kindergarten?

Hello!  I have a "young five" (July birthday) who is just entering the home stretch of a really fun, happy, and successful kindergarten year.  We struggled with the decision of whether to enroll him or not just like you are.  In the end, we listened to advice from his preschool teacher (who strongly recommended that we send him) and our hearts.  As others here have said, you know your child best and will make the best decision.  There are pros and cons either way so you don't have to worry about making the "right" decision, just the "best" one!
 
I did hear one helpful thing when we were deciding that I didn't see represented here that I'll share with you...if your son is truly ready for kindergarten, it can be disadvantageous to him to hold him back for another year.  It won't be evident in elementary school but you might see problems in junior high.  If you hold a kid back for a year, kindergarten (and the following elementary grades) end up not being very challenging academically.  It's great that they're not struggling, but that also means they're not developing good study habits, time management skills, the ability to work through academic challenges, etc.  When they hit the higher grades, where the work gets a lot tougher, they're not ready to face those challenges and it can really put them into a tail spin.  They have to work hard for the first time in school and they don't know how!  Boys especially have a hard time expressing their feelings about this (embarassment, frustration, etc) so they develop behavior problems and act like they just "don't care" about school anymore.  I'm concerned that we'll see lots of this as the current generation of "red shirted" elementary school kids get into junior high and highschool.
 
Just one more thing to think about!

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Hi
I'm a single parent with a soon to be 5 yearold daughter atempting to regester her for kindergarden. This is my only child, and I want the best for her. I also don't want to push her to soon. Will appreciate any insite you can give.
HELP

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My daughter will be five Aug.,25th. She is doing very well in daycare. Very bright, pretends to read books and, telles a quite descriptive make-believe story. I work with her on spelling three letter words like cat, hat, rat, etc. Do you have any suggestions?

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If you are sending your child to public school, the birthday cutoff is actually August 30. The child must be five before then, otherwise you will have to petetion to get your child early enrolled.  My son was barely five, Aug 20th, when he went to K. He was able to keep up with the other kids just fine with the intellectual areas, but he did lack in the maturity department...  looking back I think we should have held him back for another year.

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The cut of is december.  My son started kindergarten when he was 4 and his birthday isn't until October and it is a public school.  

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 I have a son that turned five last June 24 and went over and over the decision on whether or not to send him to kindergarten. He has went to a great preschool for two years and it could have went both ways. I think it would have taken him longer to adjust last year than now. Waiting was the right thing for us to do he is definately ready now and I look forward to seeing him succeed this next year. Like the others have said the parents know best and they do, there were lots of people telling me what they thought I should do and I just listened to myself and my husband. I really think we made the right decision and so do his preschool teachers, they see how much he has matured this year. He's also really excited about going and talks about it all the time. :) Good luck!

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I have a 7 year old who is entering 1st grade.  We had him on grade level in 4 yr old preschool and in Kindergarten.  He was born in March so was well within the cut-off and academically, he was more than ready to move on.  Since he was reading fluently in pre-school, we sent him on and he finished Kindergarten on a 2nd grade reading level.  Academically, he was ready for 1st grade.  Emotionally, he is Not ready to go on.  He was a preemie and is smaller than the other kids and WAY more immature.  Unable to focus and sit in a seat to do independent work for an extended period of time, we elected to wait.  Fortunately he was in a multi-age classand they created anew transition grade for him called K1 and he never knew the difference.  I hope this was the correct decision...but at this point, he is SO much more mature than he was this time last year.

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Hi Kari and Others,

Just came across website, lood forward to when I have more time to explore.  I had the decision to send my son birthday in Aug. to 1st grade this year.  He has been in the same school since the age of 3 due to delayed speech.  Now with encourgement from preK-K teachers have started 1st grade w/o problems.  My niece is a teacher, whom I talked to about situation and her advise was if needed keep him back in 1st grade, because it would be the same curriculium repeated in K and the boredom he may experience.  Wondering what others think of this?
                                             Thanks for your expirence !

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Hi!  I have my 2 cents to add on this discussion as I am all for holding them back one year if it seems to be appropriate for your child.  I have a gifted child (IQ tested by a Dr. and accepted into an academy for the gifted a couple months ago for Kindergarten) that misses the public school cut off date by 9 days.  Do I push to get her in early or do I wait one more year?  Do we put her in the academy or do we go public school? My daughter is also very social and very active....sports, cheerleading, ballet, etc.  We too had an extremely difficult time deciding what would be in her best interest. She would have no problem jumping into K early; learning wise or socially.
*  Here are some points of advice that were given when I was seeking.  1) This advice is from a preschool teacher: "Older children tend to be the leaders of the class. 2) Many Mom's that I've met at the park, or at preschool with older siblings wished they had held their son back....not necessarily their daughters. 3) My husband is a September baby and he wished he was held back not for the academics, but for sports.  Consider if your child is athletic - One year of physical growth when you play varsity football makes a huge difference. My husband was always the smallest but grew to 6'3". I too am a November baby and HATED always being the youngest, truly I did!  4) If you hold your child back for more time to mature and he is not challenged academically, be involved in his learning.  Make sure he is assessed in his classes accordingly because he can always take "honor" classes.  In our public school system, we have 'Honors' classes starting in the first grade in Washington which means they are tested in Kindergarten.  We decided it would be best for my daughter to go to full day PUBLIC Kinder and have her tested into the Honors Prism/Merlin program when she's in Kinder this fall.  In the meantime I've supplemented her learning by enrolling her in the enrichment program Kumon which is a nationwide learning organization.  We all want whats best for our little ones and I have no problem holding my April boy back a year if he does not seem 'ready' even though he would make the cut off date.  But he's 2 and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.  If you are an involved parent and remain to be involved during their school years you will notice if their is a deficit that is not being fulfilled and you will naturally seek the programs, classes, etc. for your child.  :)   Hope this helps! Aloha!

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I noticed that most of these posts refer to a cut-off of the end of August. I was surprised to see July birthdays referred to as "late" as in our school system, Dec 31st is the cutoff. My son is an October birthday and has had absolutely no problems socially, developmentally or academically even though he started kindergarten when he was still 4 (almost 5). In fact, I would say he's in the top 5 for his class. We never even considered holding him back.
There are 4 children with birthdays later in the year than my son, and they are all doing great. I volunteer in the classroom and I work with all the children individually (reading, writing etc) and I honestly wouldn't be able to pick out the late birthdays/early birthdays among them.
You know your child -if your feeling is that he is bright and mature, he is likely ready. You didn't mention if he had been in preschool. I think that if a child is used to preschool routines and doing well there, they will probably also do well in kindergarten.
Good luck!

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