Quote:
Originally Posted by alum
Again, when one makes the assumption that all 4 1/2 yo children are not ready for a structured kindergarten, one is assigning an arbitrary maturity level to certain age groups. There are kids (not mine) who are born in the early spring of the following year that are ready for kindergarten at 4 years, 6 months. Having a kindergarten readiness test available for these kids will determine if the kid is truly gifted/precocious as opposed to what the parents think.
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The difficulty here becomes evident when choosing whom to allow to take the test in the first place. If you argue that saying four and a half is an arbitrary figure agewise, then under that same argument, someone with an extremely bright and gifted three-year-old might think her child deserved to take the readiness test and, assuming the child passed the test, start kindergarden with the rest of the five- and six-year-olds. Physically and developmentally, it is more obvious to see where three years of age is nowhere near ready to start school with these children regardless of mental capacity; however, the lines are blurred when the age in question approaches closer and closer to the norm for kindergarden, which is usually five years old. I'm personally a fan of the September 1 cutoff, which is pretty standard in my area and AFAIK in my state as a whole.