Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Starting school later instead of earlier

I found this interesting as it is supportive of play based learning for younger kids in place of more formal schooling:-

Starting school later not earlier

Very interesting indeed. I'd love to see more about the New Zealand study he cites.

The trend toward making preschool and kindergarten more academic is a negative one in my opinion.

I agree. This "trend" has been going on a long time now. I remember reading/debating about this when my DD was going into K and she is at university now.

This also jives nicely with the notion that child-led academics aren't necessarily detrimental to young GT children, as the child initiates the play and perceives the material as fun/play. Interesting!

Yes! Yes! Play is very important, just as important if not more for GT kids.

Our twins have a fall birthday, a couple of months past the kindy cutoff. We considered petitioning for them to start preschool a year early, before their 5th birthday. They had been reading since ages 2 and 3, respectively, and could have handled even a 1st or 2nd grade curriculum with relative ease, academically speaking. We also would have saved on the private preschool tuition for 2 kids.

We decided not to pursue early kindy, in large part because we liked their play-based, child-led preschool and didn't want them to miss out on that. This is an Reggio Emilia based preschool, and a big project their class did that "extra" year was to create and put on a play based on a personal story their teacher had shared. It was awesome - my dd made a program to hand out to the audience, ads and all, that was hilarious.

Our kids are now 14yo, and we have no regrets about waiting. No doubt early K would have worked out fine too. Even now in 8th grade, we are protective of time for their independent creative "play" pursuits.

This is contrary to the research cited in the thread

Study Finds That Kindergarten is Too Easy
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/184376/1.html ,

not that a single study settles anything.

Interesting.

DD would have preferred more academic challenge in kindergarten. However, I know she would have much preferred to play with the many toys they had in the room, or play outside, or read books, or do arts-and-crafts, than sit and listen to the teacher go over the alphabet for the Nth time. Because at least she would have been exercising her imagination and social skills.

Formal academics (in my mind, at least) usually involves sitting still, being quiet, and listening for longer periods of time. Five year olds are often not ready for this. They need to move and talk and explore, not sit and listen all day.

Maybe the answer is that only a fraction of KG should be academic, but that the academic fraction should be at the right level for the children. There is no point in drilling a fluent reader in the alphabet or teaching a child who can count to 100 how to count to 10. This suggests readiness grouping even in KG, which is contrary to the philosophy of many educators.