Entering Kindergarten at 6

[Anonymous]

I didn't redshirt my summer birthday boy. I now have a rising third grader who is in NO way ready for third grade socially or academically (reading at K, maybe early 1st, grade level, gravitates to the 1st graders on playground). Now, I am talking about how to hold him back in second without making him feel like a failure. Parents, follow your gut not the calendar and redshirt your kids if you "feel" they are not ready.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't redshirt my summer birthday boy. I now have a rising third grader who is in NO way ready for third grade socially or academically (reading at K, maybe early 1st, grade level, gravitates to the 1st graders on playground). Now, I am talking about how to hold him back in second without making him feel like a failure. Parents, follow your gut not the calendar and redshirt your kids if you "feel" they are not ready.

I didn't redshirt my late September birthday boy, who turned 5 after he started kindergarten. He is now a rising 3rd grader and reading at a 5th grade level and gets along great with his peers and his teachers.

PP, I have great sympathy for you and your kid, but this is not a redshirting issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't redshirt my summer birthday boy. I now have a rising third grader who is in NO way ready for third grade socially or academically (reading at K, maybe early 1st, grade level, gravitates to the 1st graders on playground). Now, I am talking about how to hold him back in second without making him feel like a failure. Parents, follow your gut not the calendar and redshirt your kids if you "feel" they are not ready.

I didn't redshirt my late September birthday boy, who turned 5 after he started kindergarten. He is now a rising 3rd grader and reading at a 5th grade level and gets along great with his peers and his teachers.

PP, I have great sympathy for you and your kid, but this is not a redshirting issue.

Exactly. There will always be kids ahead, on grade level, and behind. That isn’t because someone did or didn’t red shirt.

[Anonymous]

You can not compare black kids being retained to not red shirting. Come on people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can not compare black kids being retained to not red shirting. Come on people.

typical white liberal privileged BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't redshirt my summer birthday boy. I now have a rising third grader who is in NO way ready for third grade socially or academically (reading at K, maybe early 1st, grade level, gravitates to the 1st graders on playground). Now, I am talking about how to hold him back in second without making him feel like a failure. Parents, follow your gut not the calendar and redshirt your kids if you "feel" they are not ready.

I didn't redshirt my late September birthday boy, who turned 5 after he started kindergarten. He is now a rising 3rd grader and reading at a 5th grade level and gets along great with his peers and his teachers.

PP, I have great sympathy for you and your kid, but this is not a redshirting issue.

except I felt at K that he wasn't ready but didn't consider not sending him. I wish now I would have listened to my gut and not followed the calendar. You know if your kids is not in teh same place as other kids his age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:They should have a rule about it. Unless there is a documented reason by a school or doctor, there should be no red shirting.

What’s it to you?

Jerk.

What's it to me? People who red shirt for no specific documented reason put the other, age appropriate kids in that class at a disadvantage throughout schooling.

Yea, it does impact the class. My dd turned 5 in August, and is in K. Recently she cried to me because some little boy told her she's too young for kindergarten, that she should be in pre-k. I reassure her as best I can, but having older kids in the class does indeed impact the others.

Let me get this straight. Your daughter cried once, that that should determine when other kids start school? No. Doesn't work that way.

You’re so thick. PP’s daughter is in the correct grade for her age but she’s subjected to a spoiled little shit whose parents gave him “the gift of time” who feels like he can pick on the younger kids because he was held back.

PP you're projecting. Calling a child a "spoiled little shit" based on an anecdotal report of him telling a kid she's too young for K, while knowing nothing else about that child (OP never described the kid as anything other than a "little boy"). Get your own feelings in check and take some time to figure out why you are getting so triggered before referring to a little boy with such aggressive anger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't redshirt my summer birthday boy. I now have a rising third grader who is in NO way ready for third grade socially or academically (reading at K, maybe early 1st, grade level, gravitates to the 1st graders on playground). Now, I am talking about how to hold him back in second without making him feel like a failure. Parents, follow your gut not the calendar and redshirt your kids if you "feel" they are not ready.

I didn't redshirt my late September birthday boy, who turned 5 after he started kindergarten. He is now a rising 3rd grader and reading at a 5th grade level and gets along great with his peers and his teachers.

PP, I have great sympathy for you and your kid, but this is not a redshirting issue.

Uh, how is it not a redshirting issue? The point is that kids are individuals, and some would do better having an extra year, particularly when K is so very academic now. We chose not to redshirt my late-summer bday boy and he is keeping up academically - that part is great. socially, not so much. I am worried but hoping it works out for the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can not compare black kids being retained to not red shirting. Come on people.

Why not? It's pretty much impossible to distinguish between redshirting and retaining in K. The kids who got retained in K are without a doubt kids who would have been redshirted if their parents had the same knowledge base as more affluent parents. Luckily I think it works out to be the same because we're in a strong school with a strong K program. But it's silly to claim that when a white parent redshirts for PK that's some kind of rulebreaking, but when a black kid gets retained because his reading is not progressing, that's OK because the school does it.

[Anonymous]

How do some of you reconcile red shirting but then also taking advantage of the free prek3 and 4. They are either ready for all day school or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do some of you reconcile red shirting but then also taking advantage of the free prek3 and 4. They are either ready for all day school or not.

Well, I actually had my son in private PK because he wasn't ready for the structure of DCPS "free" PK3. So there's that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do some of you reconcile red shirting but then also taking advantage of the free prek3 and 4. They are either ready for all day school or not.

Well, I actually had my son in private PK because he wasn't ready for the structure of DCPS "free" PK3. So there's that.

But all day preschool?

[Anonymous]

I bet “not being ready for the structure of preschool” is also a white person thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m wondering the racial breakdown of red shirted kids. Because this seems like white foolishness to me.

I think you’re largely right. I only know one black kid (affluent family) who was redshirted. All the rest are white families.

"[Redshirting] is also significantly more common among white students – roughly 6 percent of white students are redshirted, compared to less than 3 percent of Asian students and 2 percent or less of black and Hispanic children."
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-16/how-much-does-it-benefit-a-child-to-delay-kindergarten-entry-for-a-year

I wonder how much of the racial achievement gap could be closed by simply enforcing the age cutoffs consistently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If everyone would just send their kid to school when they are supposed to, we wouldn't have these large age gaps is the classroom. My kid entered kindergarten at 4 and turned 5 two weeks later. If you hold yours back it creates unfair age gaps for those of us who follow the rules.

I don't understand how the age gaps disadvantage your child.

We redshirted our early summer birthday kid because it was obvious she wasn't ready for K when she had just turned 5. No diagnosis, so we couldn't have gotten a letter from the doctor or "proved" that red shirting was correct, it was just obvious to us and her preschool teachers. Fast forward several years, she has an IEP for a learning disability and is academically one of the weakest kids and is absolutely in the right grade. I don't understand how her presence is hurting your kid.

Holding her back likely hurt HER. She lost out on a year of the intervention that she needed.