Wednesday, December 9, 2009

4-5 year old class or 3-4 year old class?

Taking a cue from my friend's comment on which age group to put him in for the school's 2010 intake, I think it's time I put down my thoughts in writing.

I have the unenviable position of having a son born 8 weeks premature and born 4 weeks on the "wrong" side of the government cut off for allocating kids into schools. Having a gross, fine and oral motor disability and without a cognitive disabiltiy makes the decision harder.

The govt uses the calendar year as a cut off. He was born Dec 2009 and technically should be with the 4-5yr old age group when school starts next year.

Points for putting him with his academic age group 4-5yr olds (ie govt's method of following calendar year):

1. Kids learn from other kids. He likes to mimic or follow bigger kids. He'd learn behaviours expected of that age group. Also those more mature (e.g. girls) would have the chance to show him how things are done.

2. His reading skills are more advance than some of the other 4 year old kids in the holiday programme even though he's a December child. If he's pushed back one year, he'll learn the basics of letter recognition, the phonic sounds of individual letters, which are stuff he learned late last year/earlier this year.

3. The 4 year old kids are more verbal than the younger 3 year olds, in general. This would encourage him to talk. Yesterday, both my helper and I had separately noticed that he's saying more at home, and saying new stuff we've not heard before.

4. He's intelligent and observant enough to note how he compares to the others around him. (That's also a reason for putting him in mainstream and against putting him in a purely special needs setting). This point can work for or against him. It depends on his character. Will he rise to the occasion or shrink inwards? Will he see that he can't do fine motor, gross motor skills compared to the rest and withdraw? Or will it make him try harder? It also depends on the teachers and me, on how we handle the situation. I think since he wants to follow what others do, I think this point may work for him. But I will have to be very sensitive to his behaviour.

5. He'll be bored with the lessons if he's put with the 3-4yr olds. I've always tried to instill the love of learning through play, through exploration, by giving variety, by giving challenges when appropriate. I make mistakes for sure, but I try, and I think I'm doing ok. If he gets bored, he'll not learn much. He'll get disruptive. He'll lose interest in going to school. He might even lose the love of learning.

Points for putting him with 3-4 year olds:

1. Let him build up his confidence then after one or two months transfer him to the 4-5 yr olds, if he can cope. The reasoning is that if he sees that his skills are above the rest of the class, it'll boost his confidence.

However, I disagree. There'll always be a developmental gap in his fine and gross motor skills between him and his age group. Perhaps even a gap with the 3-4 year olds. After a while some 3-4 year olds would exceed his abilties too. So I dont see how his confidence can be built up in the aspect of gross and fine motor. But, his reading skills are better than the 4 yr olds, so he can build up his confidence in that aspect when he's in the 4-5 yr old class.

2. He hasn't had exposure to social skills since he's not been to kindergarten before. This point is true. But, from the 9 days he's been to kindergarten, I can see his picking this up. He's learning to line up two by two before heading out. He's learning to line up single file, to wash hands. Give him time, and with me as his shadow aide, I think he'll pick it up.

3. He'll get teased if he cant do self care skills that the 4-5 yr olds can do. Today, a boy mockingly laughed when he noticed that my son was still in diapers. True that I really have to push him on his toileting skills. That's one area I find very very difficult. But, that's still not a strong enough reason to put him in 3-4 yr olds class. Based on that reasoning, I should probably push him further back and put him with 1-2 year olds class cos most of them are still in diapers!

Conclusion:
From the above, it's obvious now that I think he should be with the 4-5 year olds. My mother's instincts may be wrong, but I will follow them....seemingly going against the advice of his principal, his music teacher (sorry!), another kindergarten principal (sorry to you too!) and a special ed teacher at SUREA. Looks like I am optimistic but am I overly optimistic? Am I making the wrong decision? After all the teachers have vast experience and training.

Advice/comments please
Please please do leave a comment or email me if you have advice or experiences to share. Email may be easier cos sometimes Blogger has very slow connection and that makes it difficult to leave a comment below.

If you do leave a comment, please dont address me by my true name, cos I'm trying to be annonymous (identifiy theft etc). Thanks!!!

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