How do you know if your child is ready for kindergarden? My dd will be 5 Aug. 15 and I am not sure she is ready for kindergarden. She has never been in a pre-k program and she stays home with me right now. If she is not ready can I choose to put her in a pre-k program instead?

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Heather
Mom to three dd 14, ds 8, dd 5

do a search for "kindergarten". There are several detailed threads on this topic & you'll probably find lots of helpful info in them to help you decide.

The decision is yours to make. You can certainally choose to put her in pre-k if you choose to.

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~Happiness is a large family~

This is a hot topic. Every child is different so you will have to do your own assessment. Options vary from state to state.

you could go into the school she will attend and see what they think!!

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Kelly mom to 3 great girls A Peanut, a monkey and a little burrito.

I actually just signed my daughter up for Kindergarten today. She will be turning 5 on August 28th which happens to be the first day of school next year. She is in a preschool class- but not a pre-K class (and she only goes to school 2x's a week).

IMHO- a lot of it depends on the child. I am going ahead and sending my daughter this year and if she struggles and has issues with it- I will have no problem sending her to Kindergarten again (I actually had to do that with my oldest daughter whose birthday is also "late" for the school year). One thing that I would do is maybe contact the school and see if you could talk to someone about what they typically teach for the school year and also what the teacher thinks would be helpful for the children to "know" before starting the school year (ie- I know in our district it would be easier if your child is reading somewhat- we are working on that right now- she recognizes a lot of her letters and the corresponding phonics, we are starting to learn some of the "sight words" and number recognition). Or if you know someone who's child recently went through Kindergarten in your school district, ask them if they can tell you what they learned and what you think they need to know before going to your school. I seriously wished that I did this when my oldest went to Kindergarten (I did not realize that they had to have the reading concept and so on- her first day home from school she had a little reading packet- I was super shocked!).

BTW- when I was talking to one of the parents at the preschool- she was told by the preschool teacher when her daughter was going to be enrolled- the teacher told her even though your daughter is young, if the child is "outgoing" they usually do well in Kindergarten. I wish my oldest preschool teacher would of told me this before i sent her the first round- she was and still is shy.

Thanks!

My daughter is very shy, at first... and then she will play with other kids. She is still very needy of me though and that worries me. I think academicly she may be ready but socially I'm not to sure.

I called the school today to find out if they had a pre-k program and they said they have a VPK program and it is already filled. I'm like what???

So I am not sure what to do. I have one going to High School next year. I also have another that will have to switch from private school to public school due to him being SLD....I was hoping to have them both in the same public school because otherwise I will have to be at 3 different school, ugh!

I don't just want to put her in kindergarden just because it is easier for me either.

I guess I have a lot of figuring out yet still. I would like to have them both go to the private school we are at now but they do not have special services that the public school has.....but that is a whole other story.

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Heather
Mom to three dd 14, ds 8, dd 5

I don't know if this will help or not, but my 4 year old son will be 5 on August 27th. He is also home with me and has never been to preschool (he does get social interaction and does group activities in Sunday School, gym class, etc). Unless something major comes up between now and the start of school, we plan to start him in kindergarten this fall.

He is very outgoing and (in my opinion) very intelligent. My main concern is that he is resisting learning to write his name, but we are working with him at home on this and other preschool type academic skills (colors, numbers, letters, shapes, etc.) so I am hopeful he will come around by August. And, of course, he has some trouble sitting still, but what 4 year old doesn't (we're working on that too)?

Everyone I have talked to that knows him and has seen him interact with other kids and in other settings (like Sunday School) thinks he'll do fine. He's my oldest and of course, I am worried that we will make the wrong decision. But, if he ends up needing to repeat kindergarten, so be it.

Also, I've done some research online about kindergarten readiness, the benefits of preschool, and the pros and cons of holding children with late summer birthdays back and have (so far) come up with no compelling reason to hold him back.

All that being said, it really is a personal decision and, in my opinion, one that should be made based on each individual child.

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Stephanie
Mom to: Caleb (8/03), Ian (9/05), & Lucas (11/08)

I'm dealing with this decsion right now. I think i've in fact decided to hold my DD back a year. Cut off is Sept. 30th here and her b-day is Sept 27th. She just makes it, but IMO I don't think she's ready for it, she stays home with me all day and is not in pre-school. Holding her back, I plan to homeschool with a K ciric. and go from there, then send her to K next fall, another factor that made me decide was that I found out the school we want her to go to is full day K and I don't agree with that.

You could put her in preschool, but probably not an actual pre-k program if it's government funded. Ours is a federally funded program and they can only be 4 by the cutoff date. If they are 5 they are ineligible.