Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments To skip or not to skip -- kindy

My child is 4 and in a very cute preschool. He has a late birthday, he will turn 5 right before the kindy cutoff date. He is also on the short side.

I'm told, however, that most kids going into kindy are 6 now days.

This little guy started memorizing some site words at 2 (without my help). Now at 4, he is reading well.

His math skills are also advanced.

I found out that there is a private school that will take kids into kindy without being the right age, then I could have him start 1st grade next year in public school BECAUSE he would have an official transcript saying he had finished kindy.

I can't decide whether I should take this chance. I'm not ready for him to tackle 1st grade next year, but I live in a district that is very anti-skipping. We have a friend with a 5th grader who is testing out in math at the 9th grade level and reading at the 12th grade level. This 5th grader continues to score in the 99% on standardized tests, yet the district refuses to skip her because kids SHOULD BE with their age mates.

So, I'm torn. Do I go around the system now and get him skipped even though I'd actually like for him to have a kindy year? Or, do I just go for it because it may be the only chance I get???

I'm really struggling with this decision.

This is not an easy decision because you are picking the least-worst option. (Background: our current DS5.5 skipped K. Technically this was called early admissions to first. We're two months into 1st.)

This really depends on the child. If your K is half day and your 1st is all day, take into consideration that all day school is really tough on little ones. Not that you shouldn't do it, but this is something to think about. DS doesn't act out at school, but when he gets home about half the time he's bouncing off the walls/over tired. On those days we have "brain break" which is a short nap for him after school. Sometimes it helps. Usually, though, by bedtime he's just crazy wild and over tired. We've even shifted up bedtime to help and it's helped some. In fact this morning when he woke up tired, he actually asked to go to bed a half hour earlier! It's pretty stressful on DW and I and I worried a lot about DS. I've shifted my work schedule to help make sure that he gets off to school okay and we have a reasonable dinner time bed time.

And even after skipping into 1st, the work is well, well below his academic abilities in reading in math. It's great that he's getting some other things that we don't talk about at home, but we're having to advocate still to make sure that he gets interesting work. And when it comes down to it, I think we've settled on making sure he's happy at school and then giving him enrichment at home. (Edwin pointed out to me that this is what he does too...) I don't know how many times I've heard people say that skipping is just the beginning and not the end-all. Well, it's true. It's just the start.

In our district, K's get their own bus and 1-5th get on the same bus. This was a real consideration for us... a 5.5yo on a bus with 5th graders.... Hmm. But DS is mature for his age and he's handled it well. Not too many bad habits. Yet

All that being said, we made the right choice. Others here with two or three children skipped some but not others. I think a lot of it depends on if your child is ready to sit still for a full day of school. DS does that pretty well. (DS2.5 apparently does this better than the other children in his preschool class for 3-4 yos!) Because in either case your child is still going to be far ahead of the other kids.

JB

Hi Mom2Two- there are at least 2 parents who are regulars on this board who have done a skip of kindergarten altogether, or a skip after a half year (Hi JBDad and CathyA!). So I will let them talk of their experiences which are very pertinent to you.

I have a DS4 with a Jan birthday (4+ months past the cutoff), similar to yours in reading the sight words at 2, and now reading at an extremely advanced level. It turned out he was very HG, and the tester told us that he will need many types of acceleration in the future, no need to start it early, he'll learn on his own at home anyway. We were told that many HG+ do better sticking with agemates in the less structured format of kindergarten, and then skipping first. But this depends on your specific kid's personality. Our DS does not like to sit still, especially when learning. He gets excited and runs through the house. He is more likely to be a class clown than a teacher pleaser. So, we have him in his second year of a part-time play-based preschool, and we'll try kindergarten next fall when he's 5, and watch closely.

It's also a good idea to check out all the different options for schools now. We just thought, before we found out DS was HG+, that we'd send him to the local public school. Now, we question if that will work because our local school is overcrowded, and he will need some individualized instruction, which will be much easier in a smaller school. We are hoping to send him to a new STEM (science tech engineering math) K-8 school that's starting next fall, since he'll have more access to things he's interested in. Bigger areas have gifted magnet schools and loads private schools you could check out. Maybe the private school where you're looking for kindy. Sometimes schools you don't expect to do well with gifted kids will surprise you by trying to do as much as they can for your child. You might also want to consider homeschooling or partial homeschooling, if that's an option in your area.

I would also speak to the school gifted coordinator in your district ahead of time to see what they have for young kids, and to learn about the policies on gifted and acceleration. If they don't offer any gifted programming until later, or none at all, and you really have no other school choices, I would lean toward recommending trying to get him into first next year. (Does that mean you could start kindergarten late at the private school, meaning now?)

As an aside, you'll want to make sure that your child is not being used as a tutor when he gets to "real" school - he has a right to learn too. It seems fine in preschool if he likes to read to the other kids, but I wouldn't want that to be his role continuing into school.

Hi Mom2Two.
My son skipped K. I can't tell you what decision to make for your son but can tell you that we also struggled with what to do at that time for our son. He is now in 3rd grade, has individualized math instruction and is in the 5th grade book. We haven't regretted skipping K at all, ever.

Our decision was based on his unique situation - he had been in full time daycare since 12 weeks old. He had basically had two years of preschool with the last year called PreK and focusing on the exact same curriculum that they were offering at the public school K program. We were already having behavior problems in preK. His achievement testing showed that he had mastered the K curriculum 5 months BEFORE he would have even been eligible to start K. So we advocated for 1st grade early entry. We didn't get it until we had private IQ testing and out of level testing done. So, he started first grade at 5y5months old.

It sounds like you have an ideal situation to have him attend a K program now and then see what he's like come next summer. If he's ready for first then he can enroll as a first grader. If he's not ready, then you could put him in the public school at K level, since that's where he'd be anyway, if I'm reading your post correctly. Sounds win/win to me, to put him in that K program now at the private school if you can.

Hi, Mom2Two!

In our state the Kindergarten cutoff date is Dec. 3. DS's birthday is in late November, just two weeks before the cutoff. We sort of played it by ear with regard to school entrance.

At age 2yrs 9mos, DS started preschool at a private program (birth to K). We talked the school into letting him join the class for 3 year olds since he was toilet trained.

At age 3yrs 9mos, DS started PreK at the same school. He was then accelerated to the K class midyear at age 4yrs 2mos.

At age 4yrs 9mos, he started public K. He was then accelerated to 1st grade midyear at age 5yrs 4mos.

He is now in 2nd grade (still in the public school.)

From our experiences I would say that the teacher is the most important factor in the success of a gradeskip. An unwilling teacher can undermine a skip and make your child miserable. That happened to DS in the private K. Fortunately, this year's teacher (public 2nd) is great and happy to have him in her class. He is happy, motivated and well-behaved (knock on wood )

For us, it was hard to make the decision to skip, not knowing what teacher he would get, etc. But DS has always wanted to forge ahead and was very unhappy in an unchallenging situation. So we decided it was worth the risk.

Wondering when Cathy was going to chime in... Morning!

JB

Hi, JB!

Mom2Two,

Do you know for certain that your public school will accept a K transcript and recommendation from another school? The reason I ask is that many states don�t HAVE to accept kids by established grade until the completion of 1st grade and simply won�t no matter what evidence is provided. It sounds like you may live in one of the unyielding districts.

My daughter (now in 9th) entered K early with a private school where she excelled academically and socially and had an official transcript with teacher�s and administrator�s recommendation that she go on to 1st, but our public school refused and made her repeat K. We removed her from public school a few months into 2nd grade and re-established her with academic peers in 3rd at another private school. The public school only served as a useless disruption to her education while trying to scare us into compliance.

Given this experience and knowing the K learning objectives, our son (now in 7th) skipped K entirely and early entranced into 1st grade at private school. He actually enjoyed 1st grade as it was his first taste of academics.

We had the same experience. DS had "graduated" from a private K, but according to state law he could not enter public 1st grade until age 5. So he started the year in K and switched to 1st after he turned 5.

Our state allows for exceptions to age, but our district elects to be more restrictive than state law and refuses.