Why Kindy is the New First Grade

[umsami]

Re: NYC,  DS1 was in a PreK program in Brooklyn with an October bday.  He loved it and thrived.  When we got to Florida, they would not let him enroll in Kindy, because their cut-off was August 31st or September 1st.  We homeschooled for a year, and then he enrolled the next year in Kindy.  (They still wouldn't let him enroll in 1st.)  He had done reading at home and Right Start A, and basically the Kindy teacher used to have him read to the other kids.  Sometimes, she'd call me up and say, "Come and get X, because we're doing XYZ (usually a basic literacy activity) for the rest of the day, and he'll be bored."  She was the weirdest Kindy teacher.  She told me while she'd like to help DS1, she couldn't focus on him when she had kids who didn't know their colors or alphabet and she needed to prep them for 1st grade.  She always seemed so stressed.  She retired at the end of the year.  In retrospect, I should have pushed for them to just put him in the first grade class.

 

When we got to upstate NY, his first grade teacher rotated between teaching 1st and 3rd...so she just pulled out a lot of her 3rd grade materials for DS1.  The difference of a good teacher.

Edited January 12, 2016 by umsami

[Bluegoat]

Two thoughts:

 

It seems to me that by focusing on early reading, it would tend to make the class experience for the early readers worse too.  It takes a long time to teach kids who aren't ready to read, which is why other things that are ideal to do at that point in time, like music or second language or hearing stories - are dropped.  Well - those things are still dropped for the kids who know how to read already or learn quickly.  Possibly some might learn to read a year earlier, but they lose out on the other things.  Kids who can read going in are then getting nothing much at all, the whole thing is a waste of time.  And the ones who struggle, get all the disadvantages of that plus no music or stories.

 

It seems lose-lose to me.

 

 

As far as red-shirting meaning that kids are older so more advanced work is given in the earlier grade:  how does that make sense if the main point of red-shirting is that the child was kept back because he was not ready for the work that was there before?  I didn't register my son for K this year because he wasn't ready - I don't expect he'll thesefore be ready for grade 1 work next year when we do K.

 

 

 

[SKL]

I dunno, my kids' KG (full day) taught reading, and they still did science centers, geography, Spanish, French, instrumental music, 5 coached sports, recess, daily nap, etc.  Again, at least half of the kids were 4 when they entered KG (fall/winter birthdays).

 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I don't think the question is whether reading should be taught in KG, but rather how KG can be structured, and how teachers can be trained, to meet all the kids where they are.

 

Funny thing, there is a much broader range of differences in my kids' 4th grade classroom than there was in their KG classroom, and yet nobody seems to think all 4th graders should be limited to what the slower kids can do.

[HomeAgain]

I wonder if it is simply because the focus of Kindergarten has changed.  Years ago, it was the first introduction many had to school and large social settings.  The emphasis was on teaching the children how to take turns, school routines, care for themselves, and be away from parents for 3-4 hours each day.  Naturally many of the activities were designed to support that.  If they learned to read or write some or do a bit of math, it was as a secondary thought instead of a primary.

 

Now most children attend a pre-k, in some areas starting at age 2.  They have adapted to the school setting, have had plenty of social practice, and don't need all the instruction 5yos from 1975 would have.  So academics become the primary focus, and rather than worrying about if Suzie has the ability to listen to a story or take part in a game, the worry becomes pressure to get Suzy to memorize phonemes or sight words.

 

I don't think we can go back to 1975, but I do think that we've skipped a lot of the things Kindergarten used to provide that would still be useful and beneficial to students today.  I think we do need to go back to academics being secondary and not worth stressing over until 1st or later, but I think our expectations of Kindergarteners needs to be updated to reflect now, too.

[Bluegoat]

I dunno, my kids' KG (full day) taught reading, and they still did science centers, geography, Spanish, French, instrumental music, 5 coached sports, recess, daily nap, etc.  Again, at least half of the kids were 4 when they entered KG (fall/winter birthdays).

 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I don't think the question is whether reading should be taught in KG, but rather how KG can be structured, and how teachers can be trained, to meet all the kids where they are.

 

Funny thing, there is a much broader range of differences in my kids' 4th grade classroom than there was in their KG classroom, and yet nobody seems to think all 4th graders should be limited to what the slower kids can do.

 

But why do we want to reinvet the wheel?  The schools using the model we see in the English speaking countries, with kids starting at 4 or 5, don't have very good results.  The kids are more likely to have reading problems, be diagnosed with ADD, and so on. Our high school kids are graduating with rather poor educations. 

 

In countries where kids start later, at 6 or seven, the do better in the short and long term.

 

To me it's an evidence based problem, and the evidence isn't that confusing.  Starting academics at 4 or 5 doesn't seem any more indicated by the evidence to me than starting at 2 or 3 is.

[SKL]

But why do we want to reinvet the wheel?  The schools using the model we see in the English speaking countries, with kids starting at 4 or 5, don't have very good results.  The kids are more likely to have reading problems, be diagnosed with ADD, and so on. Our high school kids are graduating with rather poor educations. 

 

In countries where kids start later, at 6 or seven, the do better in the short and long term.

 

To me it's an evidence based problem, and the evidence isn't that confusing.  Starting academics at 4 or 5 doesn't seem any more indicated by the evidence to me than starting at 2 or 3 is.

 

Who's trying to reinvent the wheel?  Like I said earlier, there is nothing new about teaching reading in KG.  No, my grandmother who was born in 1910 IIRC had to read in KG.  (She actually flunked the first semester of KG because she wasn't up on English phonics just months after arriving from Hungary.)

 

US schools have been reading and not reading and reading and not reading in KG across the country since KG was introduced.

 

There are many countries that don't wait until age 7 to start reading instruction, and they are not cranking out idiots.  India for one.

 

In my personal experience, the vast majority of kids can read story books by their 7th birthdays.  Yes, there are exceptions, but should we design public school primarily for the exceptions?

 

Just because some countries do it differently doesn't mean we are doing it wrong, and it doesn't mean they are doing it wrong.  It's just different.  In our culture, kids go to school expecting to learn to read by about age 6.  This has been the case since long before I was born.  I see no reason to change it.

[luuknam]

There were three kids who were repeating K in my DD's K class, and four retained from her class, all because they hadn't hit the required reading level. One of the repeaters actually was reading on about a 3rd grade level by mid-year her 2nd way through, so I think she would have been just fine in 1st!

 

One of the things about having the kids read up to level D (the level the person you replied to mentioned), is how they assess what level kids are reading at. Our school had the same guideline (Fountas & Pinnell, if anyone wants to google), and they had assessments where kids had to read the text out loud and then answer questions about the text. My oldest was held at a low level of reading for a long time because even though he was reading the text fluently, he had trouble with inferencing etc. He's got high-functioning autism, so yeah... and to be honest, the questions about the low-level texts were really stupid, imo. The text might be e.g.

 

I eat an apple.

I eat a banana.

I eat cereal.

I eat cherries.

 

One sentence a page, with a picture (because in these easy readers, the kids are supposed to figure the hard words like "cherries" out from the picture). So, the question might be "what do you think the next page might be?". Obviously, kids are supposed to guess "I eat" and then just fill in a random food. But my kid just didn't figure that out, because well, the next page could be any random food and it's stupid to make a random guess at what food. So, he was stuck at level C or D for a long time in K-1st grade, while he was reading level J or higher at home (and incidentally, the questions for level J make a lot more sense in that they're a little less random). So, I can easily see a kid going from not meeting the level D end-of-K standard to going to 3rd grade level (level M or higher - level M is the Magic Tree House series) in a few months, just because their assessments are so dumb.

 

I had many friends with August birthdays that started K at 6 or almost 6 even though the cut-off was October 15th. I didn't know anyone who started K at 4.

 

My oldest has an August birthday and started pre-K at 3 years 3 days (did that for two years because he was in mixed reg ed/spec ed), and then started K just after turning 5. My youngest would've started K at 4 (November birthday, Dec 1st cutoff) except like dmmetler said, he'd be bored out of his mind going to K in order to do beginning phonics worksheets and counting and addition/subtraction under 10 (he might have been happy with a more play-based K). They will not grade skip kids in this district before 3rd grade, so nope, not sending him. At home I can give him 1st/2nd grade level academics AND let him play more than in public school K.

[Bluegoat]

A lot of kids here start K at four now - they have to be 5 by December 31.

 

Some other provinces also have pre-K, so kids going there can be 3. 

 

While pre-K is a bit more like pre-school, it's been pointed out by pre-school teachers that the public school pre-K teachers have different rules for number of kids per teacher, and they are often elementary school teachers and don't have an ECE qualification.

[wathe]

 

 

Some other provinces also have pre-K, so kids going there can be 3. 

 

While pre-K is a bit more like pre-school, it's been pointed out by pre-school teachers that the public school pre-K teachers have different rules for number of kids per teacher, and they are often elementary school teachers and don't have an ECE qualification.

 

Here Pre-K (K4) and K5 are the same:

My province has full-day, 5 day per week JK and SK (K4 and K5).  Cut off December 31.  So one third of kids are 3 when they start kindy.  The province aims for no more than 28 kids per classes, but classes maybe (and often are) larger.  Classes are generally JK/SK splits (because, really, a class of 28 three and four year olds would be chaos!).     Each class has one teacher and one ECE.  The program touts itself as play-based, but reading is pushed, and there is an expectation that kids will be reading by first grade. 

 

This full-time public kinder program was implemented in my school board the year my eldest should have entered JK.   It is the reason we chose to homeschool.  It's a very long, very busy, very noisy day.  My introverted eldest would have crashed and burned.

 

Interestingly, mandated daycare ratios for the same age group (30 months to 5 years) are 8:1.

[hepatica]

The bolded is something I've wondered about. When kids are taught to read early, does it impact their oral and auditory abilities? I always find it amazing how kids who don't yet read manage to memorize and learn in other ways. The youngest kids in our church choir, for example, are often non-readers, and yet they memorize significant music, including in Latin, German, and French, and they really do it very quickly, in a way most adults can't.

 

I wonder if cutting that off early makes a difference later?

I don't know about memory, but Stanislas Dehaene's research on facial recognition and illiteracy suggests there are indeed trade off to learning to read. The facial recognition skills of illiterates far exceed those of readers, and those skills diminish as illiterate people learn to read. So the brain borrows circuits from one area to do something else. Fascinating stuff!

[frogger]

What often happens with red-shirting is that the child needs the extra time, and then because he IS ready, he zooms ahead. So, he fits in well in September, and then by December, he's bored to tears. And often starts becoming a pest and a clown. He's usually bigger than the other kids and runs over the younger kids. Seen it happen way too often. Yeah, that's an anecdote, but multiple ones from teaching that age for years.

This is a difficult thing even for homeschoolers who start later. I have a hard time finding appropriate curriculum. My older children simply started in grade level books and skipped the first few years. But I have one child who needs taught more things so we started at a really low level and I do multiple lessons in one day. We went through RightStart C in 5 months. He is about at grade level now and I don't really see him slowing up soon but when curriculum is made to teach younger children it simply works too slow without serious modification. In my mind a teacher who can teach to a wide variety of 20+ students is amazing, as in wizard like.

 

 

 

That teacher who can push kids to their own potential deserve recognition but that is not how they are judged but rather on pretty narrow definitions for instance, "Did this teacher get my kid reading?". I think the general public and even sometimes the parents cause more of these problems than the teachers.

[FO4UR]

When we are talking about public schools, we are NOT talking about teaching individual students. We are talking about an efficient method for teaching the masses of students.  There is a difference.

 

Taking a year (kindergarten) to ensure that all students have all of those sub-skills for reading readiness in place before starting truly learning to read in 1st grade just makes sense. I don't believe that *most* kids are ready to learn to read at age 5.  I don't believe that it is best for the children to require reading lessons at age 5 (offer, perhaps).

 

You can teach a 7yo to read in a few months. (I've done just that.)  You cannot take a 7yo back to the sandbox with the eyes of a 5yo.  There are developmental windows that you miss forever when you neglect the sandbox, the playground, the read aloud hour, and YES, imaginative play.  Imaginative play is a core need for a 5yo.  Shoot, the 5yo who watches the sand descend in through the gears for hours has a leg up in future physics classes...the poor kid who was in a desk memorizing words may be able to spell g-r-a-v-i-t-y, but does he know what it really means?

 

My 3rd child has more organic markers for dyslexia than my oldest (who is severely dyslexic), but he has not struggled like his older brother.  Anecdotal, maybe, but I'm convinced it is b/c by the time he turned 5yo I knew better.  I knew to keep him in the sandbox.  I knew to build his store of memorized poems and stories he can retell.  I knew to take a whole year on finger-tracing sandpaper letters and saying the letter sounds BEFORE tossing the task of decoding at him.  I knew to wait, but wait intentionally and use that waiting time to build up those sub-skills.  He was 7yo when he asked for reading lessons so he could read all by himself.  It took less than 6mo to "catch him up" to his ps peers.  He's 9yo now, and his latest reading assessment shows his reading skills are several grade levels ahead. 

 

Some say that about 20% of the population has some sort of dyslexia. That is huge.  That is reason enough to use K for skill building before tasking 1st graders with reading.  (And begs the question, "How much of that 20% has true dyslexia and how many people were just pushed to read before they were ready?")

[busymama7]

When we are talking about public schools, we are NOT talking about teaching individual students. We are talking about an efficient method for teaching the masses of students. There is a difference.

 

Taking a year (kindergarten) to ensure that all students have all of those sub-skills for reading readiness in place before starting truly learning to read in 1st grade just makes sense. I don't believe that *most* kids are ready to learn to read at age 5. I don't believe that it is best for the children to require reading lessons at age 5 (offer, perhaps).

 

You can teach a 7yo to read in a few months. (I've done just that.) You cannot take a 7yo back to the sandbox with the eyes of a 5yo. There are developmental windows that you miss forever when you neglect the sandbox, the playground, the read aloud hour, and YES, imaginative play. Imaginative play is a core need for a 5yo. Shoot, the 5yo who watches the sand descend in through the gears for hours has a leg up in future physics classes...the poor kid who was in a desk memorizing words may be able to spell g-r-a-v-i-t-y, but does he know what it really means?

 

My 3rd child has more organic markers for dyslexia than my oldest (who is severely dyslexic), but he has not struggled like his older brother. Anecdotal, maybe, but I'm convinced it is b/c by the time he turned 5yo I knew better. I knew to keep him in the sandbox. I knew to build his store of memorized poems and stories he can retell. I knew to take a whole year on finger-tracing sandpaper letters and saying the letter sounds BEFORE tossing the task of decoding at him. I knew to wait, but wait intentionally and use that waiting time to build up those sub-skills. He was 7yo when he asked for reading lessons so he could read all by himself. It took less than 6mo to "catch him up" to his ps peers. He's 9yo now, and his latest reading assessment shows his reading skills are several grade levels ahead.

 

Some say that about 20% of the population has some sort of dyslexia. That is huge. That is reason enough to use K for skill building before tasking 1st graders with reading. (And begs the question, "How much of that 20% has true dyslexia and how many people were just pushed to read before they were ready?")

I just wanted to quote this as it was so fantastic. And confirming to me as I have several kids with dyslexia to some degree. My 7 year old, who thought would have it the worst do to very severe speech delays and lack phonemic awareness for many years, I waited until this year for serious formal lessons and he is not showing the signs I was expecting from his oldest brother. He is definitely doing quite a bit better than I expected and I think what you outlined here is why.

[heartlikealion]

Learn to Read has changed.  It used to be that while some kids certainly could read in Kindy, it wasn't the focus.  They would learn the alphabet, and I want to say counting was up to 20, not 100.   When DS2 was in Kindy, it was the "goal" that every child read at a level D by the end of Kindy.  Even if kids hit level D, the school may strongly recommend that they attend "reading camp" during the summer.

 

Basically, everything has gone down a level...so Pre-K is now alphabet and counting to 20, etc.

 

Thing is, when DD was in first grade, she read well....but there were definitely a good portion of her class who was just learning.  What bothers me is that they were made to feel behind even though they were at a developmentally appropriate age.    Kind of like how some kids are dx with ADHD (or informally diagnosed by a teacher) when they are just behaving like a normal 5 or 6 year old, rather than a 7 or 8 year old.  

 

When my family moved to CA from out of state, I missed the cut off date. They gave my parents an option to do K or first. My parents asked for first. The school decided I needed to be in the K-1 class instead of the all first grade class. So basically my teacher was the teacher aid and the main teacher spent most of her time with the Kers. Anyway, they acted like I was so behind because I didn't read yet. My parents didn't know I was supposed to already and would have helped me over the summer if they'd realized. I definitely felt behind and probably stupid/embarrassed.

[Kalmia]

I don't know about memory, but Stanislas Dehaene's research on facial recognition and illiteracy suggests there are indeed trade off to learning to read. The facial recognition skills of illiterates far exceed those of readers, and those skills diminish as illiterate people learn to read. So the brain borrows circuits from one area to do something else. Fascinating stuff!

 

This book has been on my wish list for a while. I think this little tidbit pushed the buy button for me.

[kiwik]

I dunno, I really hated the "playing" that we did in KG. I liked the reading and math a lot better. And I turned 5 in October of my KG year, so I can only imagine how much less I would have liked "play-based KG" as an older 5 or 6yo.

I objected to spending more time at school than necessary. I would rather play at home than school. I woud have liked to do the academic bits quickly and efficiently then go home.

 

We start school on our fifth birthday. Kids are niw expected to be at level 12 (matches the PM levels) by the sixth birthday. It was much the sane in 1974 when i started school. The main difference i can see is the teacher's weren't stretched thin trying to teach all sorts of stuff that parents should do. Therefore there was more time for art, music and play.

[ElizabethB]

Some say that about 20% of the population has some sort of dyslexia. That is huge. That is reason enough to use K for skill building before tasking 1st graders with reading. (And begs the question, "How much of that 20% has true dyslexia and how many people were just pushed to read before they were ready?")

I have a quote somewhere about a school in Florida that reduced their numbers of struggling readers eighfold by switching to a sound OG based phonics method,

 

So, perhaps a bigger question is what percentage of that is due to poor methods. I have not yet had a remedial studnt who used Phonics Patheays, and I have known maybe 50 homeschooling families who used it. I see a clear correlation in percentage of remedial students with poorer methods...30 percent from schools with balanced literacy, slightly less but almost as high from HOP, next most from a scattering of methods that use sight words and/or structure the readings to promote guessing, and some from poorly taught WRTR where the use of high frequency words leads to guessing problems.

[Sara in AZ]

My parents love telling the story about how they taught me to read (using Hooked on Phonics) before I entered kindergarten in 1983. And at parent teacher conference at Christmas time of that year, my dad asked the teacher if she'd listened to me read. Her reply, "Kindergarteners don't read." He told her she should listen to me read, which she did. And then I was moved up to first grade after Christmas. I guess that's where the readers were! And it worked out quite well for me for the most part. I was the oldest of five and my parents were young and energetic. They definitely didn't teach us all to read before K!

 

My youngest DD, just turned 5, goes to a home based preschool, which she loves. Just recently it was announced that they were going to begin learning to read and start splitting into reading groups every Friday. Ugh!!! If she didn't love it so much and show a lot of signs for being ready to start (I was thinking of starting her anyway) I would have pulled her out. We do not need lists of sight words and crappy worksheets, thanks but no thanks. But I guess most of the kids will be moving onto public school where it will be expected that they already know this stuff.

[ElizabethB]

My parents love telling the story about how they taught me to read (using Hooked on Phonics) before I entered kindergarten in 1983. And at parent teacher conference at Christmas time of that year, my dad asked the teacher if she'd listened to me read. Her reply, "Kindergarteners don't read." He told her she should listen to me read, which she did. And then I was moved up to first grade after Christmas. I guess that's where the readers were! And it worked out quite well for me for the most part. I was the oldest of five and my parents were young and energetic. They definitely didn't teach us all to read before K!

 

My youngest DD, just turned 5, goes to a home based preschool, which she loves. Just recently it was announced that they were going to begin learning to read and start splitting into reading groups every Friday. Ugh!!! If she didn't love it so much and show a lot of signs for being ready to start (I was thinking of starting her anyway) I would have pulled her out. We do not need lists of sight words and crappy worksheets, thanks but no thanks. But I guess most of the kids will be moving onto public school where it will be expected that they already know this stuff.

If they do start with sight words, here is how to teach them phonetically:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/sightwords.html

 

I have taught so many students with guessing problems with sight words, I would make sure I was working on any they are working on phonetically.

[Mom2Five]

My kids went to private school at that age so maybe this isn't a fair comparison but at the open house the kindergarten teacher confidently told us they would be reading by Thanksgiving. And they were. More than just hesitantly sounding out short vowel words. They were reading pretty fluently by the end of the year. (Bot my kids went through the same class with the same teacher, 2 years apart.) But, you know, small class sizes, awesome teachers, kids with no serious problems. But it was an expectation and all the kids met it.

I am curious what curriculum was used, if I may ask and if you remember :)

[ReadingMama1214]

Two thoughts:

 

It seems to me that by focusing on early reading, it would tend to make the class experience for the early readers worse too. It takes a long time to teach kids who aren't ready to read, which is why other things that are ideal to do at that point in time, like music or second language or hearing stories - are dropped. Well - those things are still dropped for the kids who know how to read already or learn quickly. Possibly some might learn to read a year earlier, but they lose out on the other things. Kids who can read going in are then getting nothing much at all, the whole thing is a waste of time. And the ones who struggle, get all the disadvantages of that plus no music or stories.

 

It seems lose-lose to me.

 

 

As far as red-shirting meaning that kids are older so more advanced work is given in the earlier grade: how does that make sense if the main point of red-shirting is that the child was kept back because he was not ready for the work that was there before? I didn't register my son for K this year because he wasn't ready - I don't expect he'll thesefore be ready for grade 1 work next year when we do K.

What baffles me about red shirting is an experience I had recentl. My dd attends preschool and her teacher is my friend. the teachers son is 4.6 and due to start K next year. She told me she planned to red shirt. She didn't think he was emotionally ready for it and she didn't like the idea of homework for K. Her options: redshir or do advanced K. Our advanced K is Kers already academically ahead of their peers. So she has a kid who's advanced academically, tested into the advanced K, and is considering red shirting him! To me this is inane. He would then be placed in K with kids younger than him and academically behind. I was baffled how one person could be so diverse. Redshirt or advanced K.....

[HomeAgain]

What baffles me about red shirting is an experience I had recentl. My dd attends preschool and her teacher is my friend. the teachers son is 4.6 and due to start K next year. She told me she planned to red shirt. She didn't think he was emotionally ready for it and she didn't like the idea of homework for K. Her options: redshir or do advanced K. Our advanced K is Kers already academically ahead of their peers. So she has a kid who's advanced academically, tested into the advanced K, and is considering red shirting him! To me this is inane. He would then be placed in K with kids younger than him and academically behind. I was baffled how one person could be so diverse. Redshirt or advanced K.....

 

I think it's a lot harder on the immature ones come middle school.  It shows up hard then, when 6th graders aren't able to handle the workload and social pressure.  I'd much rather redshirt a kid who is slightly immature than deal with it in 6th.  Not to mention that the younger kids are the ones more likely to be labeled ADHD and pushed to get meds, so if he's the oldest in the class he has the appearance of being able to handle the "grade level" work better.

 

Academics have a way of evening out by 2nd or 3rd grade.  The quick to read aren't always gifted in other ways and their peers catch up.  It's much harder to feel socially not up to the game throughout 13 years of school.

[mom2scouts]

Our K cutoff date has been moved to August 1st! No child under the age of 5 is ever allowed to start K in our district. I can't even imagine a 4 or young 5 year old trying to keep up with the K expectations in our area unless the child is very highly gifted and even then they may not be emotionally ready.

[snowbeltmom]

Not sure where you're from, but this isn't true for US/Canada. Entry age for Kindergarten was 5 when I went through (and it wasn't mandatory, and was only a half day program). It was 5 for my parent's generation. And it didn't exist at all for my grandmother's generation (at least here). Historically, the starting age of school has gotten lower, not higher.

I am in the US. Can you tell me where the age to enter K is getting lower in the US? Many public districts in my state have pushed up the cut-off age from September 30th to August 1st, and I have some friends who are teachers who say that there is talk of moving the cut-off to June 1st.. I have not heard of any states moving the cut-off in the opposite direction. Edited January 27, 2016 by snowbeltmom

[poppy]

Our cutoff used to be October 1st, then moved to September 1st. There is a HUGE push to lower it to July 1st. The school pushes hard to force redshirting onto June and July babies, into all day ps preschool. It meant they got to hire 3 more teachers and several more aides. And they they get to keep the kid until 19. Win, win for the ps! The kids are bigger and faster for sports on top of it.  

 

This is so cynical.  Do you really think the school administration is completely callow?

[shawthorne44]

This is so cynical.  Do you really think the school administration is completely callow?

 

I'm not Margaret, but I do.  

 

At the school where I taught the school didn't give a flip if the kids weren't in school as long as they were there for the class that got the school money.   Kids who graduated early were punished by being completed excluded from the class ranking.  Reason was that they were the kids that bring up the school's scores and therefore they want the kids to stay.  

 

In the school district I just moved away from, they built giant high schools, i.e. a city in the top 50 biggest with ONE school for Juniors and Seniors.   The stated reason was then sports teams could crush everyone else.  

 

So, yeah, school admins encouraging red-shirting is totally believable.  An older kid will score better and do better in sports.  

[FaithManor]

This is so cynical.  Do you really think the school administration is completely callow?

Uhm, yes. Mine is. I attend the school board meetings here, and you should here them talk! It sounds just like this when they make their decisions, and they get a lot of support because it makes the boys bigger for varsity football, the girls taller for middle school basketball. No joke. Football, to this backward, rural, not academically minded county is the end all and be all of male, school existence, and the fathers live vicariously through their sons. Pathetic!

 

But yes, this is how they think. They cut AP's, they cut music, they cut art, they cut DE, they cut and cut and cut in academics at the upper end, and keep increasing pre-school, red-shirting, you name it along with annual increases to the sports' budgets as well as adding coaches. They cut their most talented math teacher this year because they eliminated two hours of pre-calculus, and the hour of AP Calc, but gained a JV coach. Three districts share one music teacher, and she makes herself insane traveling between them. Welcome to my world. I suspect that Margaret lives in a similar one.

 

Some of us live in some pretty crappy school districts with idiots running the show!

[Dmmetler]

It's gotten lower here only in that preschool at PS has been expanded, so now kids who qualify for title I or any sort of special needs can start preschool a year (and sometimes two) before starting K. The actual age for entering 1st grade in my local district has gone up, so that now most kids entering 1st are solidly 6 and will be turning 7 during 1st-and often pretty early in the year. My DD just turned 11, and there's another girl close in age on her cheer team who is in 4th grade-and is an honor student in the gifted program.

[luuknam]

I am in the US. Can you tell me where the age to enter K is getting lower in the US? Many public districts in my state have pushed up the cut-off age from September 30th to August 1st, and I have some friends who are teachers who say that there is talk of moving the cut-off to June 1st.. I have not heard of any states moving the cut-off in the opposite direction.

 

I've heard of NYC trying to reduce redshirting by making it harder to redshirt kids, but they haven't moved the cut-off date either way. Other than that, I haven't heard of anything that would make K students younger, nor any other areas trying to reduce redshirting.

 

My DD just turned 11, and there's another girl close in age on her cheer team who is in 4th grade-and is an honor student in the gifted program.

 

They really should have a rule that you can't be in the gifted program if you're redshirted - that you'd have to skip a grade to be in your proper grade instead (at which point, if you'd still qualify as 'gifted' you'd be allowed in the gifted program). Not that the gifted program here is worth being in - a couple of hours a week of pull-outs starting in 3rd grade, as if a couple of hours a week makes a difference (BTDT, did not make a difference).

[Bluegoat]

I've heard of NYC trying to reduce redshirting by making it harder to redshirt kids, but they haven't moved the cut-off date either way. Other than that, I haven't heard of anything that would make K students younger, nor any other areas trying to reduce redshirting.

 

 

They really should have a rule that you can't be in the gifted program if you're redshirted - that you'd have to skip a grade to be in your proper grade instead (at which point, if you'd still qualify as 'gifted' you'd be allowed in the gifted program). Not that the gifted program here is worth being in - a couple of hours a week of pull-outs starting in 3rd grade, as if a couple of hours a week makes a difference (BTDT, did not make a difference).

 

Gifted programs here aren't really about being ahead in your school work.  There are plenty of gifted underachievers.

[ktgrok]

I've heard of NYC trying to reduce redshirting by making it harder to redshirt kids, but they haven't moved the cut-off date either way. Other than that, I haven't heard of anything that would make K students younger, nor any other areas trying to reduce redshirting.

 

 

They really should have a rule that you can't be in the gifted program if you're redshirted - that you'd have to skip a grade to be in your proper grade instead (at which point, if you'd still qualify as 'gifted' you'd be allowed in the gifted program). Not that the gifted program here is worth being in - a couple of hours a week of pull-outs starting in 3rd grade, as if a couple of hours a week makes a difference (BTDT, did not make a difference).

 

Totally disagree. We redshirted my son (july birthday, september cut off) because he had separation issues and was NOT ready to read. Developmentally he started kindergarten at the right time, and fit in perfectly with his peers. But he was also gifted and in 2nd grade he moved into a full time gifted program. Harder work in a 3rd grade program wouldn't have been the same, and he NEEDED that gifted program. It was his only good year of public school. 

[luuknam]

Gifted programs here aren't really about being ahead in your school work.  There are plenty of gifted underachievers.

 

But an 11yo in 4th grade wouldn't be "ahead in her school work" to be doing 5th grade level work. Heck, here an 11yo would likely be in 6th grade. I know there are gifted underachievers. But the way gifted programs are usually set up, they take the top 10% or so in a grade, an if you're 1.5-2 years older than the other kids in your grade, you've got some serious issues if you're not in the top 10% or so, and you'd be taking the space of a younger kid who would be in the top 10% if it weren't for redshirted kids.

 

Totally disagree. We redshirted my son (july birthday, september cut off) because he had separation issues and was NOT ready to read. Developmentally he started kindergarten at the right time, and fit in perfectly with his peers. But he was also gifted and in 2nd grade he moved into a full time gifted program. Harder work in a 3rd grade program wouldn't have been the same, and he NEEDED that gifted program. It was his only good year of public school. 

 

I don't understand. How did the gifted program benefit him in ways skipping into 3rd grade wouldn't have? Isn't the gifted program about harder work?

[wapiti]

Gifted programs here aren't really about being ahead in your school work.  There are plenty of gifted underachievers.

 

While I agree completely about gifted underachievers, public school gifted programs in my area do require demonstration of above-level achievement in order to gain admission.  (As part of the "body of evidence." Sorry, that phrase of edu-speak makes me gag.)  It presents a chicken vs egg issue that has been driving me crazy for years.

Edited January 28, 2016 by wapiti

[Dmmetler]

In my district, GT is based on being in high %'s on grade level testing and good behavior and is more a way to get the kids who are going to do well on the state test regardless out of the room. I've known kids who had private IQ testing showing definite GT levels who didn't qualify for the school program because their classroom performance was too low, especially 2e kids.

[poppy]

I'm not Margaret, but I do.

 

At the school where I taught the school didn't give a flip if the kids weren't in school as long as they were there for the class that got the school money. Kids who graduated early were punished by being completed excluded from the class ranking. Reason was that they were the kids that bring up the school's scores and therefore they want the kids to stay.

 

In the school district I just moved away from, they built giant high schools, i.e. a city in the top 50 biggest with ONE school for Juniors and Seniors. The stated reason was then sports teams could crush everyone else.

 

So, yeah, school admins encouraging red-shirting is totally believable. An older kid will score better and do better in sports.

Yikes.

I have a hard time believing a few administrators would act that way on their own, but I am sad to say I can see them being hired in uber macho districts. Glad I live where I live. Needs dominate town meeting and the school board!

[Bluegoat]

Huh, where I live being in teh gifted program has very little relation to classroom achievement.  That seems like a really stupid idea to me.

[ktgrok]

But an 11yo in 4th grade wouldn't be "ahead in her school work" to be doing 5th grade level work. Heck, here an 11yo would likely be in 6th grade. I know there are gifted underachievers. But the way gifted programs are usually set up, they take the top 10% or so in a grade, an if you're 1.5-2 years older than the other kids in your grade, you've got some serious issues if you're not in the top 10% or so, and you'd be taking the space of a younger kid who would be in the top 10% if it weren't for redshirted kids.

 

 

I don't understand. How did the gifted program benefit him in ways skipping into 3rd grade wouldn't have? Isn't the gifted program about harder work?

 

Here, gifted is based on IQ score, not grades. Cut off is 135 I think? 

 

And no, it wasn't about harder work. It was about work presented differently and done differently. More open ended projects, more research skills taught and utilized, more logic, etc. It was a totally different paradigm. 

 

But even if it was just harder work, skipping a grade of math would not be a smart thing to do for many kids, but working more quickly though it would be. 

[SKL]

I tend to agree that for a redshirted gifted kid, a grade skip should be a prerequisite to entering the gifted program, unless there are specific special needs that make a grade skip problematic.

 

Since we are on the topic of how kids get into gifted programs, I'll add that at my kids' school, it's based mainly on how the kids perform on standardized tests - which are standardized to grade level.  So it does give a natural preference to kids who are old for their grade.  There are other ways to get in, but they require significant steps on the part of the parent.  In my kid's case, she is young for grade (entered KG early), and she didn't make the gifted cutoff on the 2nd grade tests.  I can take her to the public school for individual testing.  At first the public school said we couldn't do that, so there was some back and forth.  I haven't gotten around to doing this yet.  In practice, I guess you could say the gifted program won't actually serve all the gifted kids, because some parents won't jump through the extra hoops.

 

That said, it is more appropriate for my kid to be in 4th grade 5 days a week vs. 3rd grade 4 days + gifted program 1 day.

Edited January 28, 2016 by SKL

[luuknam]

Here, gifted is based on IQ score, not grades. Cut off is 135 I think? 

 

And no, it wasn't about harder work. It was about work presented differently and done differently. More open ended projects, more research skills taught and utilized, more logic, etc. It was a totally different paradigm. 

 

But even if it was just harder work, skipping a grade of math would not be a smart thing to do for many kids, but working more quickly though it would be. 

 

I'd probably have hated the gifted program at your school, even though I'd have easily made the IQ cut-off. I hated open-ended projects throughout school.

 

I think in most schools a grade skip is not done by just putting the kid in the next grade up and saying "well, whatever you missed, you missed... good luck", wrt math at least. Although realistically, the teachers tend to have to review stuff every year anyway because some kids didn't master last year's material anyway, so in elementary school, it's probably not that big a deal even if you did miss the entire year of math. I wasn't grade skipped (I was the second youngest in my class so my parents decided against it when the teacher recommended it halfway during 3rd grade in the 3rd/4th grade mixed classroom... they didn't even tell me until much, much, later, after I skipped 9th grade), but at some point in 4th or so grade the teacher did let kids who wanted to work ahead... doing the end of chapter tests, and only having to do the work in the chapter if you missed too much on the end of the chapter... I took many chapter tests in a row.

[Bluegoat]

I wasn't redshirted, but I probably should have been - they just flunked me the first time I did K and I had to do it again.  I never skipped a grade after that.

 

I was however in the gifted program, and it is one of the only things that got me through school without hating absolutly every part of it.  I did really well in the projects and such that they used - it wasn't just work further along or a grade ahead.  It was a different kind of work.

 

And I still largely did poorly in the regular classroom work.

 

Edited January 29, 2016 by Bluegoat

[LisaKinVA]

I think people are confused about what "gifted" means.

 

My oldest dd is more "globally gifted" meaning, it's a pretty even development -- she could have easily handled at least a 2-3 grade skip academically, but that's not her desire.  She works hard. My oldest son is more "asynchronously gifted" meaning, in certain subjects he really excels, and in other subjects it's less, and in other ways, even less.  A single grade skip would have been disastrous.  My third son is like my daughter, except for emotionally and socially he is younger.  He feels very strongly, but has a lot of difficulty understanding social cues (I'd say he borders on Aspergers, but he's not likely he'd be dx'd).  My oldest son and my younger son are technically BOTH red-shirted.  They had fine noticeable motor skill issues (younger ds is still a bit "below average" on that, and is technically dysgraphic -- which doesn't affect his ability, but does affect how he can/does output).  My youngest two are also gifted, one is not academically accelerated, and one is actually behind (in LA), due to speech issues.  Even with Boo's delays, in the areas without disability she performs well ahead of her peers on all levels. 

 

My kids' weirdness, because of their giftedness, is reason #1 why we homeschool.  Their needs would not have been met in the classroom environments we had available.  And the social/emotional issues that many discount I've seen rear their ugly heads in a major way in 5th/6th grade...and they continue.  Only now is my 16 year old son truly starting to rise to the demands socially, emotionally AND academically.  DD -- who I had to get special permission to audit high school classes, finally feels like she has peers (and she has never sought out the company of older kids).  DS #2 still relates better to younger kids than his own peer group.  He has found more friends here wired more like him -- but gravitates to kids who are 10-11 vs. 13-14.

 

When kids are tested (which goes beyond simply mastering material), the tests take into account their age.  A child who was high-performing, but had a lower IQ (say 125) wouldn't be accepted into the GT program.  You don't score higher on the test because you're older -- the test takes age into account.

 

 

[kubiac]

This is so cynical.  Do you really think the school administration is completely callow?

 

When I was researching schools, an education consultant told a group I was in, "If you want to go to Franklin Elem., your child needs to be born in the first half of the year. The principal has literally stood on the front steps of the school at Open Houses and told parents that if your child was born July-Dec please do another year of preschool and come back next year."

 

This is the elem. in the richest neighborhood of one of the highest COL cities in our county. The academics are generally considered to be 1-2 years ahead of "normal" and if your kid isn't "old" he or she will be crushed beneath the panzer wheels of kindergarten. 

 

Sigh.

Edited February 11, 2016 by kubiac

[frogger]

I don't have this issue but I have seen gifted older children who needed academic acceleration but were socially behind. A gifted child may struggle to fit in, be ostracized, unable to follow directions, and a disruption when placed with their peers.

 

It is interesting to me that on a home school forum there is a constant argument for making kids fit in a box. I guess that is the blessing of having the ability to home school. My children don't have to be equally socially, emotionally, and academically advanced or behind. They can be all over the map.