Reply to This age discrepancy due to "redshirting" is ridiculous

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Reply to "This age discrepancy due to "redshirting" is ridiculous"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Believe me, you wouldn't have wanted my just-turning-five- boy starting kindergarten with your child.  He would have disrupted class the entire year.  Now at the late end of 5 he is ready to sit down for more than 5 minutes at a time and is receptive to learning things.  It's a win-win situation -- he won't have to feel like a bad boy for constantly getting time outs for not listening or feel stupid for not getting the academic stuff, and his classmates won't have their learning time interrupted by the disruptive kid running around, talking too much, wanting to play when he should be listening to a book during circle time, crying because he hated the work and probably needed a little nap.[/quote]

Is that what we want for Kindergarten, though? A place where a developmentally perfectly average child wouldn't function well, because the standards are higher than what the average child can manage?

If this change towards a more academic K had led to increased academic performance for our primary and secondary students, increasing readiness for college or life after high school, it might make sense. Those aren't the results I'm seeing. Why not keep K a place where perfectly average children - including those who still need a rest - can thrive?

My child could do seat work for hours from a very young age. It wasn't good or appropriate for her, however. She NEEDED to move around and play, not sit at a table. She would not have been stilted by not coloring an "A is for Apple" worksheet at 2, or copying the alphabet out at 3, or coloring in all the objects that started with 'T' at 4. Every single one of those activities could have been more appropriately accomplished in a kinetic way. Playing in the sandbox or with play dough for fine motor, having a treasure hunt outside for objects that begin with a certain sound, etc. It's just easier to sit children down at a table with worksheets ... as long as the parents hold out the children for whom sitting at a table with worksheets is likely to lead to frustrated misbehavior.[/quote]

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