Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Any others skipping K?

We chose not to skip K, but to skip the next grade in Australia called "pre-primary" (a fulltime school program for 4 year olds turning 5). I personally found kindy quite useful - lots of playdo and activities for fine motor skills, play-based, lots of social/emotional lessons, etc. Very little academic work, which was fine because it would have been inappropriate for Miss anyway. Pre-primary is more "a letter of the week" type stuff and is unbearably slow in terms of the academic curriculum if you already have a child that is reading.

What I've learned is that it is sometimes harder to skip once you're already established at a school because of established friendships and established preconceptions about your child from teachers, etc.

But the guiding rule is to find a learning environment that suits your child, regardless of the grade or their age. What's the best 'fit' for your child? Observe, observe, observe each class before you make a decision...

jojo

We just learned today that DD will be skipping K next year.

I like the response about "I took a test and was allowed to skip kindergarten."


Val

DS is skipping K too. I've gone through hell to get it to happen even though everyone who knows him knows it's the right thing to do. He's going to be in a K-1 Independent Study class and officially moved to 1st at the semester due to a weird law. We've told him he's going into 1st and since we homeschooled K last year it's not a big thing for him at all. Luckily his teacher is totally excited about him and is going to let him work as quickly as he wants to. We're really looking forward to it!

It's actually easier for DS being able to say his grade rather than his age. It gets fewer weird looks from unthinking adults.

I don't get why a K skip is such a hard thing to get... It makes more sense than a later grade skip if the child is already accelerated. At least this way the kids don't care and they are with the same kids for longer.

I agree, DS is fine with it and honestly I don't think he ever thought he was going to go to Kindergarten. I am not sure why because we never talked about it or anything. He did ask once if he could just start 4th grade. I think he just got a little confused when others question it and make him think it is strange. I can see how that would be confusing.

I think skipping K makes a lot of sense too with making friends and moving along from there and not having to start with friends and then leave those friends. He may have to do this in the future if he needs another skip, but I am hopeful that subject acceleration will be sufficient. I know for some K works because of the play aspect. I have heard for some that 1st is better to skip because that is when they learn to read (ugh). It's hard to say. I know that in K DS would go nuts if they were reviewing letters and sounds. He still will not like it if they are teaching how to read but hopefully they can just give him a book and some reading assignments or something and that would be a little more up his alley.

Thanks for posting this thread - it's been eye opening for me. DD 2.5 is in a pre-K preschool. Her birthday is in December and I cannot imagine her waiting to start K until she's nearly 6.

It's the same for DD. Hopefully she'll get an extra subject acceleration in reading.

I took the bird (skip?)-in-the-hand approach: take the skip now because who knows what might happen later?

Val

We going for kindy with our 5yo ds (jan bday). Our school district has "centers" - K-2, and the principal said that they'd still have to differentiate even in 2nd. And since his social skills are at age-level (according to a questionnaire that I probably shouldn't have answered quite so truthfully!), we'll give kindergarten a try. Re: social skills - he's our only child, and i'm a SAHM, so since he has no interest whatsoever in dressing himself, i never made that a big deal and just helped him get dressed if we ever wanted to get out of the house on time. Note to self - next "social skills" questionnaire, answer if he "could" do something, rather than if he "does" do it!

I think for our DS, the transition to full-day school is going to be a big shock, and he does need to ease into the whole school thing, so kindergarten should be OK. Also, he has no interest in learning how to write, and i'm sure the kindergarten teachers can teach that pretty well.

My DS7 showed no interest in writing at an early age. He didn't even pick up a pencil until he was 5 1/2. He still doesn't really enjoy writing, though he dislikes it less now. Skipping K would have been hard on him.

<Umm, I still help him get dressed sometimes; he doesn't seem to enjoy that task too much either.>

<Though I'm not sure how this feeds into social skills; in kindergarten, he was the one with tons of friends, including at least two 5th graders.>

DD4, on the other hand, has been writing out the alphabet or her random thoughts on her white board for ages now. We had to buy the white board a couple years ago to minimize writing/drawing on the walls. So for her the skip makes a lot of sense.

Val

st pauli girl, I look forward to hearing about your kindergarten experience. I think I've told you before, your ds sounds a lot like my dd (just turned 5 a couple of weeks ago). We, too, are going ahead with kindergarten at a gifted school. The class will be divided up into ability groups for both reading and math - so I am very hopeful dd will get the challenge she needs in both of those areas while still being able to work on her very age appropriate writing skills. Fingers crossed!

SPG,

My DS6 can't tie his shoes or blow his nose! I love that those things define whether or not a child is ready for school. My DS will be the only 4th grader next year that can't brush his own hair (at least not well) I'm looking forward to your K exploits and stories. I've said all along our DS' are very similar so it will be interesting to see how your DS "does school"