entering kindergarten early

In article ,
toypup wrote:

On Thu, 24 May 2007 17:23:59 GMT, toto wrote:


Kindergarten is really mostly about social skills, gross and fine
motor skills, etc. and not so much about academic curricula. It may
be that he would do fine going early, but it might also be that even
if his academics are fantastic, he will not have the maturity needed.

It depends on the area. Around here, they need to have the fine motor
skills going in or they won't be able to do all the homework.

What sorts of homework do they give?

It is very
academic and there is not much time for learning social skills. Very sad
but that's just how it is.

Is this because of competitive pressure to get into a Good primary
school in order to get into a Good middle school in order to get into a
Good secondary school in order to get into a Good university in order to
get a Good job in order to hopefully have a good life?


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| BBB a a r bbb | Quidquid latine dictum sit,
| B B a a r b b | altum viditur.
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toto wrote:
On Thu, 24 May 2007 08:49:06 -0400, Ericka Kammerer
wrote:

Or better yet, if they have an appropriate gifted program,
he won't *need* to skip a grade because he can be challenged and
have his educational needs met while continuing with his age peers.

That really depends on how gifted and whether or not there are more
age peers who are also gifted to interact with.

True. Profoundly gifted kids are a different kettle
of fish. The situation just wasn't much sounding like that
to me. Gifted and highly gifted kids, on the other hand,
really can generally be accommodated with some skill and
effort without grade skipping, particularly if there's a
good GT program available. Even with highly gifted kids,
they're not so rare that any but a very small school
system should have at least a few knocking around.

Best wishes,
Ericka

On Fri, 25 May 2007 09:10:35 +1200, Barb Knox wrote:

In article ,
toypup wrote:

On Thu, 24 May 2007 17:23:59 GMT, toto wrote:


Kindergarten is really mostly about social skills, gross and fine
motor skills, etc. and not so much about academic curricula. It may
be that he would do fine going early, but it might also be that even
if his academics are fantastic, he will not have the maturity needed.

It depends on the area. Around here, they need to have the fine motor
skills going in or they won't be able to do all the homework.

What sorts of homework do they give?

What you might have gotten when you were in first grade or later. DS's
school is a little more competitive, but from what I've heard, it's
probably the whole area here. He has math and language arts (reading,
writing) four nights a week.

Right now, he's doing addition and subtraction for math in school. One
night, the addition homework was something like 5 4 6 7 3 4 = 7 and you
have to put + or - between each number so that the answer can be 7. There
were 10 of those problems and I sent a note to the teacher to tell her it
was going to take too long. That was a first for me. Luckily, she sent
home something slightly less time consuming in its place, but it was nearly
as difficult. Another day, the homework was a math contraption machine that
had a mystery number. You figure out what mystery number goes in that when
you subtract 1 and add 4, it equals 9. Another example, they had a whole
page of equations like 7+3 __ 9+2 and they had to use or = between the
equations.

For writing, he has to write book reports about once every week or two. He
writes at least one paper a week, at least 6 to 8 sentences. He's studying
contractions and compound words and he has spelling tests.

I never learned any of this when I was in kindergarten. Luckily, DS has
DH's brain.

True. Profoundly gifted kids are a different kettle
of fish. The situation just wasn't much sounding like that
to me. Gifted and highly gifted kids, on the other hand,
really can generally be accommodated with some skill and
effort without grade skipping, particularly if there's a
good GT program available. Even with highly gifted kids,
they're not so rare that any but a very small school
system should have at least a few knocking around.

In some subjects I fell into that top 1%, I was shifted a grade and I
basically did fine, but, I have an October birthday, I only missed the year
by 35 days anyway and when I say basically fine, it wasn't a smooth ride
either and nor did I make that shift at age 4 or 5, it was shortly before
age 11. In the circumstances available, I think it probably was the best
thing, but it's a different ball game to starting K early, by doing that you
either have them a year ahead all the way through school, when it might turn
out they are not in the top 1% in any subject and so are up there
unnecessarily, simply for the parents convenience in the K year. On the
other hand if it doesn't go swimmingly, that means repeating a year, which
is hard for any child. Better to start right and skip if necessary later,
than double up at some point, which would be demoralising and made worse by
the fact it could have been prevented by wiser action earlier. Also note,
that this child is not close to meeting the age limit, he's almost a year
off if we'd have been talking about a child with a fall birthday, I'd
probably still be saying why rush it now, find a good preschool etc. but I'd
be much less concerned about any social issues.

Anne

Is this because of competitive pressure to get into a Good primary
school in order to get into a Good middle school in order to get into a
Good secondary school in order to get into a Good university in order to
get a Good job in order to hopefully have a good life?


not so much, in the US, you pretty much go to the school that the map of the
school district says you will go to unlike the UK where you can exert some
choice. We know exactly which schools our kids will go to if we stay living
in the same place. Where we lived in the UKwe had 4 primary schools and 2
secondary schools closer than even the elementary school is here.

Anne

On May 24, 7:15 pm, "Anne Rogers" wrote:
Is this because of competitive pressure to get into a Good primary
school in order to get into a Good middle school in order to get into a
Good secondary school in order to get into a Good university in order to
get a Good job in order to hopefully have a good life?

not so much, in the US, you pretty much go to the school that the map of the
school district says you will go to unlike the UK where you can exert some
choice. We know exactly which schools our kids will go to if we stay living
in the same place. Where we lived in the UKwe had 4 primary schools and 2
secondary schools closer than even the elementary school is here.

Anne

Isn't toypup's DS attending a private K that she selected for its
program, not the public K?

Caledonia

Caledonia wrote:
On May 24, 7:15 pm, "Anne Rogers" wrote:
Is this because of competitive pressure to get into a Good primary
school in order to get into a Good middle school in order to get into a
Good secondary school in order to get into a Good university in order to
get a Good job in order to hopefully have a good life?
not so much, in the US, you pretty much go to the school that the map of the
school district says you will go to unlike the UK where you can exert some
choice. We know exactly which schools our kids will go to if we stay living
in the same place. Where we lived in the UKwe had 4 primary schools and 2
secondary schools closer than even the elementary school is here.

Isn't toypup's DS attending a private K that she selected for its
program, not the public K?

I'm sure she can and will speak for herself, but I
think it was a public magnet school, or something like that.
Could be flat out wrong, though ;-)

Best wishes,
Ericka

On Thu, 24 May 2007 20:06:55 -0400, Ericka Kammerer wrote:

for herself, but I
think it was a public magnet school, or something like that.
Could be flat out wrong, though ;-)

Yes. Public magnet school. Anyone from the district may attend if they
win the lottery.

In article ,
Anne Rogers wrote:
Now, to detail a bit of the social
readiness --- think long and hard what types of things your child will
be exposed to once turned loose into a sea of other older children,
who may or may not have learned some mightily scary, or at least
questionable, words, phrases, and things from older siblings - it oh
so quickly reaches your child who has no clue what it means and
because they do not know something is inappropriate or wrong, they
come right out and share it with ya.

I think this is very important, it's probably less of an issue at
kindergarten level, but if you start early and he keeps up academically, at
every stage he's going to be exposed to stuff he isn't ready for and even
within the correct year group, it tends to be the young ones that follow the
older ones. Right now, it may be just language you'd rather he'd not be
using, but in future, it will be smoking, bunking off school, a whole host
of things that you want to avoid.

Anne

This attitude is one reason why I do not think most of
the public schools are reformable, no matter what resources
are made available.

Not only is he likely to keep up academically, he is likely
to find the academic pace too slow, at least in some subjects.

I do not know if he is ready for kindergarten physically, but
he is probably far more than ready mentally. I would suggest
that you make it a priority to have him reading well, before
the schools will permit him to start learning in their poor
manner. There are also home schooling arrangements to be
considered; I do not know what is in your area.

As for "losing his childhood", should his childhood be that
of those who have lost the ability and desire to learn?
What the educationists think is a proper childhood is to
be "one of the crowd" instead of an individual thinker.



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are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
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Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Yes. Public magnet school. Anyone from the district may attend if they
win the lottery.

so lottery is the only criteria for application? so the school district
admits that there is one school that is better than the others, yet they
don't have anything other than a lottery to determine who goes there?

I suppose lottery might be better than location alone, at least that
prevents all the middle class parents moving into the area and pushing house
prices up, but I can't get my head round places at one school being
allocated by lottery (I can see uses for a lottery in school admissions,
such as allocating remaining places after all those in the close area around
the school are admitted or something).

Anne