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Is Your Child Ready for Kindergarten?
Determining if Your Child is Ready for Kindergarten
By Felicia Hodges
Like most parents, Shana and Bill Rogford worried a great deal about their son, Jon, as he approached every age and developmental stage from teething to toilet training. But the thing they say they obsessed most about was deciding whether or not he was really ready for kindergarten.
"His birthday falls really late in the year, so we worried about the fact that he would turn 5 only a month or so before some of his older classmates would turn 6," says Shana. "We wanted to be sure we weren't pushing him into a stage he wasn't quite ready for."
Is there such a thing as starting your child's formal academic career too soon? Can you really know if your child is ready to begin kindergarten?
While many school districts rely on age as the determining factor, some educators believe that the most important aspect to determining if a child is ready for kindergarten is how much previous experience he or she has had in a school setting.
"Don't underestimate the preschool experience," says Brenda Sanders, an elementary school principal who has been an educator for the past 28 years. "The social aspects that children learn from preschool are invaluable. We may see it as play and fun, but play is serious work for a child. It ends up helping a 4-year-old acquire the tools he will need in kindergarten."
Sanders notes that many of the children she sees who come into kindergarten without any preschool experience at all have a difficult time in group play (because it involves sharing and learning how to work cooperatively with others) and often have trouble with the concept of a school day routine, especially in a full-day kindergarten setting.
