s/o of "red-shirting"

[whitestavern]

nm

Edited September 8, 2012 by whitestavern

[Pamela H in Texas]

fraidy, I really think it is best to use the cut-off date for your area then subtract five off their age to get their grade level. If your cut-off date is Sept 1st and your daughter was 10 that day, then she would be in 5th grade this year.

 

My daughter (now almost 20) was a mess grade level wise and I just wish I hadn't messed with it until she was middle school aged (7th/8th grade). With a fall birthday and being significantly advanced (not just a year or two) AND moving to a state (temporarily) with a later cut-off, I just mutilated the grade level reasoning every which way (in my defense, that other state made it easy as they test into the early grades rather than using age-based grades so she would have started Kindy two years earlier than she would in our home state then the plan was to skip 1st also).

 

It just would have been easier to stick with age-based grades. I knew of a second grader doing high school work in public school. It was in his IEP. They had a tutor from the college come work with him! My 2nd grader was "playing with" Algebra, not doing Trig and EA. I'm sure calling my 7yo a 2nd grader would have been just fine. Now :)

Edited September 8, 2012 by 2J5M9K

[Rebecca VA]

My child was kept back a year, but it wasn't because I red-shirted her. She had jaw surgery and got Lyme Disease two years ago, and it kind of blew the year for us. The following year I put her into private school, and I had her repeat her eighth grade year.

 

This has worked out well, because she was a little slow-to-develop socially anyway, and she needed some extra time to catch up to her peers.

[Carrie12345]

8/8/98 - 9th

5/30/02- 5th

7/1/03- 4th

5/1/07- K

 

I have a 12/18/10, who may pose a challenge in the future.

[MissKNG]

DD6 would be a first grader in ps. Our cutoff is December 1st. She would graduate at age 18 since her birthday is in May and graduation is in June.

 

I went to Kindergarten a couple months shy of 5 and graduated when I was 17.

 

DD3 will be 4 in November and would also start K prior to turning 5 if she goes to ps. And would graduate at 17 since graduation is in June.

 

I was in the second youngest kid in my class. School went fine for me academically and socially. I wasn't troubled because I started school young. The only "issue" was when I went to college and was the absolute last of my friends to turn 21!:tongue_smilie:

[Pamela H in Texas]

Not only are they reading in kindergarten, they are expected to be writing complete paragraphs by the end of the year.

 

But though the kindy expectations are more advanced, the 3rd grade ones are not.

Making a decision that changes all of their schooling because Kindy and possibly 1st are more advanced may not be the best choice long term.

 

However, I do agree that it may depend on your area. Here, it was suggested (by PS) that my April bday'd son should have been held back as a "late" bday.

[TravelingChris]

My son has an April birthday and graduated at 16. My daughter has a mid Aug birthday and graduated at 17. She turned 18 a few days before college. My last daughter has a mid Dec birthday and will graduate at 18. They were all equally intelligent but only my oldest didn't have any learning disabilities. Those slowed down the girls and particularly with my youngest, she has every reason to pack as many science and math classes in to make college easier since she wants to either do engineering or physics which will turn into engineering in grad school.

[Princess Peach]

IMHO--very strong HO--the grade that hsers label their children for outsiders should be the one according to the child's date of birth and the cut-off in their state; IOW, the year the child is 6yo by the cut-off date would be his first-grade year, not his kindergarten year (some people hold their dc back a year by doing it that way).

 

This works great in a state like Texas that has few regulations and no requirement of standardized testing or record-keeping. It becomes more problematic, however, in a state that requires grade levels to be assigned (or birthdates in which the district assigns grade levels based on their cut-offs) and progress to be shown from year to year through a standardized test or other method.

[wapiti]

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Edited January 12, 2016 by wapiti

[Mandy in TN]

But though the kindy expectations are more advanced, the 3rd grade ones are not.

Making a decision that changes all of their schooling because Kindy and possibly 1st are more advanced may not be the best choice long term.

 

However, I do agree that it may depend on your area. Here, it was suggested (by PS) that my April bday'd son should have been held back as a "late" bday.

:iagree:Boy, do I agree with this. How is it possible that the k'ers are expected to do so much more, but in reading most of the 3rd grade classrooms are not significantly ahead of where my oldest two were expected to be. They are ahead particularly in composition, but not in reading or math.

 

OTOH, they are failing these young, wiggly boys who are have summer birthdays and not ready to write stories in sentences at the end of K. I am tutoring four of them at Kumon. One is excited that he is so smart this second time around. Another is fine. His parents took the we made the mistake of sending you too soon route and he didn't seem to bat an eye. He is just rolling with it. Another is sad and a little withdrawn. He had a teacher that just stayed on him all year about how behind he was. His parents seem to communicate well with him, so, away from this teacher, I hope he finds self-confidence. The fourth is confused and angry and doesn't understand why he is in kindergarten again. He feels stupid and his whole little personality is different than last spring. He can verbalize this, so I hope his family helps him move on. I am concerned that for these last two boys that entering kindergarten young and failing will be a defining moment in their attitudes toward school and their personalities.

 

In this area where offical cut-offs range from August 1 to September 30, if I had a friend who had a summer birthday son, I would strongly suggest that she hold him to give him another year of childhood without developmentally inappropriate restraints.

 

Sure, it may mean that he has an edge in sports if he chooses to play. More importantly, another year may also mean that he is more mature and able to take on leadership roles in junior high and high school. It may mean that he has another year to take more advanced classes in high school. He may score better on his college testing. Due to more maturity, he may perform better in college interviews. Because really for me this isn't about who they will be compared to in kindergarten or third grade, it is who they are going to be competing against for college spots and financial aid packages.

 

For the normal, average teenage boy going to college interviews in the summer before or the fall of his senior year of high school, the difference between turning 17yo about that time and turning 18yo about that time can translate into a huge difference in how they present themselves.

 

YMMV-

Mandy

[Tidbits of Learning]

If you wouldn't mind sharing what age (birth month & year) and "grade" you have your children at, I would really appreciate it, and how old will they be when they graduate based on a May/June graduation timeframe.

 

Especially in the 3-5th grade range, but all are welcome. I haven't done any in-depth research on birth dates and grade ranges, but I keep getting the impression on here and with at our homeschool group that a lot of the homeschooled kids that are around the same age as DD are actually "labeled" a grade level below her for whatever purposes. I say labeled, because we all know that actual learning level can be wildly disparate for each child.

 

I'm trying to decide where I should "place" DD for a few different reasons and am bouncing it around in my brain.

 

ETA: She is 10 - August 2002, and right now she is Grade 5, as far as "labeling" goes.

 

Summer 2000-Grade 7-graduating 17 yrs old

Summer 2001-Grade 6-graduating 17 yrs old

Winter 2002-Grade 4-graduating 18 yrs old

Winter 2006-Grade K-graduating 18 yrs old

 

School cut-off is September 30 here and school runs Aug-May. Sports are ran by birthday cut-offs so they always play sports with the same age levels. Church is the same way. It is separated by grade but they do look at birthdays when setting up classes. It is more based on actual age than grade level. So if your child is held back in school, they don't have to stay in the younger Sunday School class. Likewise, if your child is grades advanced, they are still put in with their age group peers in Sunday School and youth groups.

Red-shirting is really big here for whatever reason. So when kids were in ps most k'ers were 6 or 6 turning 7. My girls with the summer bdays were the youngest in their classes by years in some cases. There were kids 2 years older than them. My boys, who I thought would be the oldest in the class b/c they missed the birthday cutoff, were often a year to a year and a half younger than kids in their class. Homeschool co-ops seem to follow the same pattern. It isn't unusual for a 6 yr old to be just starting kindergarten at the parent's discretion and turn 7 during the school year or the summer before 1st. I think it is a region thing.

We try to place our children with age group peers in social settings and sports. We don't go by actual grade levels here b/c there are too many kids in grade 7 who are 14 not 12 or grade 6 who are 13 not 11...and so on.

10 and August 2002 would be grade 5 to me. So I think you have her placed well.

[OnTheBrink]

dd, 2/98, 10th, will be 17 at graduation in 2015.

 

ds 9/87, was 17 when he graduated in 2005.

 

Both would be considered a year ahead of themselves if we went with the ps birthday cut-off dates.

[sbgrace]

Feb 2004, Grade 3. Graduate at 18.