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send or not to send?
By Early Childhood Teacher

Cathy-Dee has some very good advice in her post. I teach early childhood special education. When one of our students is age eligible and academically "ready" for Kindergarten, but does not yet have the maturity (we feel)
to handle our district's "heavy on curriculum, light on the play" approach to kindergarten, we'll advise waiting a year. We tell the parents that it's a "gift" of another year of childhood, allowing them another year to play before they have to get down and working. We (honestly) tell parents that no one has ever come back & said they were sorry to have held their child back, but we often

get parents that come back and wish they had followed our advise. Personally, I have a son that I wish I had held back. The early years he kept pace, but 4th, 5th, 6th were a big struggle.