Nephew not enjoying kindergarten

Parent Cafe
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<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>I have a relative that is not enthralled with kindergarten. He says they do the same lessons over and over again and it’s not interesting. But I’m also hearing that he hasn’t learned to read and doesn’t know how to write letters and numbers, but finds it very boring.</p>

<p>The student like video games and television. I’m wondering if he doesn’t enjoy kindergarten because it’s not as fun as playing video games or television.</p>

<p>Others are concerned he might have learning disability.</p>

<p>I clearly don’t know enough to be sure, but am wondering what to pay attention for and to hear how often kindergarteners are bored with school already.</p>

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<p>Couple of things to mull over. </p>

<p>How old is the boy? Older or younger than the median in his class? How is his 'readiness"? How is the school? Public, parochial, or private? Half day or full day? Day care or extended day? Had he done a preschool or day care before kindergarten?</p>

<p>There are so many different ways of “doing” kindergarten – my gut feeling says that it’s November and if he is not engaged there’s a reason. I don’t know if the reason is the school or the kid, but I would somehow try to make a change if it were my child. </p>

<p>And part of the change might be to “break” the video game and “disconnect” the cable TV. I assume he’s been screened and/or evaluated for hearing and vision and learning issues …</p>

<p>As a parent, I might visit some other options for this year and see what might be available and more interesting if this school isn’t doing the job.</p>

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<p>At many schools, a parent-teacher conference is scheduled in November – usually in connection with the first marking period report card. This might be a good time for the kindergartner’s parents to get the teacher’s perspective on how things are going.</p>

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<p>Does he seem bright and articulate? Does he take interest in book when being read to? When was he introduced to video games and how often is he allowed to play them?</p>

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<p>True quote from my daughter when she was in pre-school: “All we do is play, play, listen, decorate and play.”
Which is neither here nor there, but still makes me chuckle.
As for your nephew, is he happy to go to school each day? Is he reluctant? Does his kindergarten class allow for enough active play?</p>

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<p>Boys can have a lot of issues. At that age, he could be not ready, or the environment in the classroom might not be right for him. My son actually was expelled from preschool on his 5th birthday. It was a wonderful private school and my daughter thrived there, but the “center” concept (a lot of different activities going on at once) was over-stimulating for my son at that stage of his development. Ultimately, we found a school with a “calmer” environment (more traditional) and he did better.</p>

<p>It can take boys a lot longer than girls to settle in.</p>

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<p>Learning to read in Kindergarten? Not supposed to happen. Kindergarten is about teaching kids the basics of how to learn in schools: come, sit, stay, relax, line up, wait, pay attention to the teacher… A friend of mine describes Kindergarten as “basic German Shepherd”.</p>

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<p>My mother came home in tears from her first day of school back in 1932, because she hadn’t learned to read that day. Somehow she’d got it into her five year old head that since you learned to read at school, it must be something that was done on the first day. Her father who taught the upper grades at that little rural two-room school had to calm her down and tell her that learning to read would take more than just one day.</p>

<p>Perhaps all that is called for, is for someone to sit down with this child and find out what he expected school would be like, and what he had thought he would do there every day.</p>

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<p>Kindergartens can vary widely, as do kindergarteners. The type of kindergarten that pushes age-inappropriate structure down to that level is not what I would want for ANY kid. And my kid could read independently when he entered K: that has nothing to do with it.</p>

<p>That said, it sounds as if this particular kid might benefit from being “unplugged.” It also sounds as if he should be watched or tested at the school level for LDs. While some kids have issues with fine-motor control and perfectionism that make them reluctant to write, not being able to do it at all at that age could indicate an issue, assuming that he comes from a home where people read and he has been exposed to it before. (It’s hard to imagine any kid getting through preschool these days without exposure to letters and numbers…)</p>

<p>Kids often say they are bored as a defense mechanism if they have difficulty doing something. Of course they also say it when they really ARE bored! :slight_smile: If I were his parent I wouldn’t get unduly worked up, but I would start exploring the situation with his teachers.</p>

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<p>Back when I was evaluating younger children, I finally decided there should two cutoff dates for kindergarten - one for boys and one for girls. I would have chosen a six month difference. </p>

<p>Actually, in my first years as a school psychologist I spent a lot of time in the spring discussing readiness with parents. I was part of a pretty innovative multi-disciplinary evaluation of incoming Kindergarten students. All children who were age eligible were enrolled, but with some children we talked to parents about their option to delay a year. The factors I said to consider were the gender and the age in September, physical size, siblings, experiential background, estimate of intelligence, maturity, general inclination towards school tasks - coloring, cutting, etc., as well as what would the child be doing if he or she were not in school. No video games then - just TV to worry about. Or firesetting, but that’s another story. </p>

<p>Rarely in my 30 plus years (although it did happen occasionally) did I hear a parent lament when their child was in high school that they should have started the child sooner. I did, however, often hear parents say they wished they had kept their child home for another year. Often they wish their son (usually) had a little more maturity as they head off to college. That is when I tell them that we only know the downside of the path we have taken - maybe the other path would have had pitfalls as well. </p>

<p>The biggest message you can convey to the parents is that lack of readiness does NOT mean lack of intellect.</p>

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<p>The first child described could have been my son. He is now at UM, majoring in engineering. At the first fall conference of kindergarten, the teacher told me my son might need to repeat kindergarten - that he didn’t seem to be adapting well. (and no, at the beginning of the year he did not know how to read, etc). I asked if I could come in and do a mindless task (like stapeling) one day so that I could observe him without being obvious about it. The entire time I was there he sat with his elbow on the desk and chin in hand. Afterwards I told the teacher that he was bored … that I realized he needed to color before he could write, and that other activites were for fine motor control, but that until he started actually LEARNING something, he would be bored. That ended up being exactly the case. By the end of the year he was reading well, and went on to be an excellent student all the way through graduation. He never did learn to like “activities”, but enjoyed learning. Oh yeah, his favorite activity is still video games.</p>

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<p>newphew clearly not CC material… will never get into an Ivy.</p>

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<p>Hmmm…not here. Here kindergarten children do learn to read, write and do arithmetic and basic math reasoning. By the end of the year, they are EXPECTED to read a non-repetitive book and write a three to five word paragraph to a prompt. They are expected to know all letters and the corresponding sounds to them. And they are expected to be able to write with decent phonetic spelling. In addition, there are 100 sight words they are expected to know. They are expected to count to 100, tell time to the hour, count with 1:1 correspondence to 20, identify coins, understand the calendar, and know basic geometric concepts. etc.</p>

<p>Welcome to the world of “no child left behind” where the academic ante has been and will continue to increase. </p>

<p>As a long time educator, I will also add, we are seeing more anxiety in young children than in past years.</p>

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<p>I have sent three kids with late birthdays to Kindergarten. Academically they did fine. Socially they did fine. I think it’s largely dependent on the child, the family structure, what kind of pre-kinder programs the child participated in and age alone is no predictor.</p>

<p>Which means I have also sent 2 out of 3 of my kids to college as 17 year olds. Again, no issues. </p>

<p>I have no regrets. They all went through testing to find out if they were Kinder ready. They were. </p>

<p>Most of the academic/social stuff levels out by 3rd grade from my experience in the classroom.</p>

<p>The expectations of kindergarten has changed over the years - yes, NCLB has impacted what kids are supposed to learn that year.</p>

<p>I think we are pushing them faster than they need to, and am not surprised about anxiety in younger and younger kids.</p>

<p>Athletically, being one of the younger kids probably impacted my boys more than my daughter. They weren’t as competitive as other kids in their grade as they got older. My daughter seems to be the exception to that rule in our family. </p>

<p>On a side note, when it comes to dating. A high school senior can be anywhere between age 16-18 at the beginning of the school year. One of the downsides to keeping your kid out of school when they are younger, is that they may be quite a bit older when they graduate. There is a huge range, and it’s a little scary that some boys are 19 when they graduate dating 16/17 year old girls. Or younger.</p>

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<p>dmd I have to disagree, like thumper’s post in our neck of the woods what you describe is called pre-K. Many kids do pre-K at age 5 and K at age 6. They do learn to read, count, etc. in K, no “nap time” etc. The OPs relative would do well to talk to the teacher. The pre-K/K teachers generally have great insight into social readiness above and beyond what the standard tests portray. I had one that tested Kindergarten ready but I felt socially he would do better with pre-K and then K. I was correct. He’s doing very well in college now and went off to college 18 going on 19. My other two started regular K just barely 5 but were fine also.</p>

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<p>both my kids went to private schools when they were 5- oldest already knew how to read, but she was in a 5s co-op program which was really science oriented- it was great- youngest was in an interesting tiny school which had dedicated classrooms for reading/social studies/math/ art etc and the groups of 7-10 kids moved between the rooms.</p>

<p>However, I went to public K when I was 4- already knew how to read- it was a half day program ( now virtually all classrooms are full day) and it was pretty much boring as heck.
I was too young- regardless of the reading- another more " experiential" classroom would have suited me better than a very traditional school in the early 60s
:frowning:
I like mixed age classrooms for that reason, kids vary so much and they can learn alot from each other.</p>

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<p>I think Kindergarten has changed over the yrs because most children now do @ 2 yrs of pre-school, so they are already familiar with the basics.</p>

<p>In our school district it is not expected to be reading when they enter more than words like Cat, dog, etc. However, by the end of yr they are expected to be able to read and comprehend what they have read.</p>

<p>I don’t believe it is a learning issue, but more about the fact that the child doesn’t want to do work.</p>

<p>If I were the parents I would be concerned because as I once was told by a Superintendent K-2 are the grab the kids yrs. If the child hates school now, it is not going to get any better, and most likely worse.</p>

<p>The parents need to be brutally honest with themselves. They need to look at the curriculum from the school district and evaluate their child. There is one thing about cutting or coloring within the lines, another if they do not have the ability to write the alphabet out from memory. </p>

<p>It might be time to unplug the tv and sit at the kitchen table doing things together. It does have to be homework it can be fun things like baking a cake, where you teach them math skills or playing dominoes. </p>

<p>Kindergarten teachers usually try to make learning fun, they understand that they have a short attention span, so if he isn’t having fun during a short lesson, than there will be more issues as the yr progresses and expectations rise.</p>

<p>In our last state, it was a parental right state, and you really couldn’t hold back the child without their consent. I will tell you 2-3 yrs down the line, the child who was held back was thriving and very successful. The child who wasn’t, was usually held back and still struggling, but this time it was also emotional because they understood that their friends were going to 2nd or 3rd while they weren’t. In Kindergarten they have no grasp on that fact.</p>

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<p>My S missed our state cut-off by 6 weeks. He was more than ready to go to K at 4-about-to-turn-5. I really, really hate the assumption that all boys are “behind” girls. I really, really hate cut-offs that only go one way, in terms of allowing for the individual: you can red-shirt your kid, but you can’t let him or her go when ready. Even worse when they take the intellectually-advanced kid and make him do drills on stuff he’s known for two years already. Luckily that didn’t happen at my S’s child-centered schools, both public and private, but it certainly happens to many gifted kids.</p>

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<p>Agreed, Consolation. The red shirt analogy is very true. </p>

<p>I remember hearing from my pediatrician that we were "making the mistake of our lives (as parents) by sending our kid to Kinder when we did.</p>

<p>She was wrong. I found a new doctor.</p>

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<p>Please don’t turn this thread into a debate on when to start kindergarteners…that’s an age old question and not the one that I’m wondering.</p>

<p>I’m just wondering what the various reasons are that a kindergartener might be bored doing typical kindergarten lessons if the teachers feel the student doesn’t already know the material.</p>