Reply to Entering Kindergarten at 6

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Entering Kindergarten at 6"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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. [/quote]

I am the pp poster above who regrets not redshirting.  I didn't send my child to all day PK3.  We chose a 1/2 day 3-day a week private program. We did send him to an all day PK4, but it was a play-based program. Wish now I would have kept him in it another year. How different the last three years would have been! And not just for my kid - for yours too.  He has been rather disruptive in class. You non-redshirting parents, do you really want immature, disruptive summer birthday boys in your kids' classrooms?! My kid takes up A LOT of the teacher's time and attention both in term of behavior and academics.[/quote]

But he was three years more mature and still being disruptive, so may be you are focusing on the wrong thing as a cause.[/quote]

Maybe you should MYOB, because these kids are very complicated and it's not always clear what the right thing is, and parents do what they can to help, which may include redshirting.

Or, you can just go on bashing parents with struggling kids.  [/quote]

NP. I don't think that the PP was bashing parents with struggling kids at all. I actually feel that it's the opposite. I think she's saying that it sounds like there was an underlying reason for the disruptive behavior that doesn't have to do with "well you let your preschooler run wild and didn't parent him properly and that's why they weren't ready for school but in a year he'll hopefully settle down and it will be fine to start then". If after several years of formal schooling the child is still having behavioral or learning issues then I don't think people can claim that delaying school until they're physically older and bigger would help much. It's more of a case of "there's something else going on here, like maybe a medical issue, whether that's a simple thing like food allergies making them more hyperactive or something more serious, that isn't going to magically fix itself".

To the PP who regrets not redshirting, have you considered holding your child back now? Do you think it would make him less disruptive if the work is a bit easier and the expectations are a bit lower? If you think that, then maybe you should talk to the teachers and see whether they think the same. Maybe the teachers don't think you'd be open to it. Some kids do get held back when they're struggling academically, and if you really think it the lower grade would solve a lot of the issues then it's better to make a correction in third grade than to never do it and struggle all the way to grade 12.[/quote]

PP here.  I've stayed out of the ensuing  discussion, but  yes, we are talking to teachers about holding him back and about how to do so without making him feel like a failure. This is my biggest worry now.  They do think that 1. his behavior is much more developmentally appropriate for a 1st grader than a 2nd grader and 2) some of his goofing off in class is because he can't do the work. In 1st grade he was reading at the K level and in second grade he is reading at a 1st grade level, so he is making progress.  Had we redshirted, I imagine he would have always been on track and we'd not now be faced with how to get him in the appropriate grade without damaging his self esteem and having him label himself as not good at school.[/quote]

If you seriously think that he's getting all the support he needs and that everything would be basically resolved in the lower grade, you should switch him ASAP. There's a chance he'll get over it now and maybe even forget about it, but he's not going to get over it and he's certainly going to know that he's not good at school (and it would be true) if you keep him where he is. You could work on some outside activities (e.g. martial arts) to build up self esteem in the meantime.
[/quote]

Or, get him a reading tutor for the summer and heavily supplement to help him catch up.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics