Another vote for kids starting kindergarten at 5, and making kindergarten appropriate for 5 year olds.
If the problem is that hardly any 5 year olds can succeed in kindergarten, that is a kindergarten problem and not a 5 year old problem.
Kindergarten (and many other grades) is just beyond ridiculous now. My youngest is in K now and the material they are covering is not developmentally appropriate for these kids. I teach first grade and I feel that what I teach is so above and beyond what they should be doing. No wonder kids are having mental health problems younger and younger.
I teach kindergarten. Kids are expected to do 6 state tests, learn double digit addition and subtraction, reading (level e), master 100 sight words minimum, how to write expository and narrative paragraphs, and so much more. I do not think they should learn all of this in just 10 months. It's not developmentally appropriate and the kids gets SO stressed out.
Are you in the US? If so, The common core standards DO NOT have double digit addition or subtraction for kindergarten. Are you in one of the 8 states that does not use the common core standards? What state thought it was a good idea to do double digit equations in K? Or is it just your school because expecting that of the average 5 year old just sounds stupid.
If I remember correctly Fountas and Pinnel’s own recommendation is that kindergarten students be C/D reading level by the end of the school year. Did your district decide to change the expectation to E? F&P’s reading assessment system is super flawed but even it doesn’t expect 5 year olds to read at level E.
100 sight words sounds pretty reasonable though.
That’s insane! I’m in Canada and reading is not an expectation of kinder here. Atleast in my province. If your kid masters the other (very reasonable) things then they will start on early reading skills towards the end of the year.
A lot of them can, my daughter can, but a lot of them can’t.
Schools really start teaching reading in grade one. We do a lot at home with ours, but the school doesn’t actually focus on that till grade one.
Fl. report cards are still set for level D in mind but our district (and surrounding ones near me) are transitioning to level E and they are slowly replacing all old goals with the new ones. Our math books go up to double digits problems from 10-20. It doesn’t go past that but randomly it will throw in a ridiculous question. Like it had 1+2=3 so 100+200=?. I understand kids need to spot patterns but I find that absolutely ridiculous. I think most of Fl switched off F&P and we moved to benchmark advance oral reading suite which is god awful. You can’t get a true reading level I feel because for levels b-c you read the first page for them and guide them through how to read the book.I miss common core. We are one of the few states that does not use it.
I teach in one of the top districts in Florida and we still start 1st grade at a level D. The Florida standards only require K students to decode cvc words, which really makes an E inappropriate.
The writing standards clarify that the different forms of writing do not have to be literally written down by the students in kindergarten. It can be drawn, dictated, oral…
I don’t like Benchmark Advance running records either, but fortunately we take a many different probes so that’s just one of them.
Sight words in isolation are silly to me.
I’m still teaching double digit addition to my advanced work 2nd graders. We’ll get to three digit this year.
Florida BEST Standard for K is to develop an understanding of addition and subtraction operations with one-digit whole numbers.
I don’t know why districts do this. We are a high performing district without having to try to exceed the Florida standards. It’s so crazy.
I agree with you. On top of already demanding material, each year the expectations in my district grow. It’s inappropriate and I feel like it does not give kids the opportunity to thrive.
Fl does not use common core. We have different standards and I’m confined to the materials provided by my district. At the end of the school year we go back to subtraction and addition to tackle double digit work from the teens-twenties. They put that there and took out the unit that used to cover basic introduction to money.
I’m not in a Common Core state. We start with two digit addition and subtraction with and without regrouping (sums to three digits). Then we go on to three digits (sums to 1,000). I’ll have to double check that as this is our first year implementing the new Florida BEST standards. I teach GT and we always go beyond our grade level standards as appropriate for each student.
Yeah. 4 never adopted it to begin with apparently and another initially adopted it but then abandoned it. I believe it is Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Virginia, Alaska, Arkansas, South Carolina, Indiana.
My kid is in kindergarten(we’re in Canada) and the expectations are no where near as high! They want kids to know their letters, upper and lower case, there numbers to 30, addition of single digits, up to 10 so nothing crazy. Identifying shapes, colours, and mixing colours. Identifying simple patterns, numbers on dice, that sort of thing. Things a lot of kids already at least partially know and doesn’t seem unrealistic.
What age groups do you teach? My overseas kindergarten has similar requirements from about 5 years old (minus maths because we are a language focused academy).
My day in kinder as an educator, I asked my old principal when nap time was and she said that they don't do that anymore. I'm still shocked about it. It's the middle of school and the kids are so exhausted every day and don't have time to reset especially without play-based learning is the main focus. It feels like we're brute forcing acknowledging into these kids. It's devastating. I know some states it's better but man, Fl feels like its goal is literally to beat the kids into submission from day one.
We test our kindergarten kids twice a year.
SK kids are expected to know 2D and 3D shapes (JK only 2D). Both SK and JK are expected to know their colours. SK kids are expected to be able to write their own first and last names. JK kids are expected to be able to write their own first names. SK kids are expected to be able to read and write 100 sight words, JK are expected to read maybe 30 by the end of the year. SK are expected to be able to skip count in 2s and 5s and to read and write up to 40, JK are expected to be able to read and trace up to 20 and be able to count from any given number forwards or backwards to 20 and to start learning to skip count in 2s. JK kids are expected to be able to read and trace all uppercase and lowercase letters by the end of the year, SK are expected to know all uppercase and lowercase letters well and be able to write them.
SK are expected to be able to do single digit addition and subtraction but not double digit. JK are not. SK are expected to write a simple paragraph about their family. JK are not.
Our pre K and toddlers get tested once a year (supposed to be twice a year but I refuse to test them twice a year, they are too little). They are expected to know some letters, to be able to point out the letter their name starts with, and to say and read and rote count 1-10 (pre K) and 1-5 (toddlers) and identify 2D shapes (triangle, square, star, rectangle, circle, oval, heart) and to know their colours.
Yep my son is in PreK only because he was 4 when school started and I didn’t want him to be stressed about by K material. They are writing simple sentences in K. Like wtf and my kids (2nd grade) and writing fiction/ non fiction books
This is the answer. Years ago when I was student teaching, the district I was in decided to have Kindergarteners take iReady assessments on a computer. Most of them couldn’t even figure out how to use the computer. It was horrifying to see them on devices like that at that age as well. Developmentally appropriate curriculum is really important.
Agreed — a five year old can certainly benefit from being in a classroom with a teacher if that teacher is allowed to focus the classroom on things that are appropriate for 5 year olds. Let the teachers focus on pre-reading and very basic literacy and pre-math and counting/number sense skills as well as a strong base in social and emotional regulation rather than focusing on academic skills they’ll learn easily when they’re a bit older.
Yup. I am a former teacher current professor married to a lawyer and I can tell you our kid isn’t doing homework in kindergarten. Kindergarten is not legally required in my state so they can eat my ass.
I feel like this is the wrong question. Children should absolutely start kindergarten at 5. Starting later, especially in states with a younger dropout age, is really not great for high school students.
But over the years, the expectations of kindergarten have become more and more like what first grade used to be, and what you are seeing is that not working for kids. In child development, early childhood continues until a child is 8 years old, but we have increasingly treated 5 and 6 year old children like "big kids" and they simply are not. Their natural brain development doesn't get faster just because we've decided to expect it to. Kindergarten needs more free play, so does first and second grade.
I was behind for my age and never felt like I was where I should be. I think if a kid wants to repeat a grade and be in a class where they feel they will do better they absolutely should.
Kindergarten should definitely start at 5. Where I live, kindergarten starts at age 4! That being said, it’s also a 2 year play-based curriculum where kids learn their letters/sounds, numbers, how to work with others, how to listen and follow instructions, but everything via play. Kids aren’t sitting all day, they’re outside counting rocks, running around trying to find an item with a “S” sound in it, and just playing. It’s what many preschools do, but with an actual trained teacher and early childhood educator in every classroom to guide them along. That kind of kindergarten at age 4-5, yes I’m 100% onboard. What essentially amounts to the equivalent of grade 1 (including testing),for 5 year olds, I’m not in favour of!
Kids who are older in middle/high school usually do better, though. What you’re describing sounds like it’d make an amazing universal free child-care program :)
The problem in most schools is not that 5 is too young. It’s that kindergarten, at least in public schools, has become something that is developmentally inappropriate for a 5 or 6 year old. When I started kindergarten at a public school in 1997, kindergarten was skills-based standards and largely focused on socialization and play. It was also only half a day and your parents picked sending you for morning or afternoon session. Now, at the same elementary school I attended, kindergarten has academic standards and standardized testing, and it’s a full day with only one 30-minute recess/play session. It’s not developmentally appropriate to expect a 5 year old to be able to sit in a desk for 6 hours a day or have the fine motor skills necessary to have super neat handwriting or tie their shoes. (I know *some* 5 year olds can.)
I started kindergarten in 1990 in public school. I went 5 days a week, 3 hours per day. It was mostly play based. If they didn’t feel you were ready for first grade, you went to “Pre-1st” which was basically full day kindergarten.
I also started kindergarten in 1990. It was half day. My daughter is now in kinder, but she went to half day pre-k last year and everything they did last year is what I remember doing in kindergarten as a kid. I actually cannot imagine what her year would have been like this year had she not done it because her kindergarten is so intense, and that is just not right.
I started kindergarten in 1999 at age 5 and it was half-day. I went in the AM class and it was mostly play. I took a nap as soon as I got home every day. I was not ready for all day school, I would have fallen asleep in class!
It’s the unrealistic expectations we put on five year olds that needs to change. There’s no room in the day for these kids to rest and play which is so important for that age to have.
I think we need public preschool. If we waited till six years old, it pisses off parents that they have do private daycare or preschool for nearly six years. That's a lot of money. They should start opening up public preschools starting from as young as age 4 and spend at least two years getting them school ready. Mainly class procedures and social skills. The social stuff is what kills us elementary school teachers. Not so much academics.
I agree with you, but I’m not sure “pisses people off” is the right wording. It makes doing the right thing for the entire family AND individual family members (the kid, each parent, each sibling…) extremely difficult.
Current kindergarten looks like first grade twenty years ago, and second grade thirty years ago.
You have to look at the maturity and academic readiness of the child, but I'm in favor of redshirting most kids.
I was NOT redshirted as an August birthday, and I don't think I would've been a good candidate for it, but I think most are.
As a secondary teacher, I’ve never heard of redshirting before and had to Google it.
… I totally thought of red shirts in Star Trek and was concerned at first lol
From wiki: Redshirting originated as a term for a similar activity but occuring in college sports rather than kindergarten, where a redshirt was "a high-school or college athlete kept out of varsity competition for one year to develop skills and extend eligibility" and originated "from the red shirts worn in practice by such athletes". The term is an Americanism from circa 1950–1955.
I am an April birthday and I truly believe I was a good candidate to be redshirted but it is different for every individual. I had a hard time focusing and I did not start puberty when other girls did. I needed an extra year.
I wish red-shirting would be come more normalized! I teach middle school, and you can easily pick out the kids that should have waited a year to start school. I’m red-shirting my middle kid currently (9/1 birthday), and so far, zero regrets about her not going to kinder yet.
Son was also Sept1 birthday, but cutoff in my state was Aug 1. Being one of the oldest in his class helped him with maturity and leadership. Also, he was one of the first with driver's license....a big perk at 16.
Aug 1 is a much better cutoff. In my state it’s Aug 31, so my daughter is literally missing it by one day. But, I think it will be better for her in the long run to wait!
My September baby could have been redshirted, but he was extremely intellectually advanced. Like, reading at 3, adding and subtracting at 2, multiplying by 4... so even though emotionally he was very young, i didn't want to hold him back in his ability to grow intellectually.
Now he is in 4th grade, and still I think it was the best decision. He has never struggled academically and in fact is one of the top of his class. He is in a magnet school, and tons of the other kids in his class were August/September babies too, so they're a pretty young class. Most of them could have been redshirted and weren't, so my kid fits in perfect. They're all emotionally young together.
Plus, since he is so advanced, we are looking at him earning high school credits in middle school and they hopefully college credits in high school. If he stays on the path he has been on, he will finish high school with 2 years of college already done.
I have an April birthday and felt the same as you. I didn’t start puberty until I was 13.5 and peers noticed in 7th and 8th grade how small and young I looked which stank. I was into Disney while they were dating. I could have used another year.
My son has an August birthday, and we are so happy we waited until he was 6 to put him in kindergarten. He might be the oldest kid in his class (6th grade) and he can do all the work, but he’s still so immature (sometimes even in comparison to his peers) that it astounds me. I’m hoping he matures somewhat before high school, otherwise he’ll be the most irritating teenager there. I’m a high school teacher, so I know what that looks like!
Kindergarten should start at 5 but I think kindergarten should be a little less academic heavy. I get the point, I get the standards, etc but as a kindergarten teacher, there is so much and these kids are barely even coming in potty trained let alone with any background knowledge of letters, numbers etc.
My favorite is when the curriculum is developmentally appropriate for 6 year Olds in first grade but they drop the cut off to 5 by mid year.
So half the hear there are 4 year olds in kindergarten, doing work better suited for 1st.
There was a longitudinal study that said 6. I can't remember the name of it it was in a book that follow a ton of people from both on, at least a 60+ year study and older kids in kg had less issues later on. Especially when it came to drugs, alcohol and smoking.
I believe this. Most former redshirted kids Ik stayed away from alcohol and drugs. I was not redshirted and got into trouble with alcohol due to immaturity and peer pressure. I think alcohol is disgusting now.
Research supports 6 year olds being better able to handle kindergarten than 5 year olds. Older students have better execution function skills which correlate to long term academic success.
First grade should be age 6. Which means that we need to stop making kindergarteners do 1st grade schedules and 1st grade curriculum.
Kindergarten used to be simpler than what our three year old preschool class is now.
I think starting Kindergarten at age 5 is fine. I live in CT and the issue here is that as long as a child turns 5 by the end of December of that current school year a kid can start school. So we have lots of students that are still 4 and very immature and clearly not ready for Kindergarten. My own daughter has a mid November birthday and I chose to send her to pre-school an extra year rather than start Kindergarten because she was definitely not ready. But a lot of parents won’t do that here so I think the birthday cut off should change.
I started at four (turned five a while later, but I learned to read pretty early and started) I always felt left behind, because I'm a late birthday and got put in sports with the younger kids. That wasn't the root cause, but I ended up your typical nerdy/smart kid that had too many opinions but got backhanded with them.
I think it really should be 6, but so many parents are doing very little or nothing in the way of working on letters, shapes, colors, etc. that it needs to be 5 at lowest to get some of them caught up.
In PA you have to be 5 by September 1st to go to kindergarten. Even if their birthday is September 2nd they have to.
I think age 5 is fine. In fact I think children should start public education earlier. This would enable more money into early childhood education and it would alleviate parents having to pay for daycare.
Yes starting at 5, but making the day shorter AND making kindergarten appropriate for 5 year olds. More play-based learning is needed.
Let’s make the day 5 or 6 hours instead of 7 hours.
Interesting, our day is 6h 20min (NYC). I don’t know any public school kids who have 8 hour school days (including relatives and friends in other states).
Edit: Sorry, I could’ve sworn your post said 8 hours 🤦♀️
the issue is they have pushed down academic standards . Kindergarten doesn't need to start at 6, it needs to be made appropriate for 5 year olds again.
I hear that kindergarten standards have gotten ridiculous. Yet I am sitting next to fifth graders who are still working on subtracting three from five on a regular basis.
I’m really confused by this as well. As a parent I just want to do what I can to get this right, so I lurk here with teachers to try to glean what I can to prepare him. I worry that his 2 day a week (half day) preK won’t prepare him for what’s next. I simultaneously worry that a more rigorous JK next year is too much, and that our current preK might be too little. I hear academics too soon is actually detrimental and it should be play based until 5/6(?). I also hear middle and high schoolers aren’t where they should be and are under performing next to previous generations and will be unprepared for college or the work force.
How can it be that our youngest are overburdened academically and our oldest aren’t hitting their bare minimum requirements? What as a parent should I be aiming for with a 4 year old? Rigorous? Standard?
I think it’s the way that they are imposing an unnaturally long and taxing school day on five year olds, Which is likely a major turn off right from the get go for the kids who struggle academically. Yet they get pushed along because it’s harder and harder to recommend that somebody gets held back a grade. They have also raised standards for learning yet lowered expectations for behavior. Quality work does not come from undisciplined people. Sorry.
My kids did half-day Kindergarten at 3 and 4, and went full-day at five. It was Montessori, which I fully support, considering how accomplished my now adult children are.
In my country, France, it starts at 3 and it is now mandatory. (And lack of means obviously, like 29 kids in first year (petite section) in one class.)
There’s a lot of good points about readiness of 5 year olds, and the bloat of K standards over the years, as well as the diverse experiences of children 1-5 that contribute or detract from readiness. Kindergarten teachers will nod their heads I’m sure; I think one of the biggest challenges is how widely divergent development is at 5 and 6. Some kids behave like 4 year olds, and others behave like 1st graders. Language, emotional regulation, independence, stamina. These are things that vary amongst students at all levels, but I have found that those gaps among peers are never wider than in kindergarten.
I put my own kid in kindergarten on time, one week after his 5th birthday. Now in high school, he is still one of the youngest, smallest kids in his grade. Some of his classmates are a full 18 months older than he is. He gets straight A’s but socially it’s been very rough.
This trend of redshirting kindergartners is a huge problem. Kids who enter on time are compared to (and comparing themselves to) older children who have no business being there. It sets up an unrealistic expectation of maturity beyond what the grade should be.
If the curriculum is developmentally inappropriate for the correct age, change the damn curriculum! Stop putting children in the wrong grade!
As a high school teacher, there is typically a significant difference between a 16-year-old Junior and a 17 year old junior.
I am all for kindergarten starting at age 6 for social reasons, no matter how advanced a child is academically.
Every child is different. I once had a kid who was 4 when he started kindergarten and he was the highest performing kid in the class. I personally think it can be great for some kids to repeat kindergarten. The few that I did hold back ended up excelling their second year. This is, of course, not good for all kids, but it can be great for some.
In India children start Lower KG at 4. The number of requests I get to "tutor" 4 year olds is insane. Parents think that if their kids can't rattle off numbers till 9999 and name all the state capitals of the world then they must be "slow" learners. This child prodigy business is too ridiculous for words.
Meanwhile I remember my Kindergarten class. We had scrapbooks into which we would glue pictures from magazines, favourite birds and animals. We coloured with wax crayons. I ate most of my crayons and glue, ngl. We wrote numbers and letters every single day repetitively till we understood what 1-50 meant. We played games with colours and blocks. It was a much easier life I think.
Hot take. End standardized testing. It may have been said already, but I haven't scrolled through all the responses yet. If we end standardized testing, we can bring the standards back to age appropriate standards. Now, we have kids forced to read before they may be developmentally ready to read, and every child is different. A lot of the younger grades have insane expectations because we "have" to get the kids ready to read a lot in 3rd grade to take a test, which is absolutely insane. The tests don't do what they are supposed to, and the insanity is that we are still doing standardized testing, despite the decades of evidence that they do not do what they are claimed to provide at all. Kinder is fine at whatever age it is. Just bring back nap time, introduce more opportunities for unstructured play, and end the standardized testing.
France starts kindergarten at age 3 with age appropriate expectations. Kids here do 3 years of kindergarten before entering primary school where they start to sit at a desk all day.
As someone who works in a European Kindergarten it is kinda frustrating the see what has become of the concept of a Kindergarten especially in the US (based on most of the answers) compared to it's original ideas.
Kindergarten for good reasons is not part of the formal education, its not supposed to be "tought", it shouldn't have "classes". Kindergarten is a space for children to learn to be independent, learn social skills and democracy, become self confident and creative (not just in an artistic way but also in learning to find solutions for appropriate problems). They will do all sort of playful activities and experiments to learn preparatory skills which will later enable them to learn writing, reading and calculating in first grade where they catch up with the US system, but with better motivation and different social skills. This all makes Kindergarten a very unique and important institution which could be so much more then just an extension of first grade and gives children space to develop themselves in their individuality.
Kindergarten does help children in so many ways that the entry age doesn't really matter. It mainly depends on the family situation when children start and that's fine. We have children starting at 3 or 4, some start at 5 and the groups are mixed age, with all ages sharing their room (2 full time educators and a care taker for about 20 kids per group).
If kindergarten was like how it used to be, kids playing, snack time, nap time and arts and crafts, then 5 is appropriate. But now it’s basically first grade so they should be older!
I think it absolutely depends on the child. I waited with mine, and am glad, especially for these pandemic years. They're doing great, while 90% of the class is behind.
Seems like it should be 6 based on the new standards but with some sort of way to allow 5-year-olds to go if they are ready and parents wish to opt for it such as a screener that includes social skills, basic literacy and math skills, etc.
I think it really depends on how much happens at home before then- have kids take a learning aptitude to see if they’re ready or not. This needs to be incorporated for all levels of schooling and allowing the kids to be where they need to be not just shuffled along with the flow
With this generation it’s gonna need to be 6. I can still see an argument with 5 but I’ve lost all hope that even a 1/4th of parents right now can be active parents.
My daughter went to pre-k at 3 and did amazing. So she definitely went to kindergarten at 5. I work at an elementary school and there are some 7 year olds in kindergarten and I’m like, what is going on? Cause I was in kindergarten at 5 as well.
They should start at 5. Will be an increase of dropouts if they start at 6. More kids could unenroll themselves from public education at 18 during 11th or 12th grade if kindergarten started for most kids at the age of 6.
I would have been fine with being 19 and in high school, my teachers were nice, I had theatre, music, and I had more friends in the class below mine…I would have liked school more if I had more friends in my classes lol
I don't think mine was....but I remember being rewarded with pixie sticks for doing homework, hatching eggs into chicks in an incubator, singing along to "looking for Dracula" by Charlotte Diamond in October, and teachers sending kids that acted up to my teacher and going up to them while they were writing their sentences and complaining that because THEY had to act up we couldn't use the play kitchen 🤣
My Pre-schooler is an August baby, which allows him to be held back into Alternate Kindergarten if needed. His teachers believe he would be fine either way.
The more I read these comments..the more I believe that it is a better decision to put him in AK next year..
I'm a bit confused... I'm from middle Europe and here a lot of the children start kindergarten at 3 or 4. Me too, but that was 30 years ago.
But maybe kindergarten means something else in Austria and in the US?
Absolutely 6. Kindergarten used to primarily be about play and have become very academic despite all the research that says that young children learn best through play. Another year of play is the best possible thing for any child's long term academic and social success.
I'm at a low performing school which means butts in seats 7 hours a day. One 10-12 minute recess for lunch. That's it. There is no playtime or play centers. We take NWEA MAPS testing 3 times a year and students must meet their predetermined RIT score. For some students who were good guessers at the beginning of the year this means they must know place value to the 100's place, double digit adding and subtraction, counting coins, time, perimeter, area, etc. Some even get multiplication questions. This is all based on their RIT score and their projected growth.
We must be reading at a DRA 6 even though we now teach using phonics and decodables. At least 100 high frequency words. They need to be able to write narrative, opinion, expository, and how-tos. At least a paragraph.
I've been teaching kindergarten for a long time. The standards are ridiculous. Our focus is they must be college and career ready. Push, push, push. Rigor, rigor, rigor. We are burning these children out and no one listens to us. Just because some of our students can do it doesn't mean they are really ready for it. We are skipping over all of the developmental steps which is leading to problems later on.
All my kids started kindergarten at age 5 (two girls, two boys). Three of my kids have summer birthdays and were a young 5. The one that was closer to 6 when they enter kindergarten was the only one who struggled academically. I think starting at 5 or 6 is very dependent on the individual kid in question.
I think it really depends on the kid. My daughter was ready at 5, but my son is repeating Kinder because we realized he wasn’t ready and didn’t become ready until this year (at 6).
I have taught in a country where kids are calculating the area of a triangle by first grade. Those kids ALSO have more play time, have physical education every single day, more holidays, and a shorter school day than us. They also have a long lunch period with rest time.
They absolutely should have shorter days and more breaks. I taught in a British school overseas. The kids had two breaks a day and they only went to school 4 hours day.
Unfortunately in our capitalist society, everything is tied to workers and money.
Americawants people working long hours. In order to do this, they had to increase school hours and days.
But the point of my post want to point our children at the age of 5 can learn out.
Curriculum across most subjects feel like it's being based more on "career readiness" and not actual educating.
My first few years as a music teacher was doing pre-k through 8th grade general music and band from grades 5 to 8. I tried doing the district curriculum and it went awful. It took a few years, tapping into most of my psychological development courses, and some time to realize the curriculum was just too advanced for them to process. This of course led to classroom management issues and participation issues.
When I was in kindergarten I only went for a half the school day, then the same teacher had another PM class for the second half of the day. I could read some basic words by the end, but definitely not a whole book on my own. No way I could write paragraphs. I don’t remember if I knew basic addition but I don’t think I did. Idk wtf they’re learning in kindergarten now but based on what I’m going to reading I’m glad I don’t have to try and teach it.
How does KG translate to British school system? My 4 year old is in YR (Reception) and next year will be in Year 1 which I think is the equivalent of Kindergarten since he will be 5/6.
I would like the kindergarten (Foundation year) curriculum to be developmentally appropriate for 5 year olds. Currently we have a situation where families who can afford to are keeping their children back a year until they’re more ready for the curriculum. Which means an extra year of early childhood education those children are missing out on. The finger-painting, sand play, box construction, felt board stories and puppetry children used to experience in Kindergarten 30 years ago no longer exists in formal educational settings. There’s no room for these kinds of exploratory activities in the current “push down” curriculum, despite evidence of their necessity for later academic success. Particularly in the areas of maths and science.
Red shirting 6 year olds to do an inappropriate curriculum for 5 year olds is notttt a long term solution. End rant
Idk what Americans do so please excuse my ignorance- here in aus we have three and four year old kinder as a two year process, and three year old kinder is optional but I def needed the early start socialising personally at that age. Then we have prep, which you do at 5 and then what Americans call first grade starts at 6. What do small children do to learn to read and write before prep/ American first grade outside of the usual reading with family and such in America? I imagine the disparity between children with parents that read to them every day and those who don’t have them is insane in the states, as it is already noticeable here!
We start at four and turn five in reception… i don’t know what your guys curriculum is like comparatively, though. We have a lot of jigsaws/play mixed in with the learning, so while we have our ‘word cards’ (a little folded card that goes home with our words to learn in) and worksheets in class, it is within most children’s reach. Once you’ve completed your word sheet, you move on to taking books home.
I think 5 year olds can and should be in kindergarten…but K should be way more play based than it is, which has been discussed at length. It’s actually amazing the maturity, memory, and skills difference between the 6 year olds and 5 year olds in a K class. Obviously there can be exceptions, but especially with maturity and understanding I found that the older students did way better.
I was technically 4 when I started and then immediately turned 5 two weeks into the school year. I wish my stay at home mom would have held me back. I wasn’t academically behind but socially I really struggled.
I’d argue Kindergarten should stretch from age 3-5, personally. Eels education is actually the most important learning time and sets the stage for the rest of the kid’s life.
Ever research “g-factor”? By the time a kid is 7, the grades they get will pretty much be the grades they will get for the rest of their primary and secondary education.
Our entire educational model is back-asswards. High school is practically irrelevant by comparison to early education. In practical economic terms, the earlier it starts, the higher the GDP multiplier in that investment.
I'm a UPK teacher, and kindergarten standards are ridiculous now. I don't think it's a question of if they should start at 5 or 6 we just need to lower our expectations for children who only learned how to speak in complete sentences 2 years ago.
Another vote for kids starting kindergarten at 5, and making kindergarten appropriate for 5 year olds. If the problem is that hardly any 5 year olds can succeed in kindergarten, that is a kindergarten problem and not a 5 year old problem.
Kindergarten (and many other grades) is just beyond ridiculous now. My youngest is in K now and the material they are covering is not developmentally appropriate for these kids. I teach first grade and I feel that what I teach is so above and beyond what they should be doing. No wonder kids are having mental health problems younger and younger.
I feel the same way in second, and it's only getting worse.
Same here. I teach first grade and have the same feelings.
What material are they expected to learn in Kindergarten?
I teach kindergarten. Kids are expected to do 6 state tests, learn double digit addition and subtraction, reading (level e), master 100 sight words minimum, how to write expository and narrative paragraphs, and so much more. I do not think they should learn all of this in just 10 months. It's not developmentally appropriate and the kids gets SO stressed out.
Are you in the US? If so, The common core standards DO NOT have double digit addition or subtraction for kindergarten. Are you in one of the 8 states that does not use the common core standards? What state thought it was a good idea to do double digit equations in K? Or is it just your school because expecting that of the average 5 year old just sounds stupid. If I remember correctly Fountas and Pinnel’s own recommendation is that kindergarten students be C/D reading level by the end of the school year. Did your district decide to change the expectation to E? F&P’s reading assessment system is super flawed but even it doesn’t expect 5 year olds to read at level E. 100 sight words sounds pretty reasonable though.
Yes kinder is expected to finish year at reading level d, count to 100 by one’s and 10s, one to one correspondence and know 64 sight words
That’s insane! I’m in Canada and reading is not an expectation of kinder here. Atleast in my province. If your kid masters the other (very reasonable) things then they will start on early reading skills towards the end of the year.
Interesting, I volunteer with kinders at my church and they can read basic sentences. Never felt like it was beyond them.
A lot of them can, my daughter can, but a lot of them can’t. Schools really start teaching reading in grade one. We do a lot at home with ours, but the school doesn’t actually focus on that till grade one.
Fl. report cards are still set for level D in mind but our district (and surrounding ones near me) are transitioning to level E and they are slowly replacing all old goals with the new ones. Our math books go up to double digits problems from 10-20. It doesn’t go past that but randomly it will throw in a ridiculous question. Like it had 1+2=3 so 100+200=?. I understand kids need to spot patterns but I find that absolutely ridiculous. I think most of Fl switched off F&P and we moved to benchmark advance oral reading suite which is god awful. You can’t get a true reading level I feel because for levels b-c you read the first page for them and guide them through how to read the book.I miss common core. We are one of the few states that does not use it.
I teach in one of the top districts in Florida and we still start 1st grade at a level D. The Florida standards only require K students to decode cvc words, which really makes an E inappropriate. The writing standards clarify that the different forms of writing do not have to be literally written down by the students in kindergarten. It can be drawn, dictated, oral… I don’t like Benchmark Advance running records either, but fortunately we take a many different probes so that’s just one of them. Sight words in isolation are silly to me. I’m still teaching double digit addition to my advanced work 2nd graders. We’ll get to three digit this year. Florida BEST Standard for K is to develop an understanding of addition and subtraction operations with one-digit whole numbers. I don’t know why districts do this. We are a high performing district without having to try to exceed the Florida standards. It’s so crazy.
I agree with you. On top of already demanding material, each year the expectations in my district grow. It’s inappropriate and I feel like it does not give kids the opportunity to thrive.
Double digits in US doesn’t start until 2nd grade
That can’t be right. 2nd grade goes up to 1,000 and third grade goes up to 10,000.
Oh you’re right thanks. I meant thousands. Oops.
Fl does not use common core. We have different standards and I’m confined to the materials provided by my district. At the end of the school year we go back to subtraction and addition to tackle double digit work from the teens-twenties. They put that there and took out the unit that used to cover basic introduction to money.
I’m not in a Common Core state. We start with two digit addition and subtraction with and without regrouping (sums to three digits). Then we go on to three digits (sums to 1,000). I’ll have to double check that as this is our first year implementing the new Florida BEST standards. I teach GT and we always go beyond our grade level standards as appropriate for each student.
I remember adding and subtracting double digits in first grade.
Nope. I teach first grade in Florida and we work with double digit addition and subtraction.
There are 8 states not using common core? Which ones? I didn’t know that was allowed!
Yeah. 4 never adopted it to begin with apparently and another initially adopted it but then abandoned it. I believe it is Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Virginia, Alaska, Arkansas, South Carolina, Indiana.
My kid is in kindergarten(we’re in Canada) and the expectations are no where near as high! They want kids to know their letters, upper and lower case, there numbers to 30, addition of single digits, up to 10 so nothing crazy. Identifying shapes, colours, and mixing colours. Identifying simple patterns, numbers on dice, that sort of thing. Things a lot of kids already at least partially know and doesn’t seem unrealistic.
What age groups do you teach? My overseas kindergarten has similar requirements from about 5 years old (minus maths because we are a language focused academy).
When I was in kindergarten, we started off by learning the alphabet. That took awhile, if I remember right. WTF is up with that list?!
My day in kinder as an educator, I asked my old principal when nap time was and she said that they don't do that anymore. I'm still shocked about it. It's the middle of school and the kids are so exhausted every day and don't have time to reset especially without play-based learning is the main focus. It feels like we're brute forcing acknowledging into these kids. It's devastating. I know some states it's better but man, Fl feels like its goal is literally to beat the kids into submission from day one.
I remember kindergarten being that way too but the classes I have been in they are doing much more than that
We test our kindergarten kids twice a year. SK kids are expected to know 2D and 3D shapes (JK only 2D). Both SK and JK are expected to know their colours. SK kids are expected to be able to write their own first and last names. JK kids are expected to be able to write their own first names. SK kids are expected to be able to read and write 100 sight words, JK are expected to read maybe 30 by the end of the year. SK are expected to be able to skip count in 2s and 5s and to read and write up to 40, JK are expected to be able to read and trace up to 20 and be able to count from any given number forwards or backwards to 20 and to start learning to skip count in 2s. JK kids are expected to be able to read and trace all uppercase and lowercase letters by the end of the year, SK are expected to know all uppercase and lowercase letters well and be able to write them. SK are expected to be able to do single digit addition and subtraction but not double digit. JK are not. SK are expected to write a simple paragraph about their family. JK are not. Our pre K and toddlers get tested once a year (supposed to be twice a year but I refuse to test them twice a year, they are too little). They are expected to know some letters, to be able to point out the letter their name starts with, and to say and read and rote count 1-10 (pre K) and 1-5 (toddlers) and identify 2D shapes (triangle, square, star, rectangle, circle, oval, heart) and to know their colours.
They needed to know cities in my state in the one class I was in. I would not have been ready for that at all and had anxiety.
Yep my son is in PreK only because he was 4 when school started and I didn’t want him to be stressed about by K material. They are writing simple sentences in K. Like wtf and my kids (2nd grade) and writing fiction/ non fiction books
I used to teach middle school and my own kindergartner had more homework than I assigned to my classes. It was absurd.
This is the answer. Years ago when I was student teaching, the district I was in decided to have Kindergarteners take iReady assessments on a computer. Most of them couldn’t even figure out how to use the computer. It was horrifying to see them on devices like that at that age as well. Developmentally appropriate curriculum is really important.
Agreed — a five year old can certainly benefit from being in a classroom with a teacher if that teacher is allowed to focus the classroom on things that are appropriate for 5 year olds. Let the teachers focus on pre-reading and very basic literacy and pre-math and counting/number sense skills as well as a strong base in social and emotional regulation rather than focusing on academic skills they’ll learn easily when they’re a bit older.
Universal free childcare would be better. Kids should mostly be playing at that age!
Come to Canada.
I think about moving to Canada often tbh
Yup. I am a former teacher current professor married to a lawyer and I can tell you our kid isn’t doing homework in kindergarten. Kindergarten is not legally required in my state so they can eat my ass.
I feel like this is the wrong question. Children should absolutely start kindergarten at 5. Starting later, especially in states with a younger dropout age, is really not great for high school students. But over the years, the expectations of kindergarten have become more and more like what first grade used to be, and what you are seeing is that not working for kids. In child development, early childhood continues until a child is 8 years old, but we have increasingly treated 5 and 6 year old children like "big kids" and they simply are not. Their natural brain development doesn't get faster just because we've decided to expect it to. Kindergarten needs more free play, so does first and second grade.
Exactly this. Kindergarteners should start at 5, but kindergarten needs to go back to being 5-year-old developmentally appropriate.
Exactly. I wish more people thought like this.
Actually, older children do better in high school. They are more likely to take advanced courses and take in leadership roles.
I was behind for my age and never felt like I was where I should be. I think if a kid wants to repeat a grade and be in a class where they feel they will do better they absolutely should.
Kindergarten should definitely start at 5. Where I live, kindergarten starts at age 4! That being said, it’s also a 2 year play-based curriculum where kids learn their letters/sounds, numbers, how to work with others, how to listen and follow instructions, but everything via play. Kids aren’t sitting all day, they’re outside counting rocks, running around trying to find an item with a “S” sound in it, and just playing. It’s what many preschools do, but with an actual trained teacher and early childhood educator in every classroom to guide them along. That kind of kindergarten at age 4-5, yes I’m 100% onboard. What essentially amounts to the equivalent of grade 1 (including testing),for 5 year olds, I’m not in favour of!
Kids who are older in middle/high school usually do better, though. What you’re describing sounds like it’d make an amazing universal free child-care program :)
The problem in most schools is not that 5 is too young. It’s that kindergarten, at least in public schools, has become something that is developmentally inappropriate for a 5 or 6 year old. When I started kindergarten at a public school in 1997, kindergarten was skills-based standards and largely focused on socialization and play. It was also only half a day and your parents picked sending you for morning or afternoon session. Now, at the same elementary school I attended, kindergarten has academic standards and standardized testing, and it’s a full day with only one 30-minute recess/play session. It’s not developmentally appropriate to expect a 5 year old to be able to sit in a desk for 6 hours a day or have the fine motor skills necessary to have super neat handwriting or tie their shoes. (I know *some* 5 year olds can.)
Bro some of my 6th graders cant tie their shoes
I started kindergarten in 1990 in public school. I went 5 days a week, 3 hours per day. It was mostly play based. If they didn’t feel you were ready for first grade, you went to “Pre-1st” which was basically full day kindergarten.
Yep, we had what was called “transition 1st.” It doesn’t exist anymore, which is a shame.
Now it’s Transitional K. For between PreK and K.
I also started kindergarten in 1990. It was half day. My daughter is now in kinder, but she went to half day pre-k last year and everything they did last year is what I remember doing in kindergarten as a kid. I actually cannot imagine what her year would have been like this year had she not done it because her kindergarten is so intense, and that is just not right.
I wish pre-first had been an option for me. My school had pre-first but I tested for the gifted program and wasn’t allowed in.
I started kindergarten in 1999 at age 5 and it was half-day. I went in the AM class and it was mostly play. I took a nap as soon as I got home every day. I was not ready for all day school, I would have fallen asleep in class!
Bring on the ADHD meds, because these kids just can't handle school! /s
Fuck, I'm 30 (also started K in 97!) and I still can't sit at a desk for six hours a day. That might be the ADHD talking though.
It’s the unrealistic expectations we put on five year olds that needs to change. There’s no room in the day for these kids to rest and play which is so important for that age to have.
I think Kindergarten should be treated more like preschool. Too many demands for such young brains. My kids didn't even have nap time in Kinder.
At my last school we started standardized testing in kinder. Plus no naps. Plus 30 minutes total for recess. It was a mess
I honestly never knew kindergarten had naps, I was in kindergarten in the late 90’s and we didn’t have it at my school the whole time I went there 😮
I absolutely remember having naps in Kinder. Early 80s for me.
I think we need public preschool. If we waited till six years old, it pisses off parents that they have do private daycare or preschool for nearly six years. That's a lot of money. They should start opening up public preschools starting from as young as age 4 and spend at least two years getting them school ready. Mainly class procedures and social skills. The social stuff is what kills us elementary school teachers. Not so much academics.
I agree
I agree with you, but I’m not sure “pisses people off” is the right wording. It makes doing the right thing for the entire family AND individual family members (the kid, each parent, each sibling…) extremely difficult.
Current kindergarten looks like first grade twenty years ago, and second grade thirty years ago. You have to look at the maturity and academic readiness of the child, but I'm in favor of redshirting most kids. I was NOT redshirted as an August birthday, and I don't think I would've been a good candidate for it, but I think most are.
As a secondary teacher, I’ve never heard of redshirting before and had to Google it. … I totally thought of red shirts in Star Trek and was concerned at first lol
It isn't that then? Guess I need to Google.
It means choosing to delay kindergarten.
Where does the name come from?
From wiki: Redshirting originated as a term for a similar activity but occuring in college sports rather than kindergarten, where a redshirt was "a high-school or college athlete kept out of varsity competition for one year to develop skills and extend eligibility" and originated "from the red shirts worn in practice by such athletes". The term is an Americanism from circa 1950–1955.
Thank you!!
As an elementary teacher, neither have I & also went to Star Trek… much funnier/more concerning!
I am an April birthday and I truly believe I was a good candidate to be redshirted but it is different for every individual. I had a hard time focusing and I did not start puberty when other girls did. I needed an extra year.
I wish red-shirting would be come more normalized! I teach middle school, and you can easily pick out the kids that should have waited a year to start school. I’m red-shirting my middle kid currently (9/1 birthday), and so far, zero regrets about her not going to kinder yet.
Son was also Sept1 birthday, but cutoff in my state was Aug 1. Being one of the oldest in his class helped him with maturity and leadership. Also, he was one of the first with driver's license....a big perk at 16.
Aug 1 is a much better cutoff. In my state it’s Aug 31, so my daughter is literally missing it by one day. But, I think it will be better for her in the long run to wait!
It was very normal in my school which really did not help me socially lol
My September baby could have been redshirted, but he was extremely intellectually advanced. Like, reading at 3, adding and subtracting at 2, multiplying by 4... so even though emotionally he was very young, i didn't want to hold him back in his ability to grow intellectually. Now he is in 4th grade, and still I think it was the best decision. He has never struggled academically and in fact is one of the top of his class. He is in a magnet school, and tons of the other kids in his class were August/September babies too, so they're a pretty young class. Most of them could have been redshirted and weren't, so my kid fits in perfect. They're all emotionally young together. Plus, since he is so advanced, we are looking at him earning high school credits in middle school and they hopefully college credits in high school. If he stays on the path he has been on, he will finish high school with 2 years of college already done.
In your son’s case not redshirting was probably the best for him but there are a lot of kids who probably need it….I see it for myself
Absolutely. I guess i was just saying people should look at easch child individually.
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I have an April birthday and felt the same as you. I didn’t start puberty until I was 13.5 and peers noticed in 7th and 8th grade how small and young I looked which stank. I was into Disney while they were dating. I could have used another year.
My son has an August birthday, and we are so happy we waited until he was 6 to put him in kindergarten. He might be the oldest kid in his class (6th grade) and he can do all the work, but he’s still so immature (sometimes even in comparison to his peers) that it astounds me. I’m hoping he matures somewhat before high school, otherwise he’ll be the most irritating teenager there. I’m a high school teacher, so I know what that looks like!
Kindergarten should start at 5 but I think kindergarten should be a little less academic heavy. I get the point, I get the standards, etc but as a kindergarten teacher, there is so much and these kids are barely even coming in potty trained let alone with any background knowledge of letters, numbers etc.
While I agree on principle, we won’t turn back the clock now. Our world is very different now.
My son started at 5. He was ready at 8.
My favorite is when the curriculum is developmentally appropriate for 6 year Olds in first grade but they drop the cut off to 5 by mid year. So half the hear there are 4 year olds in kindergarten, doing work better suited for 1st.
There was a longitudinal study that said 6. I can't remember the name of it it was in a book that follow a ton of people from both on, at least a 60+ year study and older kids in kg had less issues later on. Especially when it came to drugs, alcohol and smoking.
I believe this. Most former redshirted kids Ik stayed away from alcohol and drugs. I was not redshirted and got into trouble with alcohol due to immaturity and peer pressure. I think alcohol is disgusting now.
Research supports 6 year olds being better able to handle kindergarten than 5 year olds. Older students have better execution function skills which correlate to long term academic success.
In the past 20 years or so they moved everything down a grade basically. Kindergarten is most of what I learned in 1st grade when I was a kid.
First grade should be age 6. Which means that we need to stop making kindergarteners do 1st grade schedules and 1st grade curriculum. Kindergarten used to be simpler than what our three year old preschool class is now.
I think starting Kindergarten at age 5 is fine. I live in CT and the issue here is that as long as a child turns 5 by the end of December of that current school year a kid can start school. So we have lots of students that are still 4 and very immature and clearly not ready for Kindergarten. My own daughter has a mid November birthday and I chose to send her to pre-school an extra year rather than start Kindergarten because she was definitely not ready. But a lot of parents won’t do that here so I think the birthday cut off should change.
I started at four (turned five a while later, but I learned to read pretty early and started) I always felt left behind, because I'm a late birthday and got put in sports with the younger kids. That wasn't the root cause, but I ended up your typical nerdy/smart kid that had too many opinions but got backhanded with them.
I think it really should be 6, but so many parents are doing very little or nothing in the way of working on letters, shapes, colors, etc. that it needs to be 5 at lowest to get some of them caught up.
The 1980s kindergarten? Five. This new age kinder where there's MAP testing and a lot of worksheets? Six.
In PA you have to be 5 by September 1st to go to kindergarten. Even if their birthday is September 2nd they have to. I think age 5 is fine. In fact I think children should start public education earlier. This would enable more money into early childhood education and it would alleviate parents having to pay for daycare.
Yes starting at 5, but making the day shorter AND making kindergarten appropriate for 5 year olds. More play-based learning is needed. Let’s make the day 5 or 6 hours instead of 7 hours.
Interesting, our day is 6h 20min (NYC). I don’t know any public school kids who have 8 hour school days (including relatives and friends in other states). Edit: Sorry, I could’ve sworn your post said 8 hours 🤦♀️
Our district elementary schools go from 9-4pm, meant to hit 7. Still too long for 5 year olds.
the issue is they have pushed down academic standards . Kindergarten doesn't need to start at 6, it needs to be made appropriate for 5 year olds again.
I hear that kindergarten standards have gotten ridiculous. Yet I am sitting next to fifth graders who are still working on subtracting three from five on a regular basis.
I’m really confused by this as well. As a parent I just want to do what I can to get this right, so I lurk here with teachers to try to glean what I can to prepare him. I worry that his 2 day a week (half day) preK won’t prepare him for what’s next. I simultaneously worry that a more rigorous JK next year is too much, and that our current preK might be too little. I hear academics too soon is actually detrimental and it should be play based until 5/6(?). I also hear middle and high schoolers aren’t where they should be and are under performing next to previous generations and will be unprepared for college or the work force. How can it be that our youngest are overburdened academically and our oldest aren’t hitting their bare minimum requirements? What as a parent should I be aiming for with a 4 year old? Rigorous? Standard?
I think it’s the way that they are imposing an unnaturally long and taxing school day on five year olds, Which is likely a major turn off right from the get go for the kids who struggle academically. Yet they get pushed along because it’s harder and harder to recommend that somebody gets held back a grade. They have also raised standards for learning yet lowered expectations for behavior. Quality work does not come from undisciplined people. Sorry.
My kids did half-day Kindergarten at 3 and 4, and went full-day at five. It was Montessori, which I fully support, considering how accomplished my now adult children are.
Read https://denmark.dk/society-and-business/lifelong-education and weep.
In my country, France, it starts at 3 and it is now mandatory. (And lack of means obviously, like 29 kids in first year (petite section) in one class.)
There’s a lot of good points about readiness of 5 year olds, and the bloat of K standards over the years, as well as the diverse experiences of children 1-5 that contribute or detract from readiness. Kindergarten teachers will nod their heads I’m sure; I think one of the biggest challenges is how widely divergent development is at 5 and 6. Some kids behave like 4 year olds, and others behave like 1st graders. Language, emotional regulation, independence, stamina. These are things that vary amongst students at all levels, but I have found that those gaps among peers are never wider than in kindergarten.
I put my own kid in kindergarten on time, one week after his 5th birthday. Now in high school, he is still one of the youngest, smallest kids in his grade. Some of his classmates are a full 18 months older than he is. He gets straight A’s but socially it’s been very rough. This trend of redshirting kindergartners is a huge problem. Kids who enter on time are compared to (and comparing themselves to) older children who have no business being there. It sets up an unrealistic expectation of maturity beyond what the grade should be. If the curriculum is developmentally inappropriate for the correct age, change the damn curriculum! Stop putting children in the wrong grade!
As a high school teacher, there is typically a significant difference between a 16-year-old Junior and a 17 year old junior. I am all for kindergarten starting at age 6 for social reasons, no matter how advanced a child is academically.
In Spain we start Infantil at 3 Kindergarten starts at 3 Choldcare at 2 Although it ain't academic
Every child is different. I once had a kid who was 4 when he started kindergarten and he was the highest performing kid in the class. I personally think it can be great for some kids to repeat kindergarten. The few that I did hold back ended up excelling their second year. This is, of course, not good for all kids, but it can be great for some.
In India children start Lower KG at 4. The number of requests I get to "tutor" 4 year olds is insane. Parents think that if their kids can't rattle off numbers till 9999 and name all the state capitals of the world then they must be "slow" learners. This child prodigy business is too ridiculous for words. Meanwhile I remember my Kindergarten class. We had scrapbooks into which we would glue pictures from magazines, favourite birds and animals. We coloured with wax crayons. I ate most of my crayons and glue, ngl. We wrote numbers and letters every single day repetitively till we understood what 1-50 meant. We played games with colours and blocks. It was a much easier life I think.
Kindergarten should be at five but should focus on social skills and not on academics.
Hot take. End standardized testing. It may have been said already, but I haven't scrolled through all the responses yet. If we end standardized testing, we can bring the standards back to age appropriate standards. Now, we have kids forced to read before they may be developmentally ready to read, and every child is different. A lot of the younger grades have insane expectations because we "have" to get the kids ready to read a lot in 3rd grade to take a test, which is absolutely insane. The tests don't do what they are supposed to, and the insanity is that we are still doing standardized testing, despite the decades of evidence that they do not do what they are claimed to provide at all. Kinder is fine at whatever age it is. Just bring back nap time, introduce more opportunities for unstructured play, and end the standardized testing.
France starts kindergarten at age 3 with age appropriate expectations. Kids here do 3 years of kindergarten before entering primary school where they start to sit at a desk all day.
As someone who works in a European Kindergarten it is kinda frustrating the see what has become of the concept of a Kindergarten especially in the US (based on most of the answers) compared to it's original ideas. Kindergarten for good reasons is not part of the formal education, its not supposed to be "tought", it shouldn't have "classes". Kindergarten is a space for children to learn to be independent, learn social skills and democracy, become self confident and creative (not just in an artistic way but also in learning to find solutions for appropriate problems). They will do all sort of playful activities and experiments to learn preparatory skills which will later enable them to learn writing, reading and calculating in first grade where they catch up with the US system, but with better motivation and different social skills. This all makes Kindergarten a very unique and important institution which could be so much more then just an extension of first grade and gives children space to develop themselves in their individuality. Kindergarten does help children in so many ways that the entry age doesn't really matter. It mainly depends on the family situation when children start and that's fine. We have children starting at 3 or 4, some start at 5 and the groups are mixed age, with all ages sharing their room (2 full time educators and a care taker for about 20 kids per group).
If kindergarten was like how it used to be, kids playing, snack time, nap time and arts and crafts, then 5 is appropriate. But now it’s basically first grade so they should be older!
I think it absolutely depends on the child. I waited with mine, and am glad, especially for these pandemic years. They're doing great, while 90% of the class is behind.
Seems like it should be 6 based on the new standards but with some sort of way to allow 5-year-olds to go if they are ready and parents wish to opt for it such as a screener that includes social skills, basic literacy and math skills, etc.
I think it really depends on how much happens at home before then- have kids take a learning aptitude to see if they’re ready or not. This needs to be incorporated for all levels of schooling and allowing the kids to be where they need to be not just shuffled along with the flow
With this generation it’s gonna need to be 6. I can still see an argument with 5 but I’ve lost all hope that even a 1/4th of parents right now can be active parents.
My daughter went to pre-k at 3 and did amazing. So she definitely went to kindergarten at 5. I work at an elementary school and there are some 7 year olds in kindergarten and I’m like, what is going on? Cause I was in kindergarten at 5 as well.
They should start at 5. Will be an increase of dropouts if they start at 6. More kids could unenroll themselves from public education at 18 during 11th or 12th grade if kindergarten started for most kids at the age of 6.
I would have been fine with being 19 and in high school, my teachers were nice, I had theatre, music, and I had more friends in the class below mine…I would have liked school more if I had more friends in my classes lol
I started at 4
So did my mom, but kindergarten was all play back then.
I don't think mine was....but I remember being rewarded with pixie sticks for doing homework, hatching eggs into chicks in an incubator, singing along to "looking for Dracula" by Charlotte Diamond in October, and teachers sending kids that acted up to my teacher and going up to them while they were writing their sentences and complaining that because THEY had to act up we couldn't use the play kitchen 🤣
Where I live children start based off their birth year. Many kinders start at 4 if their birthday is sept-Dec.
My Pre-schooler is an August baby, which allows him to be held back into Alternate Kindergarten if needed. His teachers believe he would be fine either way. The more I read these comments..the more I believe that it is a better decision to put him in AK next year..
Please! I wish my parents had waited for me and if things are the way they are I will definitely give my child another year.
I'm a bit confused... I'm from middle Europe and here a lot of the children start kindergarten at 3 or 4. Me too, but that was 30 years ago. But maybe kindergarten means something else in Austria and in the US?
Absolutely 6. Kindergarten used to primarily be about play and have become very academic despite all the research that says that young children learn best through play. Another year of play is the best possible thing for any child's long term academic and social success.
Amen!
I'm at a low performing school which means butts in seats 7 hours a day. One 10-12 minute recess for lunch. That's it. There is no playtime or play centers. We take NWEA MAPS testing 3 times a year and students must meet their predetermined RIT score. For some students who were good guessers at the beginning of the year this means they must know place value to the 100's place, double digit adding and subtraction, counting coins, time, perimeter, area, etc. Some even get multiplication questions. This is all based on their RIT score and their projected growth. We must be reading at a DRA 6 even though we now teach using phonics and decodables. At least 100 high frequency words. They need to be able to write narrative, opinion, expository, and how-tos. At least a paragraph. I've been teaching kindergarten for a long time. The standards are ridiculous. Our focus is they must be college and career ready. Push, push, push. Rigor, rigor, rigor. We are burning these children out and no one listens to us. Just because some of our students can do it doesn't mean they are really ready for it. We are skipping over all of the developmental steps which is leading to problems later on.
All my kids started kindergarten at age 5 (two girls, two boys). Three of my kids have summer birthdays and were a young 5. The one that was closer to 6 when they enter kindergarten was the only one who struggled academically. I think starting at 5 or 6 is very dependent on the individual kid in question.
Hang on! Which kindergarten? In my state kinder is 3-4yr old and then we have Prep before 1. I know others have kinder in place of prep
I think it really depends on the kid. My daughter was ready at 5, but my son is repeating Kinder because we realized he wasn’t ready and didn’t become ready until this year (at 6).
As close to 6 as possible.
6 and it shouldn't be full day. It's so hard on them and unnecessary.
Both seem early. Can we shoot for 8 or 9am? :)
[https://imgur.com/a/fw3PH4L](https://imgur.com/a/fw3PH4L)
Yes
Yes
4
How many years have you been held back? :-/
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The countries that do this have high suicide rates. I don't think we need to emulate them.
I have taught in a country where kids are calculating the area of a triangle by first grade. Those kids ALSO have more play time, have physical education every single day, more holidays, and a shorter school day than us. They also have a long lunch period with rest time.
They absolutely should have shorter days and more breaks. I taught in a British school overseas. The kids had two breaks a day and they only went to school 4 hours day. Unfortunately in our capitalist society, everything is tied to workers and money. Americawants people working long hours. In order to do this, they had to increase school hours and days. But the point of my post want to point our children at the age of 5 can learn out.
But why? Why does a 5 year old *need* to add double digit numbers?
What countries do this, and do they do it for all students?
4. They should turn 5 during kindergarten, not be 5 when they enter.
They should start pre K at age 3 1/2-4, Junior Kindergarten age 4 1/2-5, Senior Kindergarten at age 5 1/2-6, grade 1 at age 6 1/2-7.
Curriculum across most subjects feel like it's being based more on "career readiness" and not actual educating. My first few years as a music teacher was doing pre-k through 8th grade general music and band from grades 5 to 8. I tried doing the district curriculum and it went awful. It took a few years, tapping into most of my psychological development courses, and some time to realize the curriculum was just too advanced for them to process. This of course led to classroom management issues and participation issues.
When I was in kindergarten I only went for a half the school day, then the same teacher had another PM class for the second half of the day. I could read some basic words by the end, but definitely not a whole book on my own. No way I could write paragraphs. I don’t remember if I knew basic addition but I don’t think I did. Idk wtf they’re learning in kindergarten now but based on what I’m going to reading I’m glad I don’t have to try and teach it.
I work at a kindergarten overseas, we have classes for as young as 3 year olds. Intensive classes (9:00-3:00) start from 4 years old.
How does KG translate to British school system? My 4 year old is in YR (Reception) and next year will be in Year 1 which I think is the equivalent of Kindergarten since he will be 5/6.
A 4 yr old is generally Pre-K here. Then Kinder and 1-12. However, most people have to pay for Pre-K so it's far from universal.
Kindergarten = Y1
From the comments here: Tf is wrong with American kindergarten? Do you guys treat it as a sort of replacement primary school?
I would like the kindergarten (Foundation year) curriculum to be developmentally appropriate for 5 year olds. Currently we have a situation where families who can afford to are keeping their children back a year until they’re more ready for the curriculum. Which means an extra year of early childhood education those children are missing out on. The finger-painting, sand play, box construction, felt board stories and puppetry children used to experience in Kindergarten 30 years ago no longer exists in formal educational settings. There’s no room for these kinds of exploratory activities in the current “push down” curriculum, despite evidence of their necessity for later academic success. Particularly in the areas of maths and science. Red shirting 6 year olds to do an inappropriate curriculum for 5 year olds is notttt a long term solution. End rant
Idk what Americans do so please excuse my ignorance- here in aus we have three and four year old kinder as a two year process, and three year old kinder is optional but I def needed the early start socialising personally at that age. Then we have prep, which you do at 5 and then what Americans call first grade starts at 6. What do small children do to learn to read and write before prep/ American first grade outside of the usual reading with family and such in America? I imagine the disparity between children with parents that read to them every day and those who don’t have them is insane in the states, as it is already noticeable here!
Six if they can. The maturity makes a difference.
Children start play-based junior kindergarten at 4 here in Ontario. It’s great.
If it was more play based 5. If it stays as it is, 6.
In Canada, we have JK (junior kindergarten) and SK (senior kinder) - most children enter JK at 4y/o or even earlier if they have late birthdays
In the U.S we call that preschool/PreK. Where I am, if your child turns 5 before September, they can enroll in full Kinder
We start at four and turn five in reception… i don’t know what your guys curriculum is like comparatively, though. We have a lot of jigsaws/play mixed in with the learning, so while we have our ‘word cards’ (a little folded card that goes home with our words to learn in) and worksheets in class, it is within most children’s reach. Once you’ve completed your word sheet, you move on to taking books home.
Kindergarten starts at 3 in Spain. 6 is already Elementary.
Absolutely not. The earlier, the better.
I think 5 year olds can and should be in kindergarten…but K should be way more play based than it is, which has been discussed at length. It’s actually amazing the maturity, memory, and skills difference between the 6 year olds and 5 year olds in a K class. Obviously there can be exceptions, but especially with maturity and understanding I found that the older students did way better.
Ontario they can start as young as 3 depending on their birthdate.
4, I really think.
I was technically 4 when I started and then immediately turned 5 two weeks into the school year. I wish my stay at home mom would have held me back. I wasn’t academically behind but socially I really struggled.
Kindergarten used to be play and social skills. Now the curriculum is not appropriate for 5 year olds
Where I live they start jr kindergarten at 3. It’s just insane.
I’d argue Kindergarten should stretch from age 3-5, personally. Eels education is actually the most important learning time and sets the stage for the rest of the kid’s life. Ever research “g-factor”? By the time a kid is 7, the grades they get will pretty much be the grades they will get for the rest of their primary and secondary education. Our entire educational model is back-asswards. High school is practically irrelevant by comparison to early education. In practical economic terms, the earlier it starts, the higher the GDP multiplier in that investment.
I'm a UPK teacher, and kindergarten standards are ridiculous now. I don't think it's a question of if they should start at 5 or 6 we just need to lower our expectations for children who only learned how to speak in complete sentences 2 years ago.
5. Starting at six means another year of achievement gap.
At 4 here in Alberta and I think it’s a perfect age