Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How was Kindergarten for your child/ren?

If you have a child was beyond Kindergarten academically, but they attended at 5, how did it go?

We didn't do that.

We started to-- and (thankfully) were steered toward homeschool instead by some kind veteran classroom teachers who took one look at DD (even without test results-- it was THAT obvious that she in no way belonged in that setting) and said "do NOT do this."

Our plan B was to delay the merge until 3rd grade. Unfortunately, that plan only lasted about 14 months, because that's where she was in 14 months (at 6yo).

The work was still inappropriate, and ill-fitting.

This was largely about factors other than DD's academic readiness, by the way, but that was a part of it. She would have been five for the entirety of her kindy year. Instead, she entered a cyberschool 15 months later as a third grader.

In other words, we bypassed early kindergarten entry entirely, and slipped through the loophole which permitted ANY appropriate "grade placement" for a student who was "eligible" for school-- as, being over 6yo, she then was.

She's apparently PG, though, and was always socially VERY "old" for age. That makes a big difference.

Kindergarten went fine, it was very center-based and only half day, so it was interesting enough. It was 1st and 2nd grade that were disasters and eventually we did both subject and whole-grade accelleration.

If I could go back, I would definitely have pushed early entry to K.

We bypassed regular kindergarten. We hit the wall with DS in daycare at 3.5, had to push for early pre-K a few months later, and he blew through that in 4 months even though he was hanging out with the kids 1-2 years older (pre-K and K mix a lot in daycare - when they left at the end of summer, he was left drifting)... the biggest issue we had was boredom and not feeling comfortable with his peers. Teachers loved him and saw no signs of issues (he is so compliant when teachers look at him and he is so charming that peers usually like him, especially the girls, but he was just not happy anymore).

We ended up sending him full time to private GT program at age 4, at DS's insistence for a change, and he was the youngest there but he loved it so much - his classmates were exactly the peers he had been looking for. However, it was a compressed K-1st grade, and he was 2 years younger than he would have been eligible for public K. I can not imagine making him go into public K when he was eligible. But - like HK's DD, this is really a statement of who he is and what he needed, not really an example that you are looking for.

I had a little different approach...for perspective, DD is averaging 2 grades ahead in achievement and it looks like she will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 99.8% for IQ. I told her to just go to kinder and have fun and make lots of friends. I supplemented at home with whatever interests she had. I did not give the kinder teacher much of a heads up and they figured out pretty quickly that she was ahead. They started having her spend 20 min per day with the reading teacher and brought her to the attention of the gifted teacher (who usually does not get involved until 3rd). The school is doing many things right and could be doing more...but she will most likely be nominated for the districts special classroom with the top 1% of students. Because of the available programs in place, I have not advocated for grade acceleration...she only has one more year before the special program starts and all the teachers and administrators at the school know her and are watching out for her.
For us, it was the right decision because dd had some sensitivities that she worked through with age and she learned some good socialization skill and I figured that it would be a good year for the school to get to know her.

DS enjoyed his play-based (public, Canadian) kindergarten. He made friends and enjoyed most of the activities. The teacher got him advanced reading material when it became obvious he needed it, and tried to do more advanced math with him.

The main benefit for DS was they helped him with his pencil grip and other fine-motor skills. These are things he resisted us teaching him at home. Also, his K teacher was the one who picked him out as gifted - so, it was pretty good overall.

Grade 1 was actually harder. Hoping gr2 is somehow better...

K was mostly OK for my DS16. He went in reading at at least a 2nd/3rd grade level. He was 1 out of 2 early readers in his class, and there were two others that joined them mid-year. For us K was only 1/2 day 3 hours of lessons and a twenty minute snack/recess in the middle. If it had been longer perhaps it would have been a problem but they switched activity every 20 minutes most of the time so there wasn't much time to get bored. And it was good for him to see phonics (he taught himself to read at 3) and practice handwriting in a formal way. Watching their schedule almost made me dizzy. DS didn't really mind as there was a lot of variety. Although he didn't learn a lot academically.

The teacher did know that he was ahead academically. I was volunteering once a week and the teacher made me in charge of taking DS & another student to library to find appropriate reading level so they could participate in the AR program that the older elementary kids were doing. But not much was done for math enrichment. They only spent 20 minutes a day on math, and the level they expected was particularly low.

As other parents say the older grades was more of a problem. DS had the most problems in early elementary in 2nd grade mostly because the teacher wasn't a good fit.

With my first DS (crazy gifted/2E), his first kindergarten was a nightmare. He was really young and small for his grade but very advanced academically. I switched him a few months into K bc he was clearly distressed, wetting his pants and telling me the teacher gave hugs to the Good Kids, but he didn't get hugs because he was one of the Bad Kids. When I talked to the teacher, she told me that DS "didn't put away his Crayolas, the first time he was asked" and that I should pray (yes, really!) for his behavior with him before each school day (at a public school). So I transferred him to a half-day kindergarten with a really kind teacher, classroom pets, and emphasis on friendship/creativity/learning the routines. Probably not ideal in terms of academics, but he was happy. At the end of the year, his teacher told me she thought he'd be president some day, and that he was the brightest child she'd ever taught.

With DS2E#1--he always had straight As and blew the top out of every state achievement test in every area, without fail. However, his report cards always stated he was "off task." I didn't know then what I know now (I went on to get a degree in gifted ed and taught), but I knew enough to know that didn't make much sense. Used to beg them to just give him MORE and keep him busy. He was a very busy kid and academically motivated, and more would have helped, because he was so quick and interested.

With second DS2E#2 (also 2E, but different profile), K went okay, good teacher and fewer complaints (although he would NOT "color" and preferred drawing, socializing, etc.). Not much academic learning but a fairly happy kiddo, despite being light-years ahead of curriculum in reading and mathematical reasoning. He is not a "give me more" kid, though, because he is so happy in his own head and does not prefer to do a lot of worksheets.

Second grade year (with DS2E#2) was our horrible year--it's interesting to see others have had the same experience. In our district, anyhow, it seems that second grade is really a repeat of first grade, trying to get everyone more "even" in their skills and abilities. DS spent a lot of time just sitting and waiting, it was a highly traditional classroom (no differentiation, the teacher didn't believe in that), and a lot of time making puppets out of erasers that he'd play with while he spent every recess sitting on the steps (punishment for talking). A *lot* of time. He is one to invent little games and will entertain himself for hours.

I think *so much* depends upon the teacher's educational philosophy and approach toward the students. My kids' (public) elementary school is part of the PYP program (pre-IB, inquiry-based learning) and it was an excellent fit for the most part. I also think a lot of early success in school depends on the child. Some kids are happy just being the top dog and others may wither on the vine.

I wish both of my sons had more academic challenge in their earlier schooling. Naively, I was under the impression that everything was (more or less) okay because they enjoyed school and the teachers were communicative and positive (mostly). Middle school for DS#2 has so far been pretty nightmarish, and if I'd had better information about DS and his ability to adapt, learn, and progress, it might have been a little less of an ordeal.

I guess I'm saying: whatever you decide to do, keep your eye on your child and make sure he is learning something that puts him in the zone. I'm not sure it matters exactly what that is, but they need to learn how to learn what someone else wants them to learn.

My son entered kindergarten at 4 and had a lot of issues with social/emotional maturity. I didn't push him ahead -- he made the cutoff with a week to spare. Even though he was already academically advanced for his age, I seriously considered holding him back a year for the emotional maturity but since he had already taught himself to read, I decided holding him back would be an academic disaster.

He had an amazing kindergarten teacher who was able to challenge him and gave him work on his level, while dealing with other kids who barely knew their letters. Socially and emotionally he struggled and had morning meltdowns frequently. His teacher often had to peel him out of the car for me. He didn't really make friends in his class.

I'm glad now that I didn't hold him back, because 1st grade was a total nightmare academically, although it was a great success socially. He was so bored and unchallenged in 1st grade, that I couldn't imagine where we'd have been if I'd held him back. I really learned what a difference the right teacher makes, since he went from an amazing kinder teacher to a terrible first grade one. He had a great year socially however, and made good friends and wanted play dates with school friends.

I guess my point is that the success of early kinder will depend on how mature your son is. If maturity is an issue you might consider starting kinder on time and skipping a grade later when he is more mature. The difference in maturity between an 8.5yo and a 9.5yo is much smaller than the difference between a 4.5yo and 5.5yo.

Our daughter is a November baby and her kindergarten school allowed early entry - she was SOOO ready for it, academically as well as emotionally. I think you have to have both to be confident putting your kid in early will be successful.

My son on the other hand is a December baby and the school district we were in at the time did not allow early entry at all, so we enrolled him in a head start program instead, 3 hours a day, weekly... so he finally enrolled in K when he was 5 and 7 months. And it was a miserable experience. He hated school. Every day he would cry that he didn't want to go. He wasn't being bullied, he just couldn't sit still for as long as they required and he was so bored! To make matters worse, his teacher didn't believe in testing Kindergartners for gifted, so we never even got the chance that year to get him tested. In first grade he was tested, and we even had to move him into the "gifted" teachers class, but it was a much better year for him, being challenged with work though we still have issues with him not wanting to sit still for any length of time.

All that to say, if we had been given the opportunity to put him in early, we would have taken it - thinking he was academically ready, and likely regretted the decision. He was no-where near ready for what traditional school requires at that age.

DS turned 5 in June and started K in late August. He was already reading independently and could do all the counting etc they were expected to learn.

His K teacher was awesome! She did her best to differentiate and actually worked with him on his reading (his strongest subject by far). She seemed as excited as we were to see how far he could progress. In some of the metrics like counting to 20 she would just let him go as far as he could, just to see what he could do.

His first grade teacher was awful, and we just had to hold our noses and deal with it. Second grade was pretty good, and I am cautiously optimistic third grade will be more like K.

So really, YMMV, it depends on the teacher and how GT friendly your school system is.

Hope this helps!