Early entry to kindergarten

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember that there is also an early entry to 1st grade evaluation possible in MCPS, and so you should keep that possibility in the back of your mind if that is what DC really needs. In other words, you can take that regular PK year in preschool, and then if DC is ready for 1st grade rather than K, you can request that evaluation protocol and see what the school says. This might not be as relevant for OP (who, if I remember correctly, was looking towards an immersion program), but might for others.

This, easiest to transfer in 2nd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The test is for end-of-K skills, and since it is taken around April of the PK year, kids need to be at least a year ahead in all tested areas. If they don't pass each section of the test, they won't get in.

It's weird that they want a child to be ready for kindergarten by testing for end of year knowledge

They set a really high bar for early entry to discourage people from doing it and even if your kid can do all that, they still deny as its a subjective test. Its up to the principal. Many families end up paying for private K-1 as either way that year you have to pay for some kind of school.

THIS IS KINDERGARTEN, PEOPLE…wake up, please! What are you doing to your kid??

What are you talking about? These kids are five and ready.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How could it possibly be detrimental to wait unless it's about the family income and not having child care?

They don’t care. That is why some of us just pay for private k.as either way you have to pay for preschool or k. That year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How could it possibly be detrimental to wait unless it's about the family income and not having child care?

A kid with first grade level skills having two more years before entering first grade can absolutely cause problems. Some kids would be fine, others have a hard time.

If we held back, our kid would have had much higher skills than just 1st grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remember that there is also an early entry to 1st grade evaluation possible in MCPS, and so you should keep that possibility in the back of your mind if that is what DC really needs. In other words, you can take that regular PK year in preschool, and then if DC is ready for 1st grade rather than K, you can request that evaluation protocol and see what the school says. This might not be as relevant for OP (who, if I remember correctly, was looking towards an immersion program), but might for others.

This, easiest to transfer in 2nd grade.

Most kids did it in 1st or 2nd at our school. You just do private until then and they usually move your child up based on the private school grade so if you do K in private you'd enter in 1st even if your child did not make the cut off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The test is for end-of-K skills, and since it is taken around April of the PK year, kids need to be at least a year ahead in all tested areas. If they don't pass each section of the test, they won't get in.

It's weird that they want a child to be ready for kindergarten by testing for end of year knowledge

They set a really high bar for early entry to discourage people from doing it and even if your kid can do all that, they still deny as its a subjective test. Its up to the principal. Many families end up paying for private K-1 as either way that year you have to pay for some kind of school.

THIS IS KINDERGARTEN, PEOPLE…wake up, please! What are you doing to your kid??

Because the cut off is arbitrary and and there can be the difference of a few hours or a day between being eligible or having to wait a year

A lot of parents especially the ones who love sports are into red-shirting which is just the opposite. I think half the boys in DC's K were a year or more older.

Many did it with Covid so they could send their kids to day care and not have virtual.

[Anonymous]

I know you said no opinions but I can't help it...our kid is young for her grade (6). She was "skipped" in kg. Early reader (could read in 2 languages at age 4), did math really early, etc. etc. could do all the silly thing in the assessment.
She is still doing really well in school, 99th percentile maps, etc.
But we made a mistake. I can admit this.
Her immaturity is so freaking obvious right now. We should have found her a montessori or something where she could go at her own pace rather than having her skip.

Its hard to figure out how your child will mature as they age, I know. But try. Now we are thinking of all sorts of repeated years/gap year options now to give her the time she so clearly needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remember that there is also an early entry to 1st grade evaluation possible in MCPS, and so you should keep that possibility in the back of your mind if that is what DC really needs. In other words, you can take that regular PK year in preschool, and then if DC is ready for 1st grade rather than K, you can request that evaluation protocol and see what the school says. This might not be as relevant for OP (who, if I remember correctly, was looking towards an immersion program), but might for others.

This, easiest to transfer in 2nd grade.

Most kids did it in 1st or 2nd at our school. You just do private until then and they usually move your child up based on the private school grade so if you do K in private you'd enter in 1st even if your child did not make the cut off.

All the kids I know transferred in 2/3 as I know at least our school wasn't supportive at all so it was not worth the fight in 1st.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know you said no opinions but I can't help it...our kid is young for her grade (6). She was "skipped" in kg. Early reader (could read in 2 languages at age 4), did math really early, etc. etc. could do all the silly thing in the assessment.
She is still doing really well in school, 99th percentile maps, etc.
But we made a mistake. I can admit this.
Her immaturity is so freaking obvious right now. We should have found her a montessori or something where she could go at her own pace rather than having her skip.

Its hard to figure out how your child will mature as they age, I know. But try. Now we are thinking of all sorts of repeated years/gap year options now to give her the time she so clearly needs.

Yep, around first grade is when I started realizing we had made a horrible mistake sending my late summer birthday boy on time. Unfortunately no way to fix it unless you leave MCPS and come back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know you said no opinions but I can't help it...our kid is young for her grade (6). She was "skipped" in kg. Early reader (could read in 2 languages at age 4), did math really early, etc. etc. could do all the silly thing in the assessment.
She is still doing really well in school, 99th percentile maps, etc.
But we made a mistake. I can admit this.
Her immaturity is so freaking obvious right now. We should have found her a montessori or something where she could go at her own pace rather than having her skip.

Its hard to figure out how your child will mature as they age, I know. But try. Now we are thinking of all sorts of repeated years/gap year options now to give her the time she so clearly needs.

You can always hold her back now. We absolutely did not make a mistake and I'm glad we didn't hold our child back. Our child agrees we made the right decision. Every child is different and parents need to make that choice for themselves. 6th is a very difficult transition year in MCPS so she isn't then only child struggling regardless of age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know you said no opinions but I can't help it...our kid is young for her grade (6). She was "skipped" in kg. Early reader (could read in 2 languages at age 4), did math really early, etc. etc. could do all the silly thing in the assessment.
She is still doing really well in school, 99th percentile maps, etc.
But we made a mistake. I can admit this.
Her immaturity is so freaking obvious right now. We should have found her a montessori or something where she could go at her own pace rather than having her skip.

Its hard to figure out how your child will mature as they age, I know. But try. Now we are thinking of all sorts of repeated years/gap year options now to give her the time she so clearly needs.

Yep, around first grade is when I started realizing we had made a horrible mistake sending my late summer birthday boy on time. Unfortunately no way to fix it unless you leave MCPS and come back.

MCPS will allow you to repeat a year but it depends on the principal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - thank you, all. It sounds like I probably need to call the school to get more info about capacity and process (the district's materials don't say anything about a test and the deadline to apply isn't until may or June so an april test seems odd), but I don't want to bother them if this is information I can get myself online. Are the end of K skills published anywhere?

They are--there's a whole long brochure on it (on the order of 20 pages?) somewhere on the MCPS site. I know because we went looking for it to level-set our expectations regarding what the kid learned in Zoom K (in an immersion program) and whether there were pieces of curriculum we needed to remediate over the summer. There weren't.

Here´s the link to the brochure: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/earlychildhood/0953%2015_EarlyEntranceToKindergarten_Guide_ENGLISH.pdf

No—I was thinking of this one, which is about K curriculum and not early entrance specifically:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/curriculum/elementary/parent-guide-traditional-kindergarten-en.pdf

[Anonymous]

The most important stuff in kindergarten is not academic. It's learning to be a student in a classroom.

[Anonymous]

Mine tested in early 3 years ago. They test sight words, knowledge of how text reads on a page (I forget what this is called), I think numbers up to 20, upper and lower case alphabet and make them play in small groups of actual rising K kids. The test I think was done the same day rising kids visited the school (pre pandemic). Mine is now a thriving 2nd grader.

[Anonymous]

In the school I worked at they looked at knowledge of the alphabet - upper and lower case, basic sight words, basic ability to identify numbers. They also looked at how easily a child separated from their parents and how well they interacted with the tester (to make sure they had the social maturity). Sometimes the testing was done by appointment. Sometimes the testing was done during K orientation. And if it was done then, the child was also observed in the classroom with all the other kids there (the teacher would do a presentation, would read a story and ask questions, kids would color) - obviously done prepandemic.