My son has an August birthday and at his current daycare there is the option of putting him in a 3-4 room or putting him in the PreK room. If he goes to the PreK room this will be his last year there and the expectation is he will be ready for kindergarten. I have heard wonderful things about the PreK teacher and a lot of my son's friends are already in the PreK room but since we are holding him back for elementary school - I am not sure what to do.
Has anyone been in this position? Have you done PreK at 2 different schools or done PreK and then TK (transitional kindergarten) or have you had your LO in a less structured class like a 3-4 and then only did PreK right before kindergarten?
There are not a lot of TK options where I live that extend past noon so I feel like I am really looking at 2 years of PreK at 2 different schools or one more year of less structure before PreK.
TIA for any thoughts/shared experiences!
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What is your motivation for holding him back? If you feel he won't be developmentally ready for K in a year, then he likely isn't ready for PK now and you should stick with the 3-4 class. My daughter's PK was basically Kindergarten level curriculum.
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We did a year of a 5s program that was specifically designed for late in the year birthday kids. State cut off is end of December and there's a market for this kind of program, but I wasn't really aware of it before I started looking.
The teachers at my son's school call the K year Kindergarten University, it's super intense and you really need to have the social/emotional and motor skills to sit for long periods, which is what I was aiming to develop in that extra year.
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@Truth Bombs: He is very reserved in social settings and we think another year before kindergarten will be helpful. I am also thinking more long term that I don't know if it would be good for him to be the youngest throughout school. He was born less than an hour before the official cut off so he will likely be the youngest if he starts on time.
We met with his teacher from the 3s room the other week and she said he thinks he is ready for the PreK room - that the PreK teacher is awesome and will get him ready for kindergarten. I hear that the teacher is so good so of course I want to expose my son to that now but the reality is I don't want to start him in kindergarten fall of next year so should I be patient and wait another year for him to have this awesome teacher or should I give him the experience now and look for something else to help prepare for kindergarten more after that. Is having 2 years of PreK overkill?
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@looch: I think that would be ideal but most of those programs end at noon here and I think it would be hard to find care for him after noon. There is school that offers a longer program with after school care for an additional fee that I plan to look at - it is for kids turning 5 July through December but it is only open to 20 students.
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@autumnleaves: I would ask more about how close the PK curriculum is to K. I'm already concerned that my daughter is going to bored in K because she's already covered much of the material. I would be really concerned about your son being bored if he did two full years of curriculum that closely resembled what he then learns in K. If your teachers think he is developmentally ready for PK now, then in all likelihood he will be ready for K in a year. So my personal inclination would be to send him to PK, and if he does well, send him to K on time. But, my husband and I were both the youngest in our grade and did very well socially, academically, and in sports so I have a hard time with this move towards holding children back a year when there's not a clear developmental delay.
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@autumnleaves: I think we may be in the same area (NC)? Anyway, my son has an early September birthday (9/3) and our preschool doesn't have a TK program. He's "ahead" in preschool (he'll be in a PreK/4s class this fall) but would be super bored repeating so we are going to do a TK program. The one we are hoping to do is a 9-1 program but I was just looking at options and I've found one pretty nearby that has a 9-3 option. From my research most of the TK programs follow the WCPSS (again, assuming you are in my area!) kindergarten curriculum including letterland, etc. If I'm right wall me and I can send you links of places I've looked into!
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@autumnleaves: How old is he? Turning 4? I would probably put him in the PreK 4 and then assess again in March of next year.
Do you know what the K curriculum is? I would want to know more before I did a 5's program. My son was 5 turning 6 in K and maybe I was hyper aware, but I could tell who the 4 turning 5 kids were from just a few visits to the classroom (they exhibited a lot of the behaviors I saw in my son the year before that he effectively grew out of).
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I had the opposite problem at my last daycare: my state just changed the cutoff from October to August, which pushes my oldest back a year for kindergarten. I wanted her to be put in Pre-K for two years because the teacher is wonderful and I felt confident that my daughter would thrive in the program for two years. However, it came down to numbers and she was placed in the 3-4 class with mostly new 3s and a few kids in the same predicament as her. She didn't do well.
So, I would ask why he can't do the Pre-K program twice. A friend of mine has her son doing that and it has been fine so far.
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@Truth Bombs: @looch: @avivoca: Thank you! Boredom is definitely a concern of mine and it's hard for me to figure out if a 3-4 room will be boring or not - the fact that no one is raving about it at the school, makes me feel like we should go with PreK. I will ask more questions about how similar the PreK curriculum is to kindergarten.
@looch: He will be 4 this August.
@jape14: Walled you - thanks! -
@autumnleaves: I’m in sort of a similar situation- my daughter turns 5 one month before the cut off and we are holding her for kindergarten. When I signed her up for preK last year I didn’t realize we would be holding her, and her class was mostly older kids (like 9-11 months older than her) who are going to K this year. She definitely struggled as the main reason we are holding her is her immaturity. I’m lucky that I figured out early enough that we would be holding her to find a junior kindergarten program in my town. It’s half day but since it’s located in a daycare kids can stay later- I SAH so will pick her up at 12:30 though, but it’s nice it’s an option.
Only time will tell how it works out but I feel like junior K is going to be a good move for her. There is so much more to this time period than the “curriculum”- they are just learning how to act like reasonable little people.
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@autumnleaves: does he tend to do better with older or younger kids? That’s something I would consider.
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I’ll just share with you my experience with my oldest even though the choices/options were different. My son was in a preschool program that had the option of PK4 to get kids ready for K. My kids go to Catholic school which had a PK grade. So he transitioned into “real” school in PK. He is a mid September birthday and the cutoff is 9-30 in my area. I was apprehensive about putting him in being the youngest. He was screened and maturity wise was ready. He did great in PK and moved up to K. In Kindergarten he struggled with the phonics and reading skills. I feel like K is now what 1st grade was when I was young. After consulting with the teacher, we decided to have him repeat K so he’ll have a better foundation for 1st grade. It wasn’t a learning issue but a maturity issue. Yes he is mature enough to follow directions, sit still, and have no behavioral issues. But he wasn’t mature enough to be interested in the material. He didn’t care yet. He excelled in the math sections because he likes math. But reading was another story. We feel like he’d benefit from another year.
I do sometimes wonder if I should have just waited and had him start school a year later. Honestly, I think each child was different and he’s repeating the year he should be.
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As a teacher, I learned a lot about the developmental differences in boys and girls. Boys can be about 12 months behind girls emotionally and often academically (and even physically at different stages - go to an 8th grade classroom- the girls tower over the boys til the end of 9th grade, it's adorable!)
In my 13 years as a teacher, I see a lot of my young (August/ fall) boys struggle. Not that they aren't intelligent by any means! They just develop later. This is not the case for everyone. And you know your son of course. But if there's even a little doubt he's ready, maybe consider holding him back. My BIL, cousin and good friend (Sept and Oct bdays) all had to repeat either kindergarten or first grade and they never really got over that "failure" (it wasn't; they just weren't ready, but they sensed they failed). Those are my two sense as an educator and anecdotally from people in my life. -
My DD is an early Sept baby - she will be 5 this year in Sept, we struggled big time over the decision to enroll in K or not.
She has been in a full-time daycare setting since age 3 months. She started Pre-school at 2.5 years, and Pre-K just before she turned 4. She has had a full year of Pre-K and just had her graduation mid June.
As TruthBombs mentioned, her Pre-K curriculum is basically on par with her Kindy curriculum she will face this Fall. My husband was very nervous about her being so young from an emotional perspective and from an athletic development perspective. Her teachers and the director of the center assessed her in November and May of this year and both times determined she was on par to start Kindy this fall.
Our options other than Kindy were limited. Put her in a new Just 4s program, keep her where she currently is to repeat Pre-K, keep her where she currently is to do the transitional K program (weak program and teacher) or find a public school.
In my opinion, all the options other than Kindy were likely to either promote boredom this year or next (when she would enroll in public K). For me, boredom was the death of me at school...so I was very opposed to this. Ultimately we chose to enroll her and said if need be, she'll repeat kindy.
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My son is a late August baby in a state with a September 1st cut off. He will be starting Kindergarten this fall as the youngest in his class. I feel he is ready and I would worry more about holding him back and creating boredom. I agree that boredom in school can cause a lot of issues. I think he is already bored with the "academic" work in preschool and I can feel his frustration with having to keep doing things he "already knows how to do". (His words, not mine!)
For your kid, if the preschool teacher feels that he is ready for PreK, I would trust their expertise and enroll him in PreK. He may surprise you and prove that he is totally ready for Kindergarten next year. If next year you still feel like he's not ready for Kindergarten and his preschool teachers agree, you can either repeat another year of PreK or search for another program.
I guess I would give him the opportunity to grow and see if he's ready, as opposed to already deciding this early on that he won't be ready come August/September 2019.
I'm obviously biased given I'm sending my kid as the youngest...
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@Foodnerd81: Thank you for sharing! I was hoping I could identify if my son prefers to interact with the older kids or younger kids in his class but I really didn't pick up on that this year in his 3s room. His best friend was younger and he recently left but my son also enjoys the other kids older and younger. Hopefully if we put him in the PreK later this summer, I will be able to pick up on if he is ready for kindergarten or not emotionally/socially.
@Mamatimes3: Thank you for sharing! I don't think our public schools allow kids to repeat kindergarten which makes the decision hard now. I see how school is so much more challenging now too and that is part of my hesitancy to have him start with just making the cut. Hopefully I will get better insight into how he is doing/his readiness in the next 6 months. -
@Mrs D: @SproutBee: Thank you!
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