Thanks guys, we will probably go for the Kinder and deal with other issues later after we see how she handles it. I should say that the Kinder program at our montessori definitely starts ahead of public kinder (at least in our area) in that I don't think they do the learn to count, shapes colors and the alphabet.

From experience with DD8, they are assumed to know all this and they start in with spelling tests, reading comprehension fairly early in the semester. They aren't supposed to be fluent readers to start but they want them to understand many sight words and "blends"-phonics thing. and several math concepts. I know by first grade DD8 was doing second grade work at the montessori.

I guess I'm still in a bit of denial that DD4 is ready for all of this even after all the reading that I've done recently for DD8.