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Kindergarten Readiness?


LMV
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Our foster daughter has been with us for about five months now and turned five at the end of May. Until very recently she was miserable and withdrawn. We had real concerns that functioning in any kind of school setting would not be possible for her and had tentatively planned to homeschool kindergarten for that reason.

 

We are fortunate that we live within walking distance of an amazing neighborhood elementary school. Her older sister attended there part time in a special gifted program which she will be returning to this next fall.  They also  have a really neat part day kindergarten program that we had been anticipating sending our younger daughters (who are currently three and nine months so neither will be going next fall) to for kindergarten and then assessing where to go from there. When we made tentative plans to homeschool kindergarten we had hoped that perhaps things would be much better by summer 2014 and that it might be possible to send her to this school for kindergarten in the 2014-2015 school year. This would be legal (although atypical) by our state education laws.

 

We have been blessed in that she has made significant improvements over the past month.   She had been admitted with bacteremia at the end of June and coincidentally when the fever broke she was a different child. It was obvious she was feeling better which was great. She also started talking which is something she really had not done before [she would answer questions and respond if we initiated conversation usually in the past but she never spoke to us completely of her own accord]. We were cautiously optimistic when we brought her home with a PICC line to complete another week of antibiotics at home but all of the positive changes persisted.  She was even upset that she couldn't go in the pool the first week home because of her PICC line. She handled that though and fell in love with the cool outdoor playset we have.

 

 

In the past I really had no idea where she was developmentally because the depression was so overpowering.  Our pediatrician had been going to refer for educational testing but wanted to hold off until we might get accurate results. She actually did the referral at her hospital follow up appointment but the child psychologist she trusts for testing doesn't have any openings before October.  Now I'm leaning towards trying to send her to kindergarten this year.  I'm waiting to hear from the school whether there is still room in the part day program. [i think if they don't have part day openings we may need to wait a year because I want her to have extra time at home with us to bond and attach and I think she is now at a point where she actually could benefit from therapy and we need to make that a priority.]

 

I don't have a great sense of what represents current kindergarten readiness.  Both of our oldest two were reading and writing and had some basic math skills before they started kindergarten at four. Our second daughter passed away before she was old enough for formal school and our other children either joined our family during their elementary school years or are younger than this child.  We didn't do anything specific to work with our daughter to get her to that point and I don't think my husband and his first wife did anything specific with her brother.  We read to them a lot and let them read to us and we were active parents.  Most of their early math skills emerged out of learning to cook but they were learning to cook [with much supervision] because they had parents who enjoyed cooking and considered that part of the communal family time.  

 

Our foster daughter is able to count, write her name, and actually has a pretty good working vocabulary. We take no credit for any of this because this is all stuff that just kind of came out of nowhere when she started interacting with us.  I don't really believe it came out of nowhere. I think it is all stuff that she learned before and is now in a position to be able to express and use again.  She seems to be on the cusp of actually reading and we have been reading a lot more with her.  We would read to her before bed but I never was really sure if she was even listening. We were more reading to her because it felt right and it was what we did with our other children.  Now she actually wants us to read to her and wants to read herself and it is much different.  My overall sense is that she is ready for kindergarten and that even if she is a little behind she will catch up.  I am a little concerned about the latter because she seems to be a kid who doesn't always handle stress well [plus kindergarten really shouldn't be stressful].  So I guess I'd like some other perspective on what is really kindergarten readiness in the year 2013.  

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Honestly (and I'm not a homeschooler who thinks homeschooling is right for everyone, fwiw), I would keep her home this year. She's only JUST acclimating to you guys - do you think she's ready to interact with 20+ other children AND other adults?

 

If you do decide to send her (and you do know her best - this may be best for her; only you would know that), some of the following are pretty essential for kindergarten success - and have nothing really to do with academics:

 

Shares well

Is able to vocalize needs (to use the restroom, doesn't feel well, is being picked on and by whom, etc)

Can use the restroom and wipe herself.

Can pull pants up on her own

Can zip or button herself (pants and jacket)

Can sit still long enough to complete work

Listens well to other adults

General social skills

 

Really, there aren't any academic REQUIREMENTS for kindergarten that I'm aware of; public schools are required (I *think*) to accept all children of school age. Some things she may want to know before entering (but I've known children who did NOT know the following and did quite well and caught up quickly!): shapes, colors, writes name, knows full name, address, and phone number (can recite them, I mean, not necessarily able to write them), knows the alphabet song and some letter/number recognition, can count to at least 10.

 

My niece entered kindergarten knowing none of those things, though, and had caught up within weeks of beginning.

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Honestly (and I'm not a homeschooler who thinks homeschooling is right for everyone, fwiw), I would keep her home this year. She's only JUST acclimating to you guys - do you think she's ready to interact with 20+ other children AND other adults? 

 

We're a little torn about this. She has come so far in the past month and we're really enjoying getting to know her.  A part of me would enjoy having another year to just  enjoy her at home.  The kindergarten program we would like her in is only part days (2.5 hours three days per week) so she wouldn't be missing much time at home.  

 

 

 

If you do decide to send her (and you do know her best - this may be best for her; only you would know that), some of the following are pretty essential for kindergarten success - and have nothing really to do with academics:

Shares well

Is able to vocalize needs (to use the restroom, doesn't feel well, is being picked on and by whom, etc)

Can use the restroom and wipe herself.

Can pull pants up on her own

Can zip or button herself (pants and jacket)

Can sit still long enough to complete work

Listens well to other adults

General social skills

 

She can do all of the above now.  Actually my impression is that she could do most if not all of this last summer. She had a major setback  after everything which happened last fall but now seems to be recovering,

 

 

 
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