Too Young for Kindergarten?

[J_Clark]

Hello!

Newbie homeschooler here with some questions and maybe some angst with figuring things out. My daughter turns 4 in June, we have been doing the MP Pre-K curriculum this past year with the thought that I would stretch it out over longer than an academic year (we welcomed a new baby, number 3 in January so I knew we would be inconsistent with school and not get through all of the material in a year), and we would start Kindergarten when she was 5. Once the newborn phase was behind us and my feet were underneath me (a least a little better), we have been consistently doing school and I am really feeling like she is ready to move past letter recognition and their sounds and move on to phonics- I feel she is very very "reading ready". She knows all of her letters and their sounds, and her writing of them is coming along. Is it foolish to move her forward at such a young age? I was not planning on Kindergarten for her until she was 5 but she loves doing school and I don't want to hold her back. I also don't want to put her on a track she is not ready for socially and emotionally, if that's will be a concern for her later in life.

Any experience or wisdom regarding when to start a child in Kindergarten? Her comprehension of the stories we read (and savor!) in the Pre-K curriculum is also pretty good as well.

I have really enjoyed reading all of the threads posted here and appreciate your time and thoughts!

Jess

[klwalukas]

I would start K and go at a pace that works for her. Some girls are ready at 4, so try and see how it goes. You can always slow it down if it gets to be too much!

[Colomama]

First off, I would take the summer off, you all deserve it. Just because you CAN school 24-7 365 days a year doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Next, Jr. K is a 2-day a week program. I would continue that pace with kindergarten in the fall. That will stretch it out for you both.

My experience...my precocious learner blew through Jr. K in half a year. We started kindergarten early. She blew threw it too. I have intentionally slowed her down (my main goal was to keep her from passing her older brother a academically). She can work faster, but it's also nice to let her be a kid.

Now I know some other parent is going to come on and say "let her run". The hard part, that I've experienced with letting your child go a breakneck speed / their speed, is that we parents have a hard time ratcheting it back when they start to struggle. In fact, we have a hard time realizing that they're struggling. We just keep saying, "she's so smart. She can do this. She has so much potential. Push harder".

So, I would start k, but with a slow pace. The level of work, the attention span, the fine motor skills need time to catch up and keep up with her reading. And kindergarten is more than reading. It's handwriting, math, memorization, etc. all mixed together.

My precocious learner has caught up to her older sibling. She'll be going into third grade next year and she's rocking it. She's right on track for age and she loves school. It's easy. We add Pathway Readers and more free reading to her day. She's done in an age appropriate timeframe and has lots of free time to follow her passions...reading and writing.

[Michelle T]

You really can’t go wrong with either moving through the Junior K materials and focus on penmanship, rhyming, number sense, playing, and reading to her, or going ahead with K and taking it slower.

Should she take off in reading, we can help with that too!

[CherryBlossomMJ]

My oldest was this, JrK at 3, K at 4, 1st at 5, 2nd at 6, and started 3rd at 7. It wasn't until 7-8 that she hit a wall when realizing that her sister wasnt jumping into school. We kept only, but at her pace and now at 9 she has just finished 3rd. It has taken her a while to complete this full school year of curriculum, but we dealt with a lot. She is now fully in 4th (will be 10 in the end of July) and should finish by Christmas if not by September.

I have lots of blog posts and reviews of the MP products from JrK-2nd on my website.

Doing it again, as long as we move forward, I'm trying not to stress the pace or her age. Second daughter didn't really get into school early like her sister. She was 6 before she was really interested and only now has started reading at 7. She is in a mix of SC 3 and SC 4 and will be 8 in early August. I'm not sure if the next school year will continue SC 4 or if she'll be ready for SC 5/6 (3M). Time will tell.

And the third, my son is slowly doing JrK at 4. It is not difficult for him, it is more an interest and time issue.