Opinions wanted on kids starting kindergarten late

I have two boys who are a year apart (53 weeks to be exact). At first I was planning on having my older son start kindergarten when he turns 5 and then my younger son would begin the following year. But then I started thinking that holding my older boy back a year and having him start at 6 might be more beneficial: teaching them would be easier since they would be in the same grade and learning the same material; they can collaborate and help each other learn which would strengthen their brotherly bond. Two drawbacks that I can think of is that they might become overly competitive since they would be working on the same assignments and the older boy might have an unfair advantage from being held back which could discourage the younger one. Can anyone give me feedback on other advantages or disadvantages and what you would do given the same circumstance?

So that's my personal question but it made me also think of a more general question: Are there any drawbacks for homeschoolers in having kids start kindergarten at 6? Unfortunately in the above scenario my younger boy would have to start at 5 for both of them to be in the same grade otherwise they would always be a grade apart. I don't think there is a law in any state that would prevent kids from starting kindergarten late. I think the majority of working parents just want to send their kids to school at 5 or even 4 so that they don't have to pay for daycare costs or maybe they feel their kids might be ridiculed by their peers down the line if they're older. But I don't think either of those are issues for homeschooling parents. Strictly looking at the best interest of the child, I can see this tremendously helping out kids who start late. They can take two years of pre-school so the second year they are essentially doing the work of a kindergartener so theoretically when they enter kindergarten they are learning at a first grade level. Taking this into account along with the efficiency and effectiveness of homeschooling over the public school system and they'll always be way ahead of their peers on standardized tests. They probably would score higher on the ACT or SAT in high school which could open the door for acceptance into more competitive colleges and even academic scholarships. Even in terms of extracurricular activities such as sports, being a year older would always put them at an advantage against grade-level peers all the way through high school which could make it a little easier possibly for athletic scholarships. So i'm wondering if any of you had any personal stories with this and how it turned out. Thanks.

 

Try not to think of it as "grade". For example, when my son was 7, he was doing "first grade" math, "second grade" reading, and science and history with his older sisters, ages 10 and 12. So what "grade" was he?

If your boys are ready to start, then start them. At that age, it will be more "fun" than academic. Pick topics that will interest them both: bugs, dinosaurs, seasons, space, etc. You could change the topic weekly or monthly or whenever they get tired of it and want to move on. Let them explore, explore, and explore whatever the topic is. At their age, there isn't much in the way of "assignments".

 

Thanks for the input, Jackie. So if someone asks your son what grade he is in, what would you or he reply? For all intents and purposes, doesn't there have to be some sort of designation, either to clarify for the state if you live in a state that requires testing or even for your own record keeping so you eventually know when he is finished with elementary school? I know that homeschooling means not being as rigid as traditional schools, but I actually don't mind the curriculum or the methods of traditional schools. The main reason for me to want to homeschool is so that I have a greater influence in my kids' lives and they are less affected by the peer pressure and other distractions that occur in a school setting.

 

Depends on where you live. Yes, I do have a general grade for my kids, based on their age. This helps with which Sunday School class they belong in, and stuff like that. But even so, they work on whatever level they're at. If we finish 5th grade math in February, we move on. If we don't finish the book by June, we either work over the summer or pick it back up in the fall. Grades are especially meaningless in science and history. I mean, if you're going to teach MAGNETS for science to one kid because it's an "Second Grade Topic", why shouldn't you teach it to both at the same time? Same with history. There's plenty of curriculum written to be done across grade levels.

As I mentioned, my son had two older sisters he did history and science with. We did a curriculum called "Considering God's Creation" for science. Phillip, at age three/four, would sit in and listen to their lesson and take part to some extent. So on Mother's Day, we bought a flat for Mom. We were at her house planting them when Dad came out with a bucket of water. He put a handful of green stuff (fertilizer) in it. Phillip asked, "What's that, Grandpa?" "Oh, it's just plant food to help them grow." "Oh, no, Grandpa! Don't you know? Plants make their own food from the sun!"

One of the advantages of homeschooling is being able to work on the kid's level. We're not comparing him to what other students are doing. We take as long as needed on a subject. We can think and teach "outside the box". And there may be a subject where the younger one excels and passes the older. You wouldn't want to hold him back because he's not "suppose" to be at that level yet!

Testing is to prove a MINIMUM competency. I've never done it. But we put my oldest in a public e-school at the end of her Junior year so that we could take advantage of free college classes when she was a Senior. That meant she needed to take and pass Ohio's graduation test before being allowed at the community college. Rachael took them cold, no studying at all (because of timing) and aced each one. ("Mom! That language test was so easy, Phillip could have passed it!!!") Then, when she took the ACT, she got an extremely high score, one that allowed her to apply for a full-tuition scholarship at one of our state universities. She ended up going elsewhere, and will be graduating in December. She's in the honors program in electrical engineering and a member of the engineering honor society. My middle one, not quite as gifted as her sister, did very well on her ACT, too. Phillip? Well, he's a bit of a lazy student! We've spent TWO YEARS trying to teach him Algebra 1 (last test today!), and he still makes the same stupid mistakes, mostly because he'd rather get done quickly to play computer. Sigh....

I'm sorry, that was a tangent! Didn't mean to ! There really is only one rule in homeschooling: Do what works best for your kids. Don't do it "my" way, or the way of anyone else in here. Listen to our suggestions (because that's all they are), but feel free to disregard any that you don't think will work for you. Try something, and if it's not working, change it. Feel free to tweak any curriculum you get. We will often use the book (again, mostly science and history) as a "spine", getting a good outline from it, getting many of our facts from it, but also "fleshing it out" with books from the library. If a topic catches their attention, stick with it. If not, rush through it or skip it altogether. When we did American History, Phillip would sigh and complain, "Can't we just skip to the next war...?"

We're not as active on here as we use to be, I'm sorry to say. But there's usually someone around who can answer questions, make curriculum suggestions, etc. Hope you stick around!

 

I call my kids whatever grade fits with their age. And then I teach them at whatever level they are at. My 7 year old is in grade 2 and doing mostly grade 2 work. My just-turned-6 year-old is in Kindergarten but working on mostly grade 1 material.

 

I'm in agreement with everyone here. When I place my kids with other kids, I place them by age. At home, they don't have a "grade". Each subject it taught at the level necessary.

On a personal note, having your kids at the same level, even though they're a year apart, may or may not cause issues. It depends a whole, whole, whole lot on their personalities. I'm an identical twin, and the sibling rivalry at school was so intense when we were kids that we ended up enemies. Even now, we live a 2-day's drive apart and never speak to each other except for an hour or two at Christmas gatherings. For some kids, it would bond them more closely instead. Also, it's more likely that the older one will naturally catch onto concepts more quickly than the younger. If working on the same material all the time, the older might get bored, and/or the younger might feel overwhelmed and inferior.

My advice is to do what works for you, and if you find it's not working for your kids, change it. Subjects like science or social studies are easy to overlap grades/ages, but subjects like reading and math might need some separation. If so, teach the older one first, then get him started on independent work (handwriting, math practice problems, etc.). You can work with the younger one while the older one is busy.

 

Both of my boys started public school kindergarten at either 6 or almost 6. One boy was academically ready, but not maturity wise, and the other was so frustrated with his lack of speech and people not understanding him (he was partially deaf until 3 yrs old), that we decided to give him an extra year. So they both had an extra year to just play and he kids and extra year at preschool (both parents worked at that time). Now they are 14 and 16 and are finishing 8th and 10th grades. They have been homeschooling for 3 years are working on pretty much all the same topics because the 8th grader is advanced and the 10th grader is where he needs to be. Now with my 2 yr old, we are thinking of starting her in kindergarten at age 6 too, just to give her one more year as a kid. My kids won't start college til age 19 or almost 19, which means they will start work one year later too. Which also means that I get them for one more year too (just an added bonus). It is so nice to be able to have them in almost the same stuff. So much easier to grade assignments and they love being able to work on assignments together and quiz each other and prepare for their science or history tests together. But just because you start your kids together in kindergarten does not mean they will still be together in say 10th grade. Lots to consider, but for us, it's been a great decision.

 

My girls are 13 months apart. We did public school until 2nd and 3rd grade respectively then homeschooled for 6 years. Here is my advice-if you wouldn't hold your older son back to be in the same "class" in regular school with your younger son...why would you hold him back to homeschool at the same time? I notice that most people who redshirt are parents of boys. It just doesn't seem to come up as much with girls. I would not hold the older student back at all. I would at least start the 3 r's with him for his kindergarten year. As for sports, you age out your senior year if you are a year older. They do have a cutoff for senior sports. If you turn 19 your senior year, you are ineligible to play. That has been implemented to keep people from redshirting as much.
So for us, I would not have held my oldest back even if we would have homeschooled from the beginning. They did share content subjects over the years we homeschooled-history, science, Bible, electives...those sort of things. For math, language arts, reading, and writing, they started out at their own grade levels. Over time though, I did combine them there as well. The downside was that my oldest dominated those content subjects and was more ready for certain concepts. She was more mature and more ready for everything earlier than my other dd that was only 13 months behind her. This led to my oldest being overly cocky about her abilities and my youngest being insecure about hers. The best thing that happened to them both was when we went to k12 and they were both in grade level for all subjects. My oldest realized she wasn't the best at everything and my younger dd realized that she really could excel.
They are both going to be back in school next year. My oldest went this year to enjoy extracurriculars that weren't available in the homeschool community. You never know what the future may bring. I had no intention of mine going back to school until my oldest became a pretty good soccer player. My younger dd will do marching band. I am glad that 2 years ago we went with k12 and they were placed in their appropriate grade levels again. It helped my oldest rise to the challenge as she had started feeling that anything she did was going to be great and she didn't put in a lot of effort. It helped my youngest see that she could stand on her own and do a great job.
My first question to those asking these type of questions is always just because we can do things differently homeschooling...should we? And if you were in regular school, would you even be contemplating putting them in the same grade level essentially?

 

You ask a very good question: Just because we can do things differently, should we?

I'd say wholeheartedly YES. We have the opportunity to look at the individual needs of our children and meet those needs in a way that CANNOT be done in a classroom. You rightly say that we shouldn't hold back the older sibling just so he can be with the younger one, but we also shouldn't hold back a younger student if he is capable of working at a higher level. Subjects like history, science, geography, and Bible can very easily be done across grades, making adjustments as needed. Other subjects such as reading, language, and math might need to be done on a more individual basis.

My oldest two (dds) were 23 months apart. Then my youngest (ds) was 2.5 and 5.5 years younger than his sister. Even so, they did science and history together. Phillip was a preschooler and would sit and listen to his older sisters' science and history lessons. He might be coloring or playing with LEGOS while I read, but he DID listen. He picked up a good deal!

Even with my girls. When Rachael was four, her friend's mother was worried that her daughter wasn't "ready" for Kindergarten. She her daughter came over one morning a week, and I would do letter activities. Faythe was only two at the time, but I would always have a papers for her to do, just like the older girls' papers. And whatever the older ones did, Faythe wanted to do. If all she did was scribble all over the page, that was fine. But eventually she figured out that the older girls weren't coloring the WHOLE page (it was "Color the pictures that start with B" kind of thing), and she would pay attention to what they did, and would only scribble on the "correct" answers.

The biggest advantage of homeschooling is that we can do what works best for our own kids. What "I" did was best for us; it may not be for you. But that's OK! And if a school approach works for you (and I can whole-heartedly tell you it WON'T for me!!!), GREAT!!! But it is OUR CHOICE, which is the one thing that sets us apart from the "school" model.

 

In some other countries, kids don't start school til age 7

 

I agree with Jackie wholeheartedly!!! I only have one child so I cannot say what is best when homeschooling two children close in age...but I do know that when I started my son in kindergarten I put way too much pressure on myself. I worried that my son would not learn everything he needed to that year and then it would all snowball to the point that he would suffer the rest of his school years to come....talk about pressure. I have learned that I put too much pressure on myself and that had a negative effect on my child. He felt my anxiety and in turn he was anxious about school. It is still a struggle to reel myself in and tell myself that school is important, but so is my child having fun while learning. And it is my job to instill that fun....so he will want to continue to learn new and exciting things. THAT is why homeschooling him is right for our family....I can teach him the basics....but focus on the fun exciting subjects he likes....which happens to be science and math. My ds is now an excellent student and excels in most subjects. SO my advice is to take a breath....relax and know that your son will learn when the time is right. At his age, he may not be ready....and THAT IS OK....he may be ready next year to learn a little more...soon he will be learning and you will be amazed how quickly their little brains can learn. It is so rewarding to teach our children and be able to do what is right for them....not what is right for a "public schools" agenda. Keep up the good work and you will see the results and realize you did the right thing!!!