Comments on: When to start kindergarten?

By: Gabriele

Gabriele — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:45:44 +0000

There are a lot of arguments from both sides (advocates of earlier or later admission). No one should forget, that parental care, especially in early years of young human, is something that could not be overestimated. It is not only the matter of education, but also emotional development of child.

www.kindergarten-duesseldorf.de

By: Search: Every thing basic we need to know we learn in k,garten - Verizon Online

Search: Every thing basic we need to know we learn in k,garten - Verizon Online — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:28:30 +0000

[...] shopping.msn.com/reviews/preschool-success-everything-you-ne… [Found on Google] 11. When to start kindergarten? : Almost As … Blue – Yeah, we all know people who … your mind is ready to learn and starts doing so. These [...]

By: smilnstace

smilnstace — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:18:40 +0000

i am currently considering this dilemma. my daughter will be five in may and able to attend k-garten in the fall. she went to nursery school last year and she’s going to Preschool this year. She loves school but i still think we will hold her the extra year. i have been giving lots of thoughts as to my motives. i am not a “helicopter” parent. i just think that you have your entire life to be on a schedule why start if you don’t have too. my child is relatively intelligient; she did lots of things early but she is small for her age and she is an ACTIVE child. Lots of comments come my way about her being ADD. Which i found interesting in the article that younger children are often diagnosed as ADD. A few things i have read say well the younger ones are behind in the beginning but they catch up by grade 3 or 4. so, because they “catch up” it’s okay to make their educational experience more challenging?? I don’t think so. Yes, there will be an addtional cost to keeping her home another year. But for me…the financial expense it places on us for one year is better than the several years it might take her to “catch up”. We will also be sending our son a year later as well.

By: hipm0mmy

hipm0mmy — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:27:20 +0000

My child will start kindergarten this fall, a year older than she had to be to start. She is very advanced already and so I think kindergarten will be very easy for her.

As a society, why are we in such a rush to send our kids off to school? It was great to let the joys and freedom of childhood play out another year. Older children naturally have the advantage socially and academically. To acknowledge and act on that idea is not ridiculous or calculating as a parent, but instead, respectful of your child’s well-being.

By: Shripriya

Shripriya — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:57:59 +0000

@all – I think it just depends on each child. Some children learn faster and are fully capable of interacting with children who are older – they should be encouraged to do so. The Kindergarten/Primary school I went to was particularly good at identifying these kids and making sure they were in a class of their “intellectual peers” versus their “chronological peers”.

For others, their chronological peers are their intellectual peers and they are in the right group for their needs.

As long as the child is happy and learning, that’s what is important.

By: Sunny

Sunny — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:36:58 +0000

My son is 2 and i am sending him to Nursery which will take 1 year.
then next year he goes to Lower Kidergarten for 1 year and then upper kindrgarten for 1 year. Then he will be 5 when he goes to class 1. I think thats not too early or too late.

I also remember reading about the mind and other peoples’s experiences including the geniuses and also watched some programs on discovery and nat geo.
As soon as you open your eyes into this world , your mind is ready to learn and starts doing so. These basic things that one learns are so basic that we do not feel our child is learning anything, but actually some of the most complex things are learned then. Adjusting to the light. Focus adjustment of the eyes to far and near things. learning to hear and judge where the sound is coming from.
Judgement of the toy in front and calculating the distance and then extending your arm enough to catch it and then grasping it to bring it closer is one of the most important thresholds of life that a child crosses in a few months. If you see a mentally challanged child , who is unable to do so even after several years , you will understand the importance of it.

So the child still learns whether he/ she goes to school or not.
You only ensure adding a certain things to his curriculum by sending him to school like language and numbers. Also another important thing is that a child or any person learns much more from his friends, siblings and competetors than his parents. As sometimes the child feels presuured y the parents instructions as the parents are always instructing and luring the child to eat , sleep , change , take bath etc. on time.
so the child also learns a lot by mingling with other kids in school.

You may ask that if the mind is ready to learn always then why does a three year not learn calculus. The answer is that the calculus is a ten step claculation which involves ten other calculations which a child learns and practices first so that he can do it together. So in order to do calculus first one needs to be efficient with the previous calculation steps, which is taught in steps year by year to the kids.

By: mumbaigirl

mumbaigirl — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:54:15 +0000

I only know what I’ll feel when I have kids, but this is something I think about a lot…especially when I see some of the over competitive parents around these days.

By: Lotus

Lotus — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 11:03:41 +0000

Both my kids started school really early, they were not even three when they went to a kindergarten prep class…the only disadvantage to that is that when they joined the mainstream, they were a little bored in class because they knew so much more than the other kids. But things evened out in a couple of years and now they are both doing fine in their respective grades…Grade 10 and 6 (French Immersion).

Thanks for a nice, enlightening post!

By: Deepti

Deepti — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 01:56:55 +0000

I hear this new theory and I wonder what would we then say about the new fad catching on in India,which is to prepare to send your 3 year old to prep school,which are unaffordably expensive, to prepare them for a head start at an age when they can absorb the maximum.

This is like those theories that came out earlier. ” An egg a day is good for you”, then “Eat just the egg white a day and that is good for you”, ” Egg once a week is good for you”.

So eventually you realise , Excuse me boss, let me decide what is good for me from all that is thrown out and figure out what works best for me.

By: Shripriya

Shripriya — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:10:51 +0000

@ Priyank – that is indeed a scary story. I think the problem is the pressure of the Indian system. If you aren’t topping, it is almost impossible to get into college. I guess that pressure is going younger and younger!

@ Indira – Seems like that is the norm world over now. Japan, China, US, India…

@ Radha – Great to hear that your kids are happy even though they are young for their class. I think a lot of it has to do with the parents and how they supplement their kids’ education – whether they are young, correct, or older for their class.

@ Fourth Ump – You are right in that not all parents want/do what’s best for the kid. … I started writing reams here on how parents can mess up a child, but I deleted it Let’s just say I’ve seen parents mess up kids for life with their “efforts”!