Irishbaby will be 2 in July.
She is a contented, happy, calm and sweet child.
We are also beginning to suspect that she is quite smart.
Not scary Dougie Howser /Sheldon Cooper smart, but definitely smarter than the average bear.
Because of the school system here she is going to be one of the oldest kids in her year. She will be 4 before she starts nursery and 5 before she starts primary school.
My mother is convinced that we won’t be able to delay her reading acquisition to 5 and we should push to have her moved up a year.
This is the woman who taught me to read when I was 3 because I looked bored, and she’s a very proud Nana, so we’re not on board with that just yet.
I don’t want to be one of those scary Tiger mothers, but I want to do what is best for my daughter.
My gut tells me mum is right- if she doesn’t go to school at 4 we’re going to have to do a lot of work at home to stop her getting bored and frustrated. I worry that when she does start school she’d be bored or she’d have to re-learn everything.
If she is the oldest in the year it gives social and physical benefits, and I’m not sure I really want to be that pushy mother demanding special treatment for my toddler.
We need to decide soon, the information and open days for nurseries starts in the autumn for next year’s intake and if we decide to work for earlier intake that is what we would be aiming for.
Dopers, you are smart people with smart kids.
Some of you will have had these dilemmas- what did you do?
In Florida, a child has to be 5 by Sept 1 to start kindergarten. My daughter was born Sept 5. When she was 4, she started getting in trouble at her daycare, and we figured out it was because she was bored, so we enrolled her in a private preschool, and all the behavior issues went away. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford the tuition for her to continue in private elementary school, so she stayed in the preschool an “extra” year and started kindergarten as the oldest kid in her class.
In the grand scheme of things, she did fine - being smart and more mature combined to make her a bit of an academic star and frequently a teacher favorite. We tried to keep her intellectually engaged outside of the classroom, and I don’t recall any issues with her being ahead of her classmates in some areas.
Going back even farther, I was also always the oldest in the class and since my school didn’t have kindergarten back then, I didn’t start school till I was 6. I’m pretty sure it didn’t hold me back.
Personally, I think as long as you don’t plop the kid in front of the TV all the time, as long as you make learning things fun and encourage discovery, and as long as you stay engaged and involved in her education, she’ll do fine with or without a delay of a year.
I put my kid in a Waldorf school, where they specifically warn against teaching reading. My daughter loves it there, and it gives her a good chance to learn Thai.
However, the biggest reason we picked that school was because we didn’t want little Ji sitting at a desk all day doing drills, as she would at most Thai schools.
Reading comes when it comes. I’m sure little Ji will pick it up soon (she’s a few months away from 4), but I’m not terribly concerned. But getting your little one out there and being with other people is a great thing for everyone involved.
I think this depends a lot of what your local schools are like. Our area is filled with hyper-achievement oriented families with bright kids. The schools do a lot of tracking so that kids are challenged at the appropriate level. There is also a gifted and talented program, but I’m not very familiar with it. My son is in third grade. In his grade there are math classes working at grade level, a class working at grade level on an accelerated basis, and another couple working at fourth grade level. In addition, if you have a child whose birthday is near the cutoff, you can have them evaluated to go early. A couple of the girls in our neighborhood did that, so it’s not uncommon. Basically, I’d suggest learning a bit more about how your schools deal with bright kids.
My birthday falls at a place in the year that made me just about the youngest in my class. I could have been held back a year. I was also pretty smart–in the gifted & talented program early on, then stuck with all the advanced classes through high school.
Something to consider is that there’s a good chance that, even being accelerated a year, the pace of the work will still bore your daughter–but she’ll be a year behind most of her class in social development. My mother, looking back, thinks that I would have been a more extroverted, confident person if I’d been held back a year. I tend to agree.
I was born 10 days after the cutoff date, so I was almost a year older than my classmates. Most people assumed that I’d been held back when I told them my age, and this wasn’t helped when the cutoff date was moved to later in the year. I always resented it, and when I was able to test out of my freshman year of college, I felt that I was finally in my proper age group…but of course in college it no longer really mattered.
Well, that’s the wierd thing…we don’t know her like you:
What’s your gut say?
There’s THOUSANDS of skills kids pick up as they grow, reading is only one of them, and it’s no crime to help them, or let it slide a little. Literacy by itself won’t keep her from being bored or happy.
One twin picked up reading like a duck to water, the other has needed CONSTANT additional coaching and encouragement to pick it up. At 8 years old, I get the feeling he probably won’t ENJOY reading, but he’s gotten better than good at it…The other? Well, we probably need to get him glasses this week based on how he’s wrecking his vision by constantly staring at stuff less than 3 feet away.
I’m not sure how similar Primary 1 is to Junior Infants but I didn’t start JI until I was just about to turn 5. Nearly all the kids were younger than me but some were a bit older. It was never a huge issue for me. School was boring most of the time anyway.
She’s started counting things, sings songs (Wheels on the bus, Baa Baa black sheep- nothing too difficult), and has memorised her favourite bedtime story, which she recites with me as I read it.
She’s great with other kids, very outgoing. She goes to a musical activity once a week with my mum, and to various toddler groups with her childminder, as well as interacting with the 4 other kids at the childminder’s house. I’m not really concerned about her social skills.
As it is she spends most of her time demanding to be read to, which is why I think reading will be on the cards before she’s school age. She loves books.
First, there are tons of great activities you can do at home for learning and fun. Besides reading together (which obviously everyone should do), you can go to the library and get books of fun science and art projects for little ones. Of course you can spend a lot of time outdoors messing around with mud and sticks and flowers. You can teach her with sewing cards and knitting, a la Waldorf.
Once she starts school, you can keep her interested with science and history and fun math at home. This is often called afterschooling and is just extra enrichment for families who think their child is not getting enough at school. (If you google afterschooling you’ll find lots of information.)
I think if where you live is anything like the US, sending her to school at 4 might not be such a hot idea. People here are delaying their children’s entry, so a lot of kindergarteners are 5/6 instead of 4/5. A 4yo going to school is at a disadvantage socially and physically, even if she has no trouble at all with the academics.
So I tend to think that kids should be sent to school a bit later and do lots of great stuff at home. But then, I decided I liked the home stuff so much that we just stayed there; we homeschool and get to decide on our own academics and activities and go as fast or slow as we please.
The best people to ask would be the school. My daughter’s school often had mixed age-group lessons for literacy and numeracy, with the year above and the year below, but the kids were still with their peers the rest of the time. That’s pretty much an ideal solution for most kids.
Since she’s going to be as close in age to many of the kids in the year above her as she is her own year, it’s not too pushy to consider moving her ahead a year. I don’t know how many schools would be receptive to that idea, though.
I was the youngest in my class. My daughter is among the oldest. I had a miserable school existence - I was bored despite being young, but also picked on.
I now see the problem, my daughter is very bright, but she is not mature for her age. Her emotional development lags behind her intellectual development. So in fifth grade, I’m still chasing her around with a brush. I’m glad this wasn’t middle school. As to your daughter - this was not very visible until she was seven or eight. She did tantrum more and longer than a lot of kids - she was still tantruming at four. And she did delay potty training. But she had a lot of pre-school friends, got along well with neighborhood kids - and if anything - was well set up for being more mature for her age, her neighborhood friends were a few years older. She is short for her age (I was too, but turned out average height - I think she’ll end up a little shorter than average), and that doesn’t help.
I had social challenges in school, and I now see myself through my daughter. I also wasn’t very mature for my age. So I was in seventh grade, the age of a sixth grader, with fifth grade social skills. Or a ninth grader with seventh grade skills. It wasn’t until I got to college that things STARTED evening out.
Additionally, depression and other mental health challenges exist in our family. Its more important to be to protect my daughter’s well being than her intellect. That I can do through home enrichment.
I know I wish I’d been moved forward, but school systems have changed a lot, so have school teachers. Currently, the Spanish educational system doesn’t allow for that - while I disagree on such bans on general principle (I also disagree with defining anybody who has to retake a year, at any level and for any cause, as “a failure”, which our current system also does), it’s working well for The Kidlet. We’ll see what happens with The Kidlette; she’s got much better people smarts than her brother, so I’m kind of scared that she’ll be allowed to slide by on account of being “so cute” (seriously, is there any country where “cute” doesn’t raise your grades?).
You also have the internets now. There are some reading (and math) sites out there that would let her poke about and learn without knowing she’s learning.
Also, make a weekly trip to the Library a habit or you will CONSTANTLY be out of things to read.
This. By which I mean, ditto - I was bright, I was the youngest in my class, and I was *emotionally *the youngest in my class, so I didn’t do well socially. By about 5th grade, I decided the best way to fit in was to act lazy and apathetic. It didn’t go well. :smack:
And this. I wasn’t aware of the term “afterschooling,” but I often tell people that homeschooling is not an all or nothing proposition.
It’s important to remember, too, that “giftedness” in a wee one doesn’t always stay that way. And that’s okay! Don’t fall into the trap of expecting her to stay ahead of the game, or you’re setting her and you up for frustration and guilt. Work with her where she’s at now, today. Address her needs as they come up, but stay flexible and keep your expectations realistic. She may end up being gifted, or the other kids may catch up. Kids who walk early don’t necessarily become championship runners, and kids who read early aren’t always Rhodes Scholars, either.
Also good to remember that gifted in one area (language arts/reading) does not mean gifted in all areas. When my son was in first grade he tested as “gifted” in math, but was nearly failing anything to do with reading and spelling. I pulled him out and home schooled him for two years because no school I could afford was going to meet the needs of a second grader who needed first grade language arts and third grade math.
I thought of mentioning that as well. When my daughter was 2 years old she was so very far ahead of everyone else (except with jigsaw puzzles) that I’m really glad I didn’t actually count on it as being a permanent thing, because she’s not now. That sounds horrible - parents are supposed to be ‘my child’s brilliant!’ but I know the areas in which she does well and the areas she doesn’t.
I have a very bright kindergartener - he’s currently reading at a fifth grade level. I very firmly believe that early elementary school is just as much about social development as it is about academics. My son isn’t particularly challenged with the academic part of school yet, but he’s learning a lot about getting along with other kids, developing friendships, and what’s required of him behaviourally in a classroom setting.
Socially and physically, there’s a very distinct advantage to being the oldest in your class. It’s not an advantage I would give up lightly. Plus I agree with the other posters that it’s a little early for you to be worrying about it just yet, since she’s not even two, and things can change a lot between now and when she starts kindergarten.
I know that this may be a phase, and I’m cool with afterschool.
Anyone who know me knows I plan ahead. Big time.
I need contingencies in place.
If we’re thinking about moving up I want all my ducks in a row, and if we decide not to go that way I’ll need all the enrichment materials I can get!
My concerns are really about my own Primary school years. Hopefully things have changed.
As nurseries are often tied to schools, we’d have to be organised by this Christmas if we want her in nursery for September 2012.
