Do We Send Our Child to Kindergarten or Do We Wait: Redshirting

I recently attended a webinar given by a professor at TLU. The topic was very interesting to me as Southern is getting to the age where we need to start thinking about school. If he were to attend Pre-K, he would start a year from this August. We would need to register him in less than a year. Wow.

Here is what I learned from this webinar –

It’s not in our state’s law for children to go to kindergarten. Legally, children must start attending school at age 6 for first grade. I didn’t know that! Apparently there are parents out there deciding to keep their kids at home until they’re six years old for various reasons. Interesting, but I don’t think this applies to our family.

Once your child starts school, he or she should have these skills –

Social/Emotional Development:

·         Be largely independent

·         Know right from wrong

·         Be able to make friends

·         Be able to share

Cognitive Development:

·         Know the basic colors

·         Know his or her phone number and address

·         Realize that stories have a sequence (beginning, middle, end)

·         Be able to tell stories

·         Know that books are read from left to right, from top to bottom

·         Be able to tell jokes

·         Be able to draw [somewhat] recognizable animals, people, and objects

·         Know some letters and numbers

·         Be able to count 10 objects

·         Understand the meaning of more, less, and some

It makes me proud to know that at just 3 years old, Southern can already do most of these!

There is a state sponsored pre-k program in Texas that starts for kids at age 4. It is for low income, special needs, military, and orphaned kids. I had heard about this but heard that it has a negative association. Like, if your child is in this program, then they are started on the “special ed” path that follows them the rest of the way through school. I’m not really sure if that’s the case or not.

Some people choose to send their kids to a private school for pre-k and then public school for kindergarten on up. I would love to have our kids attend private school up to high school, actually. Sadly, it doesn’t look like we can afford that. Attending a private pre-k would be a wonderful opportunity. It would be so much fun for Southern.  It would also help ease the transition to kindergarten 5 days a week as it would just be 2-3 days a week. But, again, it would cost money… around $3,800 I believe.

Be sure to look at the curriculum – things have changed a lot from when we were in kindergarten. Reading is not mandated for 1^st graders.

As far as redshirting goes, it may be a good option for some people, but research suggests that attending kindergarten with other children helps cognitive disabilities.

Grade retention is not always a good decision even though it is widely practiced. It’s normally less effective on older children. Do not make this decision lightly!

What to do now? Prepare your children for kindergarten!

·         Expose them to all sorts of activities

·         Help them gain vocabulary constantly

·         Read to them daily – fiction and non-fiction

·         Talk to them, not at them

·         Expose them to others reading aloud - go to Storytime at your local library or have someone other than their parents read to them as well

All good information. We are preparing!