Reply to September 6 birthday girl - Early Entrance to K? WWYD?

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[quote=Anonymous]Our daughter's birthday is 5 days after the cutoff to go "on time" for K in 2015.  She's currently in a pre-K class with kids that would be her 2015 K peer group (the preschool was fine with her joining the 4s class despite being 5 days too young).  Family context: she has two older siblings that have tested very high and are in accelerated programs/work groups, despite both being "summer birthday" boys who were sent on time.  She seems in line with the ability of her brothers.  She's currently doing some simple math and has, just this week, decided she wants to read (so she's working her way through the early Bob Books and sounding out words in her other favorite books).  She's an eager learner and DESPERATELY wants to go to K next year, though I really doubt she understands what K is; she just knows it's more school and in the same place as her brothers.

Upsides to sending her in 2015: she'd likely be working in the appropriate academic peer group versus waiting to go in 2016. I am thoroughly in favor of kids having to strive to achieve, versus being top in the class and having it come easy to them.  I think she'd continue to be excited about learning if we send her in 2015; I'm concerned that in 2016 she may end up paying a whole lot less attention to the "teaching" components of the day as there wouldn't be a lot of new challenges.

Downsides: she'd be the youngest and would stay the youngest.  She may, in comparison to her older classmates, appear to be less advanced (and we all know that teachers do judge kids as "smart" or "not so smart", even if they try not to; it's just human nature).  IF, like her brothers, she tests into advanced programming (testing is age-normed, not grade-normed), she may end up being the youngest in a classroom full of other equally bright kids; in that case, she may be a bit overmatched by her peer group, instead of more appropriately placed with an older peer group if not in the advanced program.

Thoughts? Recommendations? BTDT? We're struggling a lot with this decision because we do believe she's ready now - but don't want to make a wrong decision that could ultimately have a more significant downside for her than waiting a year to go to K.  When we attempted to talk through this with her pre-K teacher, the teacher got teary-eyed and talked about how hard it is for 17 year olds to make big life decisions, taking away a year of childhood, etc. - but I don't know that speculative difficulty 12+ years from now is reason to wait (and I also don't believe childhood is stolen away by being in school - we're not magically deleting a 12 month period from her life - she just spends it differently).  Anyway - I welcome your thoughts![/quote]

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