Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Great Debate

We are really struggling with the decision on whether or not to send Aidan to Kindergarten in the Fall. He is in a Pre-K class now and his teacher is a retired kindergarten teacher with 25+ years experience. We had a conference with her in October. The funny thing was that I totally prepared Jim that she would say he wasn't ready. To tell you the truth, up until that conference, I didn't really know what he knew. He has never wanted to sit down and "learn" with me. He's so different from Avery. Avery loved doing flash cards when he was little. He loved everything about learning his letters, shapes, numbers, etc. He even enjoyed making a game out of learning his personal information- address, phone number, etc. Aidan wouldn't do flash cards with me if his life depended on it. I'm hard pressed to get him to recite the alphabet. So when I tell you I didn't know what he knew prior to speaking with his teacher, Mrs Harris, I had no idea.
So I walked in to the conference in October fully expecting that he would NOT be attending kindergarten in the Fall. I had convinced Jim of that as well. Imagine our surprise when Mrs. Harris went on and on about what he knew, how well he does socially, and that he was absolutely ready for school. Then... she looked at his birthdate and said, "Except that he's a boy and has a summer birthday."
I've received a lot of information about why you shouldn't send a boy with a summer birthday to Kindergarten when he turns five. It gives him an extra year to mature and it will make him one of the oldest in his class. Let's face it, for boys size matters and the extra year could mean a huge difference in physical stature, especially in high school years.
We go back Monday afternoon for our final conference with Mrs. Harris before Kindergarten registration. I'm interested to see what she has to say now. She was Avery's Pre- K teacher as well and as stated previously, has a wealth of experience as a retired kindergarten teacher.
Here's my question, "Should there be this blanket statement applied to all boys?" Can there never be any outliers?
There are so many things we've looked at- scenarios we've played out in our heads of what will happen if we send him and what will occur if we don't. I have to tell you that socially, Aidan is much more ready than Avery ever was at five. I think that is just a difference in personalities. I'd love to hear opinions. And if you can answer what you would do, I'd love to hear that too.
What would you do if your son had a summer birthday and was by all accounts "ready" in all aspects for school other than the fact that his birthday falls in the summer?

5 comments:

Sarah said...

Susan I'm very interested in reading the responses to this post as I'm sure in a couple of years I will be wondering the same thing. Carleigh's birthday is in September and with Sumner going to year round school I'm just not sure what that looks like for her. It will definitely depend on her readiness.

As for my opinion on the summer birthday thing...I think it should be a case by case basis. One thing I have noticed with boys who were ready for school but the parents didn't send them b/c of them being the youngest is that the next year they are very bored and have a tendency to get in more trouble or on to more. Lets face it, there is ALWAYS going to be something our kids are going to have to overcome whether it be the youngest, oldest, tallest, shortest, smartest, or not so much. Five years after graduation...will it really be all that different?? You know your child and you know what he's capable of.

Another option too is the Hendersonville Bible K-garten @ H'ville Church of Christ. It's accredited so you could put him there, see how he does. If you want him to repeat K-garten the following year then at least he's not at a school seeing all his other classmates a grade ahead of him.

I'll pray for you to know which decision to make.

Anonymous said...

I'll just wait for Aidan to be the guinea pig, then I'll decide what to do with Caleb ;) I am interested to see what the PK teacher says this time.

Anonymous said...

I vote for H'ville Bible Kindergarten and we will surely drive the teachers crazy with a married couple in kindergarten! hehe!

Anonymous said...

Everett is July and Jason said before he was even born that he would not be starting K until he was 6. He felt very strongly about it. Jason was a July birthday but went to school at 5. He said he really hated being younger in high school. He always said that sports wise he wished for that one extra year of growth for playing baseball. He was good in high school, but he felt the one extra year would have made him better. And, he was friends with a lot of the kids a year behind him because they were all not driving yet like him. I on the other hand went at 5 with a Sept birthday and never had a problem really - girls vs. boys I think. I think the reasoning in holding back in Jason's mind is not necessarily being ready for kindergarten (the present) but having a bit of an advantage for middle and high school and college (the future).

I think it'll be interesting to see if we rethink it once Everett is at that point and is totally ready for K, but I don't think we will. Another factor I've heard is keeping two sibling boys closer together in grade. So, holding Everett back would keep him and Nolan closer where sending Aiden would keep he and Avery closer.

I know I haven't been any help! Can't wait to reap your wisdom! :) Not to make it simple, but I think the more you continue to pray about it, the more clarity you'll have...

Stephani said...

Susan,
I am right here with you on this one. Parker will be 5 in May and we plan on sending him to kindergarten in August. He knows all the things that he should know and I think that if we held him back a year, he would get extrememly bored. So, I guess we will see how he does:)