<p>Out of curiousity, did all your kids do Montessori pre-K, or just the 2nd child? </p>
<p>D. was in Montessori from age 2 to pre-K, and absolutely loved it. The only downside is that anytime we walked into a store with bins of candy or whatever that had gotten mixed up, we couldn’t leave till she did her “sorting work.”</p>
<p>We also had friends whose daughter, a June birthday, tried kindergarten and just wasn’t happy. She still wanted to play. So they made the decision to put her down in the same Montessori pre-K as my son, where she did very well ever after. </p>
<p>It really depends on the child. I did read a study some years ago saying that the kids most likely to be branded “troublemakers” or not ready in Kindergarten were the boys who were youngest and also small for their age. I remember when I was in first grade (public K hadn’t been invented yet) this was absolutely true. There were two little boys in the class who just shouldn’t have been in there. Looking back, I wonder why they didn’t take them out, instead of having them struggle for a whole year and then repeat first grade, feeling like failures. And the poor teacher!</p>
<p>conyat–just the 2nd child. The others did the standard 1/2 day preschool, then had quality time with mom at home. 
And the Montessori class wasn’t offered consistently–I think it was just for a few years when they had a teacher for it. It was there when we needed it, fortunately.</p>
<p>Oh, a Montessori parent here. I loved Montessori for my kids. Both of our sons were in Montessori school from pre-school through upper elementary. In fact our younger S was in their toddler program for a half-day, two times/wk and was reading at 2 ½. So the question of what to do with our younger S with the late October birthday was of particular concern.</p>
<p>I think everyone has touched on the major points of individual development, but we considered the additional factor of the family dynamic when faced with the decision. Our older S has a winter birthday and is roughly 2yrs 9mos older than our younger S. So the decision to send the younger S early or late impacted the number of school years apart—two or three. Developmentally they were closer to three years apart than two. So we felt like the family dynamic would be altered to send the younger S early. I guess it felt like we were erasing a year of normal development and, for lack of a better term, we wanted them to have their space.</p>
<p>But the great thing about Montessori, with multi-age groupings, individual pacing and a differentiated curriculum, you don’t have to worry so much about academic and social readiness. There is a genuine respect for individuals and a high tolerance for boys and movement. Plus we had already successfully navigated the issues of academic precociousness with our older S. </p>
<p>In our Montessori school, K is a full day, and our younger S started full days at 4 as he was ready and could handle the longer day. The next year, they just pulled elementary materials into his classroom for him as they had for our older S. Our boys are very different, but the model served them both well. It was a fantastic school for our boys.</p>
<p>There are a couple of very good Montessori schools in our area, and in fact we have the first public Montessori HS in the nation. Unfortunately the public school system rations spots in these schools, so you have to be very determined or lucky (and sometimes of the correct race to ensure balance) to get a spot. I can’t explain the apparent ineptness of the school board in the city which we live near but moved out of for this reason. Under recent budget cuts, they were even talking about REDUCING the number of Montessori spots, when these are the few schools that are working. 
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<p>Our first priority, however, was a Jewish education, so we sent the kids to a private community K-8 Hebrew school. Not a perfect school, but certainly flexible & open to different learning styles. This same S was able to be accelerated in math starting in 6th grade–he basically taught himself pre-algebra, algebra, and then geometry, with the supervision of a teacher.</p>
<p>My son has an August birthday and they tried to talk us into holding him out a year when we went for kindergarten registration. The woman said it would just be “easier” that way. His testing scores were high, he was an outgoing, independent kid, I had to wonder who it would be “easier” for. It turned out his grade was filled with boys born in the late summer and the school was desperate to turn some away. I have no regrets about sending him on time. He entered kindergarten a non-reader and came out in June as a fluent reader, it was the right choice developmentally. He is smaller than most, but honestly he’s smaller than a lot of the kids in the grade below him anyway. It’s not an issue to him. In middle school, there are sixth graders who shave, and eigth graders who haven’t reached five feet yet, so one year up or down doesn’t make that big a difference for most kids.</p>
<p>I was always the youngest in my class myself because I spent two weeks in kindergarten and they sent me up to first grade because I was a precocious reader and very tall girl. It worked out well for me. The only time it was noticible to anyone else was with the driving issue. It was quite a while from taking driver’s ed class in school til actually being able to be on the road. Not a big deal though.</p>