Re: Starting Kindergarten - Help!

April 19, 2004

I would take some articles in supporting retention in pre-K. There have

been some great ones posted here which you could probably find in the

archives if you put 'kindergarten " in the subject line.

I would bring in documentation from your MD or whoever stating that your

child is neurologically and developmentally a year or so behind so giving

him an extra year in pre-K would be meeting his needs. I would try to get

a note from any professionals that he works with (pediatrician, therapists

of any sort, etc). I remember taking letters in from my son's Sunday school

teacher one year when we were fighting placement in a self-contained class

which we felt was inappropriate.

I would also go into the IEP meeting with the notion that you won't back

down. The school might expect to " smooth you over " at the IEP meeting.

Often if you stand your ground they will realize that there is no use in

trying to push you in the other direction.

Maybe the school will surprise you and be receptive to the people who know

the child best --- the parents!

Isn't there a pre-K program in your district? What my son did was attend a

preschool for children with speech difficulties for 2 years (he started at

age 3) and for his 3rd year he went to the mainstream pre-K so we used the

mainstream pre-K in the mornings as a stepping stone to kindergarten (next

year) with therapies in the afternoon (both school therapies and private

therapies). Is there *any* sort of pre-K program in your district?

The best thing about having my son do an extra year in pre-K is that we do

all his therapies in the afternoons so he can participate in

extra-curriculars (soccer, etc) in the after school hours just like the

other kids. Plus, he hasn't had as much time to just be a kid since he has

spent so much time in therapy. These kids really need time to play and grow

up.

Hopefully his therapy schedule will be less intense next year when he is in

full day plus he will have increased endurance so he is able to handle

therapies after a full day of school.

Does your son receive any sort of private therapy? If so you could use that

as another reason that you want him in pre-K next year. You could say that

he needs the other half of the day to do private therapy.

When my son's school was pushing for placement in kindergarten, their angle

was that my son could do kindergarten twice. Here is an interesting article

on kindergarten retention.

" Research Link / When Children Aren't Ready for Kindergarten

H. Holloway

How can schools promote the achievement of children who are old

enough to enroll in kindergarten but who are not developmentally

ready to succeed? Two approaches that parents and schools commonly

use are delaying the child's entry into kindergarten and retaining

the child in kindergarten for an extra year.

Giving children an extra year, whether through delayed entry or

kindergarten retention, makes sense in view of the ample research

suggesting that the youngest children tend to lag behind their

classmates. West, Denton, and Reaney (2000) found that in the spring

of their kindergarten year, younger children had lower reading and

mathematics knowledge and skills on average than did their older

counterparts. These researchers also found that older kindergartners

were more likely to persist at tasks, more eager to learn, and

better able to pay attention.

Delayed Entry Versus Kindergarten Retention

To avoid the disadvantage suffered by younger students, some parents

choose to delay the entry of their children into kindergarten. Zill,

Loomis, and West (1997) found that children whose kindergarten entry

was delayed so that they started kindergarten when they were older

performed better than their younger classmates in grades 1 and 2.

These researchers concluded that the extra year before starting

kindergarten does not harm the children who are held out and may

help most of them.

In contrast, the researchers discovered that children who repeated

kindergarten were doing worse than their younger classmates on most

school performance indicators by 1st or 2nd grade. For instance, two-

thirds of the retained students had received some negative feedback

from teachers compared with less than half of the nonretained

students. The retained students were also much more likely to have

problems concentrating, to perform below their capabilities, and to

act up and disrupt the class. Zill, Loomis, and West concluded that

repeating kindergarten had not helped those children and may have

actually made matters worse.

Reasons for the Differences

What explains the difference between the school performance of

delayed-entry children and those who repeat kindergarten? Both

groups of students are older than most of their classmates, so why

don't the beneficial effects of being older apply to both groups?

Some possible answers are that

The underlying developmental problems of the two groups may differ.

The two groups may have different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Parents who choose to delay their children's school entry may have a

higher level of awareness and involvement.

The stigmatizing effect of being required to repeat a grade may harm

children's academic progress.

(read full article)

http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/200304/holloway.html

Tricia Morin

North Carolina

[ ] Starting Kindergarten - Help!

I am reading the posts about starting Kindergarten and am in a

similiar position. My son will be five in July. He has just gone

thtough his evaluations (no diagnosis - Auditory possibly) and it

was determined that he is ready for Kindergarten with special

services in the afternoon.

My view on Kindergarten was always to keep him back delayed or not.

Now I am between a rock and a hard place. I feel what is best for

him is to attend prek-4 again. I know though that my town will not

agree to that because he is doing so well and he goes out of

district and it will cost too much money. I just feel very strongly

that another year in prek to mature and catch up will make a world

of difference.

My question is can I demand that he go to prek and still receive

services because I do not want to lose services for a year. Then he

may regress? Can I demand he go to the town mainstream prek and

receive services. The problem with that is the prek is afternoon

and that is when they do their special services. What are my

rights? My iep is less than a month away and I do not know what to

do.

Thanks in advance for any adice/suggestions.

April 19, 2004

Having just gone through my daughter's IEP where I managed to

convince the school to keep her in first grade for another year, my

experience was that I had to make the case that my daughter's

developmental delays, both social and cognitive, equate to her

actually being developmentally younger than her chronological age and

therefore it is a more appropriate placement for her to be with

younger classmates. (They would not agree to retain her due to

academic difficulties, as these can be addressed by the IEP.)

I had a report from a developmental pediatrician who backed me on

this, as well as support from the school's speech and occupational

therapists, the school psychologist, and the resource teacher. My

daughter's teacher, the school principal and the district program

manager were not really in agreement with my decision, mainly because

our district has a " philosophy " of not retaining children, but they

acquiesced to my decision.

I don't know if you will have much luck asking for a repeat of pre-K

if the evaluations show that your son is ready for kindergarten,

although I wouldn't think they can force you to enroll him in

kindergarten since he does have a late birthday and would probably be

one of the youngest in class. Does your local school offer a summer

program for kids transitioning from preschool to kindergarten? Maybe

he could try that and you could get feedback from the kindergarten

teacher as to how ready he seems.

> I am reading the posts about starting Kindergarten and am in a

> similiar position. My son will be five in July. He has just gone

> thtough his evaluations (no diagnosis - Auditory possibly) and it

> was determined that he is ready for Kindergarten with special

> services in the afternoon.

>

> My view on Kindergarten was always to keep him back delayed or

not.

> Now I am between a rock and a hard place. I feel what is best for

> him is to attend prek-4 again. I know though that my town will not

> agree to that because he is doing so well and he goes out of

> district and it will cost too much money. I just feel very

strongly

> that another year in prek to mature and catch up will make a world

> of difference.

>

> My question is can I demand that he go to prek and still receive

> services because I do not want to lose services for a year. Then

he

> may regress? Can I demand he go to the town mainstream prek and

> receive services. The problem with that is the prek is afternoon

> and that is when they do their special services. What are my

> rights? My iep is less than a month away and I do not know what to

> do.

>

> Thanks in advance for any adice/suggestions.

April 22, 2004

This subject hit close to home for me. I am get ready for my DS 4yrs

6mos. IEP on April 27. Since he is 5 yrs. before Oct 1 (only by 9 days) his is

not eligible for the pre School program, there for no funding to pay for him.

What we are doing is keeping in pre school (which is where we all feel is the

right place for him) with sending him to Kindergarten for 30 minutes a day of

social activity such a music, are or centers. this way he is get exposed to

social activity of his own age group. The activity is left to his preschool

teach

to chose each day. He will remain in the pre K part of preschool the rest of

the school day {we has half day Kindergarten and preschool in or school

system]. We are requesting his OT and ST to be schedule in the afternoon after

preschool is over. This way he will not lose any more time in his program since

he

will be leaving for 30 minutes each day. Now on the record he is attend

kindergarten for social development ( eligible for funding now}, and we he enter

it

next year at 6yrs old he will not be repeating it. I hope I explain this so you

get the idea of how we beat the system and keep everyone happy. If you have

any further question please feel free to email me privately if you like.

Good Luck

Mom to 15 with ADD, Zac 11 in gifted program, and apraxia and

DSI.

April 22, 2004

I want to thank everyone who responded to my post. I called my case

manager and asked her if my son could go into the mainstream prek-4

and receive his speech therapy just as if he were in kindergarten.

She sounds very accomodating but she needs to check with her boss.

I know who her boss is and can guess it will be a problem.

I am prepared to fight for what I want because I beleive that is

what is best. In a way I am being discriminated against if they say

no because if my child were not classified I could do the pre-k and

put him in kindergarten at the age of six. My district does not

like to sway from their normal routine so I think I will have a

fight on my hands.

The case manager offered to put him in a program for children that

come back into district (they only offer out of district special ed

pre-k) for an extra year before starting kindergarten. My problem

with that is #1 - I would like my son to be with the children that

he will be in kindergarten the next year so he has the opportunity

to make friends with. and.......#2 - My district will lump him with

children of all disabilities and I want him where he is challenged

rather than held back. Please don't take that the wrong way. It is

just that he is doing so well and I firmly beleive that it is

because he not only is in speech impaired school this year but also

a " typical " preschool where is not known to be different.

Well thanks for the advice and I appreciate everyone taking the time

to answer my questions. I will keep you up to date.

> I would take some articles in supporting retention in pre-K.

There have

> been some great ones posted here which you could probably find in

the

> archives if you put 'kindergarten " in the subject line.

>

> I would bring in documentation from your MD or whoever stating

that your

> child is neurologically and developmentally a year or so behind so

giving

> him an extra year in pre-K would be meeting his needs. I would

try to get

> a note from any professionals that he works with (pediatrician,

therapists

> of any sort, etc). I remember taking letters in from my son's

Sunday school

> teacher one year when we were fighting placement in a self-

contained class

> which we felt was inappropriate.

>

> I would also go into the IEP meeting with the notion that you

won't back

> down. The school might expect to " smooth you over " at the IEP

meeting.

> Often if you stand your ground they will realize that there is no

use in

> trying to push you in the other direction.

>

> Maybe the school will surprise you and be receptive to the people

who know

> the child best --- the parents!

>

> Isn't there a pre-K program in your district? What my son did was

attend a

> preschool for children with speech difficulties for 2 years (he

started at

> age 3) and for his 3rd year he went to the mainstream pre-K so we

used the

> mainstream pre-K in the mornings as a stepping stone to

kindergarten (next

> year) with therapies in the afternoon (both school therapies and

private

> therapies). Is there *any* sort of pre-K program in your district?

>

> The best thing about having my son do an extra year in pre-K is

that we do

> all his therapies in the afternoons so he can participate in

> extra-curriculars (soccer, etc) in the after school hours just

like the

> other kids. Plus, he hasn't had as much time to just be a kid

since he has

> spent so much time in therapy. These kids really need time to

play and grow

> up.

>

> Hopefully his therapy schedule will be less intense next year when

he is in

> full day plus he will have increased endurance so he is able to

handle

> therapies after a full day of school.

>

> Does your son receive any sort of private therapy? If so you

could use that

> as another reason that you want him in pre-K next year. You could

say that

> he needs the other half of the day to do private therapy.

>

> When my son's school was pushing for placement in kindergarten,

their angle

> was that my son could do kindergarten twice. Here is an

interesting article

> on kindergarten retention.

>

> " Research Link / When Children Aren't Ready for Kindergarten

>

> H. Holloway

>

> How can schools promote the achievement of children who are old

> enough to enroll in kindergarten but who are not developmentally

> ready to succeed? Two approaches that parents and schools commonly

> use are delaying the child's entry into kindergarten and retaining

> the child in kindergarten for an extra year.

>

> Giving children an extra year, whether through delayed entry or

> kindergarten retention, makes sense in view of the ample research

> suggesting that the youngest children tend to lag behind their

> classmates. West, Denton, and Reaney (2000) found that in the

spring

> of their kindergarten year, younger children had lower reading and

> mathematics knowledge and skills on average than did their older

> counterparts. These researchers also found that older

kindergartners

> were more likely to persist at tasks, more eager to learn, and

> better able to pay attention.

>

> Delayed Entry Versus Kindergarten Retention

> To avoid the disadvantage suffered by younger students, some

parents

> choose to delay the entry of their children into kindergarten.

Zill,

> Loomis, and West (1997) found that children whose kindergarten

entry

> was delayed so that they started kindergarten when they were older

> performed better than their younger classmates in grades 1 and 2.

> These researchers concluded that the extra year before starting

> kindergarten does not harm the children who are held out and may

> help most of them.

>

> In contrast, the researchers discovered that children who repeated

> kindergarten were doing worse than their younger classmates on most

> school performance indicators by 1st or 2nd grade. For instance,

two-

> thirds of the retained students had received some negative feedback

> from teachers compared with less than half of the nonretained

> students. The retained students were also much more likely to have

> problems concentrating, to perform below their capabilities, and to

> act up and disrupt the class. Zill, Loomis, and West concluded that

> repeating kindergarten had not helped those children and may have

> actually made matters worse.

>

> Reasons for the Differences

> What explains the difference between the school performance of

> delayed-entry children and those who repeat kindergarten? Both

> groups of students are older than most of their classmates, so why

> don't the beneficial effects of being older apply to both groups?

> Some possible answers are that

>

> The underlying developmental problems of the two groups may differ.

>

> The two groups may have different socioeconomic backgrounds.

>

> Parents who choose to delay their children's school entry may have

a

> higher level of awareness and involvement.

>

> The stigmatizing effect of being required to repeat a grade may

harm

> children's academic progress.

>

> (read full article)

> http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/200304/holloway.html

>

> Tricia Morin

> North Carolina

April 22, 2004

I am glad you having some positive dialog with the school about this. It is

a start!

Upon reading this email, I had one more thought. If worst comes to worst

and the school doesn't want to let your son be in pre-K, maybe you could

find a private Pre-K and just bring him up to the school for his therapies.

Regardless I would go see the program you mentioned below " for kids that

come back into district before starting K " . You might want to make sure you

can see your child functioning well in the class (based on the level of

functioning of the other kids, the routine, etc)