We're considering applying for early entrance to kindergarten next fall for our DS who would turn 5 in December after he started. The normal cutoff is in September, although around here there's a significant trend to delay kindergarten.

Any resources for kindergarten readiness?

How did you decide if your child - especially an active boy - was ready for kindergarten?

If you went ahead with early entrance, how did it work out?

I have a feeling I'll be asking the same questions in a couple of years...my dd2 is an April birthday however so this is probably a pretty long shot to get her into k at 4y4mos, but I guess we'll see where she is at that point.

I noticed in another thread you mentioned buttoning shirts and tying shoes - don't worry about shoes definitely until 1st or second. Velcro is the way to go and shirts without buttons should do the trick.
This thread seems like a good place to start for general info, since it talks mainly about skills other than academic - and it sounds like you already know your ds is ready academically.
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=701

Good luck, please post as to how things go if you decide to go for it..

My daughter has an end of September birthday, though NYC has a 12/31 cut-off. Private schools are 9/1, so in the playground she will be one of the younger ones in her grade cohort.

One thing, she prefers older kids to play with and rarely plays with a younger child. To me, that is a big indicator she is ready to be younger in kindergarten.

Although she is slightly smaller for her age cohort, she is very active and takes ballet and gymnastics. I think being very physical and strong in the body helps them with older kids, because they will imitate in the playground and you want your child to be safe and to participate.

Ren

Our DD was granted early entrance to K when she was 4 yrs 9 months. Our district requires 5 years by first day of school. We also have a nephew who was 4 years 10 months whose parents got early entrance to a magnet school. He is an active boy, who the teacher rates as "average" in his class, but he sits quietly and listens. He does not read as an entering 1st grader more than 3 letter words, but is doing fine.

For DD, the attributes that made her a successful student were:
-she was used to school atmosphere and could sit still
-academically ahead of the class (reading, math etc)
-fine motor skills were normal for the age group
-outgoing personality
-wanted to start Kindergarten

The person who tested DD for Kindergarten listed all these as the reasons why she thought DD would be ready. She felt that the younger the child, the more advanced they should be in case the skills would "level off" at some point. With GT kids that isn't true, but they want the early entrance to be a positive experience for all kids.

Jen

DS was early entranced mid-year to a private K at 4 yrs 2 mos. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the K teacher was against the idea. She actively excluded DS from being part of the class.

DS started public K at 4 yrs. 9 mos. This was not an official early entrance since he made the cutoff by 2 weeks. Still, he was the youngest K student out of 120 at the school. He did very well, we never had any behavior issues.

I think having been to the private K helped him and also DS seems to have a lot of self-control for his age. He is also a teacher pleaser. He hasn't needed a nap since he was 2, so tiredness wasn't an issue for him. We had no separation issues in the public K. There were some in the private K, but I think that was due to the unwelcoming situation.

Wow, that just sounds horrible for a child to go through, your ds must be a real trooper!
It is nice to see that a very young 4 years would not be utterly out of the question (at least going private).

you know your child better than anyone, so if you think they can handle it than definitely give it a try. If he is a bit on the immature side for his age, waiting is definitely something a lot of people choose to do - especially with boys. Also, as they grow up, being a little older is more beneficial in a social sense than younger.

Not to discourage anyone, but sometimes I think it can be better to send the kid to K at the usual time and skip 1st grade, especially if K is a half-day, non-academic program and 1st grade is the "learn to read" year. I think Dr. Ruf recommends this, FWIW.

I think it definitely depends on the child, though, so take this as just one more possibility.

It seems like it is often easier to get the grade skip and to make the transition seamlessly if you take the K skip. But 1st grade was really hard on many of the kids discussed here (including mine!), so sometimes that will be the year you want to skip.

I have also heard that 2nd grade is sometimes a slow one for HG+ kids, so that's another one to consider. It seems like by 3rd grade, things have picked up a bit? Maybe? At least I personally haven't heard a lot of calls to skip then. Or maybe the problem has just usually been dealt with by then?

Anyway, I realize parents don't always have a choice about when they can get a skip, and if you think a skip is necessary, then a bird in the hand is usually worth accepting! They can be hard to come by. But if you have some flexibility about when to take a skip, it might be worth thinking through the timing.

Feel free to ignore!

Here is the link to the Ruf article that Kriston mentioned.

http://www.educationaloptions.com/news_Apr_08.htm#one

I agree, a half day K is a better choice than full day 1st assuming you can postpone the grade skip by one year.

Where I live it's impossible to get an early entry to PS K. It's quite easy to get an early entry to private K though. It pretty much comes to the fact that the private schools are happy to get extra money I personally know about 3 kids whose parents opted for early entry private K. I saw work of 2 of those and neither one of them hit me as gt child but admittedly my gt criteria are shifted thanks to DS6. I cannot talk about the 3rd child, I don't know her well enough to judge, but my impression was that getting your child accepted into a private K is not that difficult around here as long as you are willing to pay for it.

Kriston,

I agree that 1st would be a great skip, but it's a hard one to accomplish at least in our school system. 2nd was a good year for DD since it was a good teacher fit and the pace picked up a bit. 3rd grade was torture because we have our first round of achievement testing. The entire year consisted of math drills and DD was bored out of her mind. Focus was on the kids who needed intervention.

For us, getting the early entrance to K was a great option, because we had a hard time with any skips later on. Right now we have subject acceleration that may be enough until middle school (next year). The key is to take it year by year and adjust the plan as needed.

Jen

DS6 is skipping first and entering second - tomorrow
I didn't even consider skipping K or early entrance for DS because I was in HG+ denial; but in retrospect I'm glad I didn't try for it. From what I know about 1st grade in our district, it would have been a bad fit for DS no matter what age. In K at least they had 2 recesses and much more free play (i.e., less time to sit around and watch other kids learn to read and count). Keep in mind that every district is different -- first grade for us is very much about getting all of the kids up to speed with basic reading. Of course, I'm also concerned about DS not spending much time learning this year, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

DS4 started half-day K this fall. It was not an easy decision because DS's abilities are extremely asynchronous. His reading and math are at mid- to end of 2nd grade level (we got him tested as was required for early entrance), but his social and physical developments are at (or maybe even below) age level. We made our decision, not based on his intelligence (which we already know will not be adequately stimulated by a kindergarten curriculum), but based on the fact that he enjoys interacting with older children and gets extremely frustrated with kids his age (btw, he does great with much younger children). We just wanted to make sure his first experience with school was fun. So far, he is doing fine. He is having some minor behavioral problems when bored (like throwing his pencil on the floor repeatedly or tearing paper), but not bad. His teacher is really good with him and he loves her.

If you go this route, one thing to keep in mind: you might have to adjust your expectations as you go. You might be surprised that kindergarten is too easy in some ways and also surprised your child is not the best student in some ways. For example, I asked DS today what he is learning and he said, "I don't learn anything in school. Everything is too easy, except for one thing." I got all excited for him and asked him what was hard and he said, "learning to use scissors." I thought that was amusing at first and then I remembered how his handwriting is not very neat. I got a little bit worried about his fine motor development and looked up dysprexia. When I told DH that I was worried that DS has dysprexia, he said, "you have completely lost your perspective. How many 4 year olds do you know who can write, let alone write neatly?" He is right. I have started to think of my son as a kindergartener and without realizing it raised my expectations way up.

All good comments. I'll sing the same tune. We skipped K with one and early with another with winter bdays (but with girls).

I'll say (1) the behavioral piece will matter most probably. As you get closer do you think your ds can focus, task completion, resist instant gratification behavior etc. (2) I think trying it may be easier to undo than not. You could always skip K and stay in pre-k style if you think he would be unhappy with the structure or go to a montessori K with a little more freedom. (3) The big question for us with the dd who is more boy at heart... in a year will she be ready for the structure and no play of 1st. Will she have the ability to follow multi-step instructions. She's hg+ but... she's a dreamer. But look, I've been through this before and I bet everyone will say the same... thinking about all the possibilities can drive you crazy. All you can do is take the scores and your knowledge of your child and take your best educated guess. Know that it isn't locked in stone.

Remind me of this when I freak out again :-)

We had DS4 tested, and he qualified for, early entrance, and decided based on expert advice to keep him in preschool for another year.
Going through Dottie's list, the ones that are problems with us:
1. DS4 still has separation issues, though a bit improved from last year.
3. No long-standing willingness to sit/blend with older kids (maybe because he's an only child?)
4. DS4 constantly says he never wants to go to school.
6. DS4 is one of the smaller kids his age.
7. Very little respect of authority, not a teacher-pleaser type.

He's also a "run-around-when-learning-something-exciting" type kid. Also, learning that he was HG+ helped us realize that academically he would be ahead whether early entranced or not. Finally, on a positive note, we recently learned of the approval of a new K-8 STEM charter school sort of nearby, starting fall 2009. They describe a learner-centered overall curriculum, described here: http://www.seer.org/pages/eic.html This sounds good on paper, and i'm hoping it will be good IRL.


I know how you feel - I expect to have several waves of freaking out when DS actually enters school!

Maybe it helps that DS is my second kid I have more confidence in my parental decisions than I did with DD.

That is helpful I think, too bad I didn't have a third, that kid would totally have it made.........

I would continue to push folks here and elsewhere for stories, opinions on the gender piece. We ran across a lot of folks with kids capable of skipping who decided against because of long-term fears of age/size/social/dating etc. related to gender... can't say I agree or disgree since I have girls I didn't register much of it.

do you have any options outside of public school?