Boys with August birthdays and Kindergarten at MCPS

[Anonymous]

My son will turn 5 in August and we are trying to decide whether to hold him back for a year or send him to K at our neighborhood MCPS. We are currently thinking that he is too young for K. We have applied to a couple of private schools in the area. I understand that private K is less rigorous than public K. One option we have is to send him to private K for a year and have him repeat K at MCPS when he turns 6. Any thoughts?

Did you send your young 5 year old boy to K at MCPS? If yes, how was your experience? Any regrets? If no, what did you do if you were planning to switch him to public at some point? We cannot afford private all the way, so we need to switch him to public in a few years even if he starts at private K.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Former K teacher here: Kindergarten is for five-year-olds. Unless your son has a legitimate maturity issue, there is probably no reason to hold him back simply because he will be a "young five." It was rare (and I mean RARE) for me to have a student that I thought should have waited another year.

Surely others will weigh in, and you can search the archives for red-shirting, but I would give him the chance to do kindergarten at five years old like everyone else. He may not even be the youngest in his class--the most popular birth months are, in order: September, August, June and July. You're looking at him now, at four-and-a-half. Of course he seems too young for kindergarten. Keep in mind that he has a lot of growing and maturing ahead of him. School doesn't start for six more months.

Is he in preschool? Is he far behind, maturity-wise, his peers?

I'm not saying it's always wrong to hold back and always right to send at 5, but I think a lot of parents worry because their kid is "so young" and don't always take into account that everyone else in the class is young, too. That's what K is. Thirty or sixty days doesn't make that much of a difference.

[Anonymous]

Sent my summer 5 son to K on time. He is fine. He is 13 now and actually hitting puberty early..so he is taller than many of his friends. My thought was just to follow the guidelines provided.

[Anonymous]

When in August is his birthday? August 1 or August 31?

[Anonymous]

We sent my August birthday DS to K on time. He had 2 years of full-day preschool/daycare under his belt by then. He was (and still is) small, so I was a bit concerned, but he knew his letters/numbers/etc... meaning he was academically ready.

We couldn't afford private, so that wasn't an issue.

Worked out fine! I don't see a reason to hold a kid back unless there are serious concerns.

[Anonymous]

Unless he's having maturity problems now in preschool, I wouldn't consider holding him back.

[Anonymous]

Personally, I like your idea of having him do K at a private school (presumably it would have smaller classes than at MCPS) but I would keep my mind open about whether to move him into MCPS at K or 1st grade. Children mature overnight at this age.

[Anonymous]

The private Ks will most likely encourage him to go to Junior Kindergarten, rather than K. That's what we did, and it was a great decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son will turn 5 in August and we are trying to decide whether to hold him back for a year or send him to K at our neighborhood MCPS. We are currently thinking that he is too young for K. We have applied to a couple of private schools in the area. I understand that private K is less rigorous than public K. One option we have is to send him to private K for a year and have him repeat K at MCPS when he turns 6. Any thoughts?

Did you send your young 5 year old boy to K at MCPS? If yes, how was your experience? Any regrets? If no, what did you do if you were planning to switch him to public at some point? We cannot afford private all the way, so we need to switch him to public in a few years even if he starts at private K.

Thanks!

Why would you hold him back? If he started kindergarten at six he would be nearly seven when he "graduated". Six years and 10 months is too old for kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

My son turned 5 in mid August and I'm very happy he started Kindergarten on time. He is now in 5th grade and a head taller than anyone else, very mature and doing fine academically. He would be very out of place if he were only in 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

One reason to hold him back is because others will have held theirs back. This will mean that your son will be going to school with kids a full year older than him if you don't hold him back. Something to think about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One reason to hold him back is because others will have held theirs back. This will mean that your son will be going to school with kids a full year older than him if you don't hold him back. Something to think about.

Based on the responses this thread has gotten so far, it seems the trend is NOT to hold back. If OP waits, then her son will be going to school with kids a full year younger than he is. It goes both ways.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you start him at MCPS on time, he would have to fail miserably to be held back. So, you are right to be sure you make the right call on when to start him. As for private school, my experience is that they are more rigorous than MCPS. But I've heard others say, as you did, that they are less rigorous.

[Anonymous]

I will have a similar issue with my son who is essentially the same age, except born in the first week of Sept. We still have a couple years and I guess we could consider trying to get him in a year early. I guess they have tro try the line somewhere?

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for all the responses. My son has been in a daycare/pre-school since he was 15 months old. He does not have maturity problems. Since we went through a couple of private school applications, we had to get him “tested.” His test scores are solid (not a genius; no developmental delay). I may be emotional, but I look at him and I feel like he is not ready to be in a classroom from 9 am to 3 pm without any recess or PE. He is a very active boy. Also, academically, he knows his letters and numbers, but he cannot read or write at this point, or he is showing any interest in reading and writing for now.