Roo: Redshirting

[woodwardiocom]

Not that many years from now, Roo will be entering kindergarten. Where we live, the cutoff date for determining age eligibility is September 1st. Roo's birthday is August 24th, so if we send her off to k.g. as soon as she's eligible, she's likely to be the youngest in her class.

I've been reading up on redshirting (choosing to postpone entrance to kindergarten), and the data seems to be mixed. Certainly, we don't know how mature Roo will be in four years. (Currently she seems to be very smart, reasonably socially ept, and a skoosh below the average in height-n-weight.) Do any of my many friends with backgrounds in education have opinions?

Comments

[tactical-grace.livejournal.com]

There is really no point in worrying about it yet.

Both of our kids were summer babies, and so are on the young end of what would be their academic peers if they went in at the normal time.

The elder one jumped in and is both academically and emotionally in step with the other kids in his grade, and so we saw no reason not to keep him going.

The younger (who would have had a September birthday had he not been six weeks and, um, fifteen minutes early) went to Kindergarten and was judged to be not ready to continue (on an emotional maturity level). Fortunately, our town offers Pre-First, where he spent a year and is now doing just fine.

But I have no idea how I would have made that choice too far in advance -- you'll just have to wait and see how she develops. In general, girls seem to be able to adapt to a classroom setting earlier than boys, at least according to the reading that I've done.