Is My Child Ready for Kindergarten?
Kindergarten isn’t what it used to be. Actually, not so long ago, kindergarten didn’t even exist for many children. My grandparents and most of my aunts and uncles did not attend kindergarten.
As most parents can tell you today, kindergarten ranks high on their list of concerns for their young children.
Even though many studies have shown that there are not any lasting advantages to pre-kindergarten education, more and more children are being signed up for formal education classes because their parents feel they may get “left behind”.
So, what do they really need to know?
I have three children who attended kindergarten. Each child was at a different developmental stage when they entered and each child successfully completed the year.
I can honestly say that they don’t need to know a great amount of information before starting kindergarten. The most important thing, in my opinion, is not their mastery of ABC’s and 123′s but rather emotional readiness.
Emotional readiness sets the stage for learning. With a solid self-esteem and sense of self, children can tackle just about anything.
Is your child confident, trusting, independent, cooperative, curious, nurturing, compliant, attentive, and patient? If your child has a basic understanding of these principles but just needs practice, then he/she is in a good space emotionally.
Keep in mind that a kindergarten class is full of students of different academic levels. Not all students will know their colors, shapes, numbers, or alphabet. The teacher will still have to review this material for all students, whether they have mastered it or not.
When in doubt, trust your instinct. You are the expert of your child’s abilities and limitations.
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I agree, but there is more than just emotional readiness. At age 5, she was ready emotionally. Of course, I was homeschooling so she loved every minute of learning with me nearby. I probably would not have considered her emotionally ready for public school. My daughter did well except that she did not have some motor skills neccessary to excel. This was not apparent until the later part of second grade. If she had been sent to public school, she would have fallen behind in leaps and bounds and I would never have understood why. Since I homeschooled, I saw the problem right away and was able to slow things to a pace that she could handle. However, by the time we were in third grade, she began to suffer. I noticed she was no longer emotionally ready for the day to day challenges because of the motor skills she lacked. She started dreading school and cried often. Mind you, she was a straight “A” student as far as knowing the material but to keep up the pace at which she should have been required was not working. It did not take me long to realize that I needed a different course of action. We snailed along in school (and I do mean snailed…I was not about to have my daughter hate school because she could not keep up) and continued her Co-op class that she loves. Then at the end of the public school year (June), I simply stopped third grade right where we were and that following fall started all over with a different curriculum which I also felt was needed. (She has never been aware that she started third grade over.) Once we started over, we have never had anymore problems. As a homeschooler, this was a luxury afforded without “failing” her and holding her back from continuing as normal with her friends in Co-op. I feel fortunate that I am able to homeschool because if she had been in public school, I believe it would have been much more difficult to handle the situation. I could not have slowed things down for her and if we held her back a year in public school it probably would have been looked at as a “failing” the grade from her peers. I am not opposing public school, but because I only had 1 student to consider, I had more insight in knowing exactly what the problem was and could change our course much more smoothly.
I definitely agree. My son would have never been ready last year emotionally if the schools still had them enter when not quite 5. I definitely would have held him back. Luckily I didn’t even need to think about that! I see a huge difference in his ability to learn the more academic materials in the past 4 months then he had before. He is also desiring to learn it!!