Spring time is when registration for kindergarten begins for parents and their children. In the public schools of Maui County the date of December 31st is used as the cut off point. If your child will turn 5 years old by this date, they are eligible to attend kindergarten in a public school. This means that many kindergarten classes on Maui will start the school year with 4 year olds attending class.
Whether your child may be attending a public or private school, there’s a new trend gaining momentum through out the nation called Academic redshirting. Academic redshirting refers to a parent’s choice to postpone their child’s entrance into kindergarten in order to improve emotional, intellectual or physical skills.
Redshirting originally referred to college athletes who would not play in games for one year in order to extend their eligibility. This gave them an “extra year” to practice with the team and improve their skills for future seasons.
Academic redshirting is gaining popularity as parents want their children to be the biggest, brightest, and smartest child in class. Studies have been inconclusive whether the act of postponing a child’s entrance into school will really have any long term effects on their performance and there are arguments for and against the idea.
Maui is a little different from other school districts in the country which use the first day of school as the cut off for attending kindergarten. Discussion on the topic continues in Hawaii on the possibility of moving the cut off date up into September which would make all kindergartners 5 years old when classes begin. However, with the year round school schedule and traditional school schedule, the first day of school falls on different dates, making a set date difficult.
Private schools have different procedures for determining when a child begins kindergarten and you need to find out what those requirements are. Nonetheless, below are some suggestion to think about before your child begins kindergarten. They will help you to decide if your child is ready and give you tips to assist with your child’s transition into kindergarten. The decision is up to you and will really come down to what makes you feel the most comfortable and confident about your child’s future. These suggestions were obtained from Kid Source Online.
• Be clear about the specific characteristics of your child that cause you to be unsure about his or her readiness to begin kindergarten with age-mates. In other words, don’t delay entrance into kindergarten just because the child is likely to be among the youngest in the class.
• Check the school’s kindergarten readiness screening procedures or tests to get an idea of how your child might fare in the kindergarten classroom in which she or he will most likely be placed.
• Be assertive about finding out what the school expects of entering kindergarteners and the school’s suggestions on how you can help your youngster to be prepared.
• Solicit the views of your child’s preschool teacher about his or her readiness for kindergarten. Ask, for example, whether your child made some friends in her preschool group. Was he or she usually able to follow directions? Does your child appear to the preschool teacher to be ready to begin academic work?
• Find out more about the nature of the kindergarten program. Is it very formal? Is it organized primarily around formal instruction in basic skills or around more informal “learning centers”? Organizing children’s learning around informal learning centers can accommodate a greater developmental range of children than a formal, structured arrangement in which basic skills are taught to the whole group of children in rows of desks.
• Is the class larger than 25? A very shy child might find a large class more difficult to adjust to than he would a class of around 20 or less. Class size may be a more important consideration for a shy child than even for a child who is not shy but who lacks physical coordination.
• What else would your child be doing if she did not start kindergarten? Would the child have easy and safe access to playmates and play spaces? Are there easily available (and affordable) good preschool programs for your child?
• Ask the future kindergarten teacher for suggestions about what you can do at home to help your child reach the same skill level as future classmates.
• Be careful about conveying your own apprehension about starting school to your child. If you approach the beginning of kindergarten with your child with real confidence and sufficient reassurance, and, if possible, share any concerns with the teacher, your child will adjust rapidly.
• Be careful not to exaggerate to a child how much fun she or he will have in kindergarten. It would probably be best to say something like “you’ll make new friends, get to do lots of interesting things, but there will be one or two times when you wish you were at home. But those times will pass. You’ll see.” This kind of forewarning can often prevent a child from coming unstrung when the inevitable difficult moments do occur.
Don’t forget to look into your heart to feel what is right for your child. Your intuition on the matter may be the right way to go. If your child is young for the grade and they’re young for their age, that may be all the information you need.
