As for being "ready for preschool," well, ahem, I'm not sure what that means apart from emotional maturity and being ready to be away from mom or dad for a while. She is your wonderful little daughter, and you can have a wonderful extra year with her at home.
I most certainly do not think that a child should be "ready" in any other way for something that should basically be an extended play date with arts and crafts thrown in for fun. I said FUN. I swear, this whole "readiness" thing is getting out of hand.
Our day care provider told me that kids around here have to know an assortment of facts before they can start kindergarten, and one of them is to be able to tell teacher what the spine of a book is.
!!!
I don't think I knew that particular factoid until 4th grade, and I swear on the spine of my favorite book that my early ignorance on the subject has never harmed me.
Like I said, I think the "readiness" movement is going way too far. Sometimes I think it's all about guilt and competition. Pretty soon they'll be making us feel guilty about lack of "birth readiness" and telling us that Little Fetus must be able to sing the Ode to Joy in the womb if s/he ever expects to get into college!!! And it's all because of bad parenting if baby isn't born singing Ohhh Freuuuuuunde.....
!!!
Val
LOL! I agree 100%. This is one of my soapbox issues. Guilt and competition, for sure!
Prepping 2-3yos for pre-K just seems insane. Kids learn best at that age--at most ages! But definitely at that age--by playing.
I think all these silly things kids are "supposed" to know before K, like that spine of the book nonsense, is just a hoop to try to get parents to jump through and a racket aimed at getting more kids in preschools.
IM(not so)HO...
